Sort-of Like Fishin' …

Tiny-tackle record!  This is the
smallest bass I've ever caught.

     Howdy, y’all … this is the first post to my brand-spankin’ new Blogger site!  I hope everyone will click-around to figure-out who I am and why I’m bloggin’.  I’ve set this site up as a repository to post my pictures, pointers, pokes and personal accounts of slough-stalkin’ over the past few years … kinda-like scrap-bookin' for rednecks!

     So speakin’ of personal accounts, I’m an avid angler and I could tell y’all countless tales of the big one that got away! I’ve been fishin’ since I was six years-old, and I’m now in my early fifties.  I’ll fish any chance I can get; and sometimes, no matter what the conditions may be.  Hell, I even fished on our honeymoon.  Seriously … just ask my wife!  Oops, wait a minute; maybe I shouldn’t have told that one.  As I recollect usin’ my keenly-honed power of selective-memory … I have never forgotten nor have I ever been able to live-down that particular incident.  I’ll have to admit that I married way out-of my league.  However, I can distinctly recall my sweet young bride gettin’ angry enough to make a freight train take a dirt road over that episode!  But since I still got all my parts … I’ll just pass on re-hashin’ the grisly details.
 

     As y’all have probably gathered … I’m a bona fide fishaholic.  I’ve fished throughout Louisiana, Texas and Arkansas for everything from lunker-largemouth to trophy trout, and I’ve done more than my fair-share of wranglin’ redfish outta some of them coastal marshes as well.  No matter what the southern species, I’ve probably done-hooked-it at least one time or another.  Don’t ask me to list ‘em all … ‘cause my wife can tell y’all that I’ve posed for more pictures holdin’ fish than I have with my own family!  While that may be a sad fact, I’m pretty-dang sure it’s just a “Y chromosome thang”.   But not all of my fishin’ trips have glory-stories associated with ‘em; aside from gettin’ skunked (admit it, y’all … we all have come-up zero from time to time) there’s always the big one that got away.  Fact of life, y’all … you cain’t catch ‘em all, but you can keep on tryin’.  Hmmm, that particular fact reminds me of one of my single-buddies, and I ain’t talkin’ ‘bout his fish!  That boy had better slow down some, or he might wind-up catchin’ somethin’ that he cain’t get rid of …
 

     Back to the subject at hand, I was on a fishin’ trip with my son in June of ‘09 on Caddo Lake out of Uncertain, Texas when the biggest one of all got away.  On the third mornin’ of our trip, we caught some bass, saw some deer … and then we had an experience with somethin’ that was quite unexpected.  We briefly heard and saw what may have been an undocumented species of animal; possibly, the one that some folks are callin’ the Texas Bigfoot, the Caddo Critter … or currently, the North American Wood Ape.  It pretty-much well freaked us out; but at the same time, it was really cool!  So over the past four years since this incident happened, I have become abso-friggin’-lutely obsessed with findin’ out exactly what it was that he and I had come across.

     If y’all haven’t had an encounter with such a critter, I can tell you that it’s sort-of like fishin’.  For example, let’s say that you hook into a trophy-sized fish and you get a fleetin’ glimpse of it as it starts to run; but suddenly, the line goes slack ‘cause it’s done-throwed your dang lure … and then it’s gone!  Your adrenalin is up, and your heart feels like it’s about to pound right outta your chest (kind of like when my new bride caught me fishin’ on our honeymoon).  You now know it’s out there, and now all you can think about is how to catch it again.  You ain’t got any pictures to back-up your story, but you know it was out there.  You actually have a witness, but nobody believes either of ya … ‘cause y’all know how us anglers tend to exaggerate the details sometimes, right?  But when your own family and your fishin’ & huntin’ buds start laughin’ at you, it’s friggin’ on!  It was time to put-up or shut-up, so I was goin’ to hafta get me some proof …

     I was now the one who was hooked; but this time, it was ‘cause of somethin’ totally new and different.  I’m thinkin’ … what the Hell was that?  I wanna see that again … only this time, I wanna see it up close & personal.  Y’all know what I mean?  I was kinda like that kid who just saw his girlfriend naked for the first time.  Okay; maybe I should’ve used another analogy, but I was just tryin’ to drive the point home.  Oops, maybe that was a bad idiom as well; c’mon, chuckle-chuckle y’all … have some dang fun with this!  But seriously, I got to them crossroads where I had to ask myself, so … what am I goin’ to do now?  Am I goin’ to be that guy that folks joke about who claims he saw a Bigfoot?  Aw, Hell no!  So I did what any true angler would do … I got right back out there and started to fish.
 

     I figured that lookin’ for this critter would just be sort-of like fishin’; so to catch it … I just had to try and “match the hatch”.  For any of y’all out there who don’t fish, matchin’ the hatch means figurin’ out what kind of bait the fish want durin’ specific times, weather conditions or seasons.  But in this surreal scenario, that was much easier said than done.  I had to wonder, why was that critter out there?  What was it doin’?  It just didn’t happen to wander out there for no reason.  Out of the whole Caddo Wildlife Management Area, why was it in that particular spot at that particular time?
 

     Answerin’ my own questions … I had to assume that it was for the same reason any critter comes around; it must’ve been lookin’ for some food.  After thinkin’ about it, I’m pretty-dang sure that it was stalkin’ those deer that we saw out there that mornin’.  So, sort-of like fishin’ I asked myself, if I wanted to replicate this sightin’ … what were the conditions?  Well, let’s see … it was early summer, early mornin’ durin’ a full-moon phase, with higher than normal water-levels in a flooded forest with an overabundance of deer.  And I supposed that the reason there were so many deer in that one area was ’cause the floodwaters had forced ‘em onto higher ground.  And that higher ground, as it turns out … was this patch of swampy-woods just off of Big Cypress Bayou where we happened to be fishin’ that mornin’!

     Next, I figured that I needed to learn as much as possible about this animal.  But where in the Hell are you ‘sposed to get information on somethin’ that ain’t even a documented species?  First, I done a bunch-of dang readin’ … and come to find out, there’s lots of stuff out there about this mystery critter.  I found plenty of books, documentaries, news articles and Web sites galore on this subject!  But keep in mind … y’all gotta have a little backwoods-savvy to figure-out what portion of this information was legit, what was rehash and what was just plain-old tabloid-trash.  There are some really cool sites out there with interactive sightin’ maps, incident reports and articles written by people just like me (‘cept probably not typed in redneck-eze).  Most of the material is free, and it’s posted to both educate and help folks figure-out what this critter is.  I sincerely appreciate the time and effort that some of these folks have put into their research, articles, Web sites and posts.  Without these folks grindin’-it-out over the past half-a-century or so, most of us would be clueless as to who William Roe was, or to the significance of early field research from Peter Byrne, René Dahinden, or John Green, networkin’ by George Haas and Jim McClarin, or what a mid-tarsal break is, dermal ridges, etc.

     But sort-of like fishin’ … you gotta cull through the trash-fish & bottom-feeders to get to the table-fare.  I’ve found that some sites out on that-there internet post some pretty ridiculous and malicious stuff.  Hey … I know that y’all know what I’m talkin’ about; the ones with the inaccurate reportin’, the plagiarizin’, pot-lickin’, conspiracy theories, blatant hoaxes, drama, infightin’, “anon” comments and haters bashin’ everybody.  It’s a shame that folks cain’t get along & play nice … but some of them dang sites thrive on postin’ stuff that don’t even pertain to the actual subject at hand!  These are the sorts of sites that make this subject taboo for anyone with even the slightest-bit of common sense.  No wonder why some of the folks who believe that this critter exists get labeled as bein’ bat-sh¡t crazy or part of the lunatic-fringe.

     Just recently while surfin’ “newsworthy” headlines, somethin’ caught my attention.  One of them sites posted “actual footage” of somethin’ walkin’ ‘round out at Caddo Lake.  Really?  Now just hold on … don’t y’all get excited!  In this particular site’s defense, they actually stated up-front that this video was an obvious hoax.  I watched it, and you’d have to be nuttier than a squirrel turd to think that what was filmed was a genuine animal.  But considerin’ this particular site, who would’ve thunk it?  So the real question is … why even waste the time to post it?  It’s kinda like a cottonmouth layin’ out on the bank of a pond sunnin’ itself … just don’t mess with it, y’all; just let it be!  Postin’ this kind of bullsh¡t will eventually get you bit, and it just breeds more of them hoaxers and their dang hoaxes.  I guess we’re all guilty of surfin’ some of them sites on that-there internet.  But for me, I either hafta be real-dang bored or flat-out frustrated that I cain’t actually be out in them woods, spendin’ my time tryin’ to figure-out exactly what this critter really is.
 

     So, sort-of like fishin’ … I found out that there’s a learnin’ curve tryin’ to do my own amateur field research.  A couple of years back, I eventually got to the point that I can remember askin’ some folks in the “Bigfoot community” for some advice.  Let’s just say I had asked this particular group or that certain individual about the solidity of my methods (or, lack thereof) while out in the field.  In both instances, I never really got a response.  But what I actually did learn, sad to say, was that there seems to be a lot of competition, secrecy and folks who have their own agenda in the world of “Bigfootery”.  Kind-of like gettin’ skunked fishin’ on a new lake, I come-up zero!  The majority of the locals or seasoned pros don’t want you to know what they’re bitin’ on.  Everybody’s out there tryin’ to catch the big one, but the reality is that in this kind of tournament, the stakes are extremely high.  God forbid somebody might actually learn somethin’ from sharin’ with one another.  The reason that I correspond and share stuff with folks is ‘cause I wanna learn more! So why be so secretive or private?  After all, it ain’t like these critters are restricted to private property; they’re out there on public land and in our state and national parks.  Needless to say, I didn’t ever get that advice or help I was lookin’ for.  Maybe ‘cause I wasn’t a member of some special group or society, or maybe someone was afraid I was just pot-lickin’ ...

     Sort-of like fishin’ … nobody likes a pot-licker.  Y’all know what a pot-licker is?  Well … let me try to explain it.  Let’s say you’re out drift-fishin’ out in the middle of the bay and you find a school of speckled-trout and just start tearin’ ‘em up!  But then a passin’ boat sees your bent rods or your buddy nettin’ a fish; so instead of fallin’-in behind your drift to take his turn, he cuts you off and scatters the school!  Not very productive, is it?  Sort-of like fishin’ … there’s plenty of fish and lots of water to cover out there.  Just like in field research, there’s plenty of ground to cover out in them woods.  So I could see that if someone’s been researchin’ a specific area, they might be leary of givin’ up some intel.  But it’s not like I was askin’ for them about their specific research area or for GPS coordinates; I was only askin’ for some advice!
 

     Some folks may feel the need to join one of them organizations ‘cause they perceive that there’s power in numbers, or it might make them “official”.  I’m not condemnin’ that; but y’all be careful ‘cause there are some hucksters out there that are just tryin’ to cash-in or make a quick buck.  Did y’all know that there are some groups that’ll actually charge folks to go out and look through them woods for this critter?  Hmmm … I’d recon that’d be like me payin’ a fishin’ guide to take me to fish one of my own-dang honey-holes on some public lake.  Really?  Well, I guess that might be sort-of like fishin’ … but I’m pretty-dang confident that I’ve been better-off out there on my own.  Y’all know what I mean?  Like doin’ my time in the grime tryin’ to figure-it-out for myself?  Sorry, y’all; I done got myself all worked-up and off the subject.  My ADD compounded by my little-man syndrome kicks-in every once in a while, and I get off track.  Maybe I’d better focus on havin’ me a cold one and calm down a bit … life’s too short (pun intended) to sweat the small stuff.

     Over the past four years, I’ve done a bunch-more fishin’ out there, but I still ain’t been able to “match the hatch”.  Between 2009 and 2010, the area around Caddo Lake experienced some of the worst flood conditions on record.  And in contrast, from 2011 through 2012 that area (like most of Texas) experienced a severe drought.  Matter of fact, it got so dry out there … I had to pick the ticks off the bass before I put ‘em in my livewell!  So sort-of like fishin’ … I’ve learned to have me some patience.  Through diligence and the pursuit of findin’ out what’s really lurkin’ ‘round out there in them woods, I ended-up settin’-out some of them infra-red trail-cams.  But sort-of like fishin’ … I’ve been skunked; so far I done come-up zero as to catchin’ one of them critters on film.  But I’ve learned quite a bit through trial & error, and now that the conditions are gettin’ back to normal, maybe I’ll get lucky sometime soon.  If I do, I’ll make sure y’all can see it right here … no drama, no hoaxes and no bullsh¡t!

     I hope y’all have enjoyed this first blog entry.  If y’all struggled tryin’ to read my redneck-eze, I offer no apologies … just get over it!  This blog is my escape from corporate America and havin’ to constantly be grammatically-correct.  I also tried to write this usin’ a little bit of humor; however, I’m pretty dang-sure I’ve probably touched a nerve or two.  I tend to have that effect on folks; just ask my wife!  If y’all are interested … I’ll be postin’ more stuff about slough-stalkin’ and doin’ my time in the grime.  I’ll be sure to include a bunch of the photos I’ve taken out there in them woods, and I’ll be more than happy to share with y’all any of the stuff that I’ve learned along the way.  So, sort-of like fishin’… maybe I can teach y’all a thang or two; or maybe … some-of y’all can even school me!  In the meantime, y’all take care …