By Allen Hamrick
Hey, its Lew back on the pen after Zeb took his turn with the ink the last time. Winter’s got us in a grip tighter than a gator’s jaws and bitin’ down twice as hard, lingerin’ around like the smell of a rotten tater. I decided to warm yer oven a little bit with a fishin’ story that will melt some of the snow on yer tackle box. An’ this just ain’t yer run of the mill big fish tale; it’s about a fishin’ hole in a section of the river that is so secluded that there ain’t been nobody pass over those waters since the old days when Native folk roamed the lands. Old folks that set on the Tales and Spins bench at Pap’s Barber Shop say that what floats in don’t float back. I’m talkin’ ‘bout a place called Buzzard’s Pass, a twisted bunch of curves in the river that looks more like yer floatin’ into the devil’s den itself. At the entrance, trees are mangled together from years of high water, forming a dam of sorts. Now the only entry is a small dark hole in the trees with just enough room to get a boat through. The water is so swift it creates a vacuum that sucks in anything that happens to float or fly by faster than a bull frog does a fly. It’s considered untamed class 20 rapids, and no one dares try it. The waters are fiercely undisciplined and in their natural habitat as cold blooded killers.
There are sinister looking clouds that loom over the area like Grandpaw does over the last piece of chicken left in the bowl at Sunday dinner. There is a foul smell that will curl yer nose if you get too close; kind of reminds you of someone who ate too many deviled eggs at the church social. Everybody that fishes the river ascends Jeeker’s Ridge through Granny Izzle’s swamp and bypasses Buzzard’s Pass. In about a mile and a half of fallin’, walkin’ and crawlin’, you will come to the other side of Buzzard’s Pass if the steep cliffs of Jeeker’s Ridge or Granny Izzle don’t lay claim to a part of your hide afore you get there. Granny Izzle knows that’s the only way through so she keeps one of her eyes peeled toward the swamp. Atop Jeeker’s Ridge you can see the dark clouds that loom over the Pass like a week-long flu, with what looks like a thousand buzzards circling over it. To say it’s a bad place is an understatement.
Back on the bench, the old folks tell that some of the old pioneers back in the Daniel Boone days went through the pass and said the trees were so full of buzzards and were waiting on them to fall in the water and that they could hear their wings warming up for flight. The ones that made it through the gauntlet to the other side said there were catfish so big that their whiskers were the size of a 90 penny nail and had even started growing legs like a human and walking the shore lines. Of course, we didn’t believe it because even a walking fish wouldn’t stand a chance against those buzzards. That story was scary enough to singe the hair in a person’s ears as it went through to the brain, but when they talk catfish its music to our ears. Our backbones are just yellow enough to let us know when we are outmatched. However, the thoughts of catfish frying over an open flame smothered in butter and garlic is just too much for a couple of old mountain goats to forgit about. Rumor has it that Maude or Lolie would pay a handsome price for a chance to fry up some catfish legs at the diner or grill. That was enough of a kick in the coveralls for us. We decided to break out the Ark III, our homemade bass boat, from its winter sleep and outfit it with extra protection from the buzzards. Our new gear consisted of two 5 gallon buckets of chum, nylon rope, two ball bats, a shotgun and a sheet of ply wood. Plus, we reinforced our fishin’ rods with Gator tape and strung our reels with paracord for those big fish. We only loaded the biggest lures we had. There was just one thing missin’, and that was somebody we could take with us to get us out alive. There was only one person we knew from our neck of the woods and that was… Buck Tater.
Buck Tater is one of those guys that could intimidate a chargin’ rhino. He is a big man with broad shoulders and taller than the draft horse at last year’s festival. He is bald as a cucumber cept’ for a few hairs that he lets grow which looks more like the hairs on a razorback hog. His forehead keeps a roof over his eyes so much that all the sun can do is cast a shadow in his eye sockets. He walks with a limp from a war injury, but everyone is afraid to ask him what happened. The story we get is there were four tanks stuck in the sand as they hit one of the beaches and was takin’ heavy fire from the ridge. Buck Tater tied a rope to the tanks and got to an empty bunker but throwed his hip out pulling them out to better ground. When the enemy saw this act of strength, they figured that all Americans were just like Buck, and they surrendered without firing another shot. He now he spends his time huntin’ an eatin’. He don’t hunt with guns or a knife, he just stares ‘em down and takes ‘em out with his bare hands. Bears to wild pigs don’t stand a chance in a stare down with Buck.
We caught up with him at Maude’s Diner and asked him if he would like to go on a hunt for two legged catfish. Once he stopped laughing, we told him we were going into Buzzard’s Pass. We also told him that Maude would feed him for a year if she could just latch onto one of those catfish legs. That was enough to make him think twice, so we planned the trip for the next Saturday.
TO BE CONTINUED NEXT WEEK
