“Miz. Jack,” it’s Suzy, “Miz. Jack, Oh Miz. Jack, you there? Miz. Jack, I don’t want Mr. Russ’ foxhounds biting me. They tied up?” “It’s OK Suzy, they’re tied,” Mama yelled. Mama’s nickname was Jack, but that’s a another story. Someone yelling outside our house on a weekend morning happened occasionally, but I usually went right back to sleep. People were concerned about Daddy’s foxhounds, and rightfully so, but the hounds were so many pets to me.
We lived about 1/4 mile from a two-acre stock pond (known as The Big Pool), and people frequently fished for Bass, Catfish, White Perch, and Blue Gills. There were two simple ways to get to The Big Pool: drive to the backside and park next to the levee or if you didn’t have an automobile, and Suzy probably didn’t then, you walked to the Fodge’s house and then across the pasture to The Big Pool. Even had Suzy owned an automobile she would have probably come by our house anyway as she and my parents were friends.
With all the commotion, though I had been asleep, my eyes popped open. In spite of the clamor of the foxhounds barking at someone invading their turf, I had heard a familiar voice and knew who was calling to Mama. I also knew that a fun time was ahead for me if I got a move on. I jumped out of bed and hit the floor in a dead run because I wanted to go fishing, and Suzy always asked Mama if it was OK for me to go. I charged into the kitchen to wolf down a bowl of oatmeal because I knew that Suzy wasn’t one to tarry very long for anyone when fishing needed to be done. Like most bodies of water in Texas, The Big Pool had large numbers of water snakes, poisonous cottonmouth moccasins and a few copperheads lurking in the brush on the banks. The snakes plus the fact that I was still too young to go to The Big Pool on my own, meant that was I eager for any opportunity to go there and fish. Mama knew I would be safe under Suzy’s wing.
The hounds were rarely a problem and Suzy knew this, but she didn’t leave matters to chance, whether it was catching fish or dealing with a dog that might bite her. She outfoxed both animals and man, as far as I was concerned. Daddy had known Suzy since his youth, and she had given him some instructions in correct fishing techniques some 40 years earlier. He recalled that Suzy already was grown woman by then, and I guessed that Suzy was beyond 60 when I was her student. Suzy lived a lot of years after I left for college so she may have been well into her 80s before her death. After her death, I imagined that bass within walking distance of her home breathed a collective sigh of relief and thanked their fish god for sparing their lives during Suzy’s time on the planet. Suzy was to fishing as our father was to hunting, the ultimate, deadly serious, fishing machine that happened to be wrapped in human skin.
Suzy came equipped to fish. From the black rubber boots that came up to her knees, her razor-sharp butcher knife, the pliers for skinning catfish, a pistol for killing snakes (a big Wyatt Earp affair without a long barrel but armed with big bullets in the chamber), 4 or 5 cane fishing poles, a bucket of freshly caught minnows and occasionally a little folding chair to sit on. She was literally armed for anything. Suzy also wore unusual attire for fishing, including heavy work pants that were stuffed into the tops of the rubber boots, and a long dress over this. She almost always wore a jeans jumper as well. The crowning effect of her ensemble was a man’s hat perched on top of her pigtailed hair. She was quite a sight to see, but to this little boy she was akin to a Saint stepping out of the woods and inviting me to Heaven. I got to sit at the feet of the Master and learn some things that were pretty important to know about, at least at my ripe old age of 5 or 6!
Suzy sometimes carried a 22-gauge, single-shot rifle – her squirrel and rabbit gun, but none of this concerned us, and Mama often took advantage of Suzy’s armaments. We had a flock of about 100 guineas roaming our fields, and when we had overnight guests one weekend, Mama wanted to fry a young rooster for lunch, but none of the men who could handle a rifle were at home to shoot the darn thing. A guinea could run like a Roadrunner and fly like a Mallard duck so catching one was impossible. Mama waited patiently until midmorning for Suzy to finish fishing, and when she came by the house, Mama asked Suzy to shoot a Guinea rooster. Her specific instructions were to be sure to head-shoot him so as not to ruin the edible meat. Suzy pulled her big pistol out of her dress pocket and promptly shot the desired fowl, in the head no less. I don’t think the visiting lady had seen anything quite like this before, nor afterwards.
Suzy was on a seafood diet (see food and eat it), but since she walked almost daily to her preferred fishing sites she had plenty of stamina and strength to go anywhere she pleased. Nonetheless she wasn’t going to be without food for long, and she usually had a stash of summer sausage and rattrap cheese in the folds of her garb. Suzy needed a lot of pocket space to carry the tools of her trade, and since this was before people purchased a backpack with umpteen Velcro pockets in it, the dress and jumper were almost essential. Both had multiple pockets and all of them were bulging to overflow. The overall effect of carrying all this gear was that with each step she took, the extra weight in her pockets shifted and almost pulled her over. It was a marvel that she didn’t fall with each step, but lo-and-behold she never fell, at least in my presence, but when she walked she didn’t glide gracefully along like either of my parents.
This particular morning I managed to swallow my oatmeal in a few bites, and sure enough Suzy asked Mama if I could go along to help her, and just like clockwork, Mama said it would be fine. My feet probably didn’t touch the ground for the first 50 yards, but soon I was given my first assignment by Suzy – catch a bunch of little grasshoppers while we walked along through the pasture. My main responsibility on these fishing trips was to catch all the young fish around her fishing site. She didn’t want them around to distract the big fish since her plan was for them to focus on her baited hooks. This was a fine responsibility as far as I was concerned, and I got lots of praise for doing a good job. Often as not I got to sample the summer sausage and rattrap cheese after I caught several small fish. Her rattrap cheese always tasted a lot better than any we had at home, but of course it was purchased from the same store. A time or two during the morning I had to run to the house to fill Suzy’s water bottle, but there was a well-worn cow path between The Big Pool and our house so I didn’t worry about snakes and other miseries, such as sand burrs. Now how could a fellow go wrong with that kind of a deal!
My fishing gear was a little cane pole, with a short, lightweight line that ended in a tiny hook. I baited the hook with a grasshopper and swung the thing out on the water. Sure enough, the grasshopper started wiggling and flopping about, and a little perch snatched it right away. I became adept at catching these litter buggers, and as quickly as I could yank them out of the water, unhook the fish, rebait and throw the ensemble back in the water, I would catch another fish. I’m sure the snakes in the brush licked their chops at the prospect of having fish for lunch, but the real treat was to watch Suzy fish.
I didn’t have a notepad and pencil, and they wouldn’t have been any help anyway since I couldn’t write at that time, but I had big eyes and ears and asked lots of questions. I absorbed all the details. Suzy fished with cane poles, but they were 3-times longer than mine and had a line on them that was at least 3 feet longer than the pole. She always attached a float to the line to keep the bait suspended above the muddy bottom. She fished with a high-quality Eagle-Claw hook, and she pierced the tail of a minnow (shiner) just behind the dorsal fin with the hook. She explained repeatedly that you had to hook the minnow so it could slowly swim about and attract the attention of the big fish.
This was similar to how Daddy fished, but Suzy had some other unique procedures that were the clinchers as far as I was concerned. Among the additional things that she did to ensure success, Suzy would spit tobacco juice on the minnow just before pitching the baited hook into the water. When I asked what this was supposed to do, she told me that the tobacco juice made the big bass want to gobble up the minnow. She always caught the biggest fish of anyone who fished in The Big Pool, so the proof was in the pudding, but of course I wasn’t nearly so scientific or analytical in those days! Often by the time she started fishing I had caught and hauled about a dozen small fish out of her fishing site, and if she saw any snakes swimming nearby she had either killed them with her pistol or scared them half to death, and they left. After everything settled for a few minutes and she started fishing, we talked in a whisper to avoid disturbing the bass, and she wanted us to stand back from the water’s edge or behind a small bush or tree so the fish couldn’t see us. I have since learned that unfamiliar shapes, movements and noises on shore will spook carnivorous fish. There was also another major, somewhat unrelated, reason I didn’t question Suzy’s way of fishing. Suzy was a bonafide fortuneteller, and many local people believed that she practiced a West African form of voodooism, but to this day I don’t know if she did or did not practice voodoo.
My family had benefited directly from Suzy’s fortune telling skills so I didn’t doubt that these skills were directly related to her success in fishing. Just to illustrate her impact, near the end of WWII Mama had accompanied Grandpa Vickers to see Suzy because Grandpa hadn’t received a letter from my Uncle Bill in several months. Since he was in the Pacific Theater, Grandpa was worried, and he needed some reassurance that his son was OK. They posed these concerns to Suzy, and she told Grandpa’s fortune as they sat at her kitchen table. She would tell fortunes either with a deck of playing cards or by throwing a handful of small bones, and I do not know which she used that day. Suzy told them that Bill had been wounded as his battleship had been attacked, but that he was recovering in a military hospital. She reassured Grandpa that he would soon receive a letter from Bill and that they should go home and not worry anymore. About a month later Grandpa received a letter from Uncle Bill. Indeed he had been wounded in some kind of battle, but he was now safe and sound and would soon be home. Her technique might not rank high on sophistication compared to modern medical practice, but the positive impact of Suzy’s pronouncement on Grandpa and our family was just as dramatic, and it cost next to nothing! Mama never doubted Suzy’s fortune telling skill, and never questioned her motives even when others suggested that Suzy practiced voodoo and should not be trusted. And me, I wasn’t about to start a new trend, especially when it came to questioning her authority on how to catch a bass. She always caught fish, and no one ever caught more at The Big Pool. Unfortunately, I was never able to duplicate Suzy’s success in bass fishing, and I always blamed this on the fact that I couldn’t chew tobacco without getting sick. Consequently, I didn’t have any means to enhance a minnow’s charm. Darn it!
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