When I was a boy my Daddy taught me to fly fish. Fly fishing is the only kind of fishing that ever got inside of me. My Dad could drop a fly right under the outermost leaf of a bush overhanging a bream or shellcracker bed, and he taught me how to do the same. We didn't have a fancy boat, or even a boat motor. We used short paddles, and Dad taught me how to use one of those, too, in a way to put the boat right where you wanted it, or to move it ever so slowly along the shore line, until you hit that spot where the fish were hitting the flies. Our favorite flies were handmade by Mr. Dudley, the shoe repair man in Reform, and they were called Dudley Bugs. Man, those things could catch fish! They were better than any ol' manufactured fly. I don't know, but I guess Mr. Dudley came up with his locally famous bug by trial and error, but he had a minor cottage industry going, selling those flies. 

We fished mostly in McShan Lake, just down the road from our house - and then, when we moved to Mom and Dad's new house, just down the hill! It was then a great lake for bream and shellcrackers, but sometimes, just for a change of pace, we would go down to Kilpatrick's Lake, down at Carrollton. Unlike McShan Lake, which was over a hundred acres of open water, most of it over your head, Kilpatrick's was small, very shallow, and filled with tiny willow-covered islands. The rental boats at Kilpatrick's were only ten feet long, and hand made of wood, the cracks sealed with tar.They were pretty heavy for their size, as you might imagine.

My Dad had a black man named Jesse working for him as the grease monkey (now known as a lubrication technician) at Reform Motor Company, and Jesse was a powerful man, strong as an ox, with muscles that rippled under his shirt. Well, Dad taught Jesse to paddle a boat, and I wish you could have seen how precise Jesse was with each stroke of the paddle! It was strangely reminiscent of ballet! One day Dad, Jesse and I went to Kilpatrick's Lake, and all three of us got in one of those tiny, narrow ten foot wooden boats, Dad in the bow, Jesse, huge, in the middle, and me in the stern. Jesse was doing the paddling, responding to every little instruction from Dad. 

To be on Kilpatrick's was like being in a time warp. The atmosphere of it was almost primeval, and beautiful beyond words. You might half expect to see a dinosaur on the far shore, eating leaves out of a tall tree. There were no signs of civilization to be seen anywhere nearby, and it was an exquisite and unique experience, to say the least.

Kilpatrick's Lake was known for its shellcrackers, and that day proved why. Dad latched on to one of those mighty fish, maybe a pound in size, or maybe a tad more, and we were off to the races!

Now pound for pound a shellcracker is the fightenest fish in the world - at least as far as an old Southern country boy is concerned. If a shellcracker was as big as a good-sized bass, it would pull you out of the boat and pull you under and drown you! Like Moby Dick, it might even sink your boat! If you think I'm kiddin', get one on a fly line and you'll become a believer.

Well, this one - the one Dad had on the business end of his fly line - wasn't about to give up without a fight. First off, Dad couldn't reel him in. But second of all, that shellcracker was pulling our boat around Kilpatrick's Lake like a trolling motor, around islands, to the left and to the right. And you have to realize that there was at least 420 pounds of humanity in that boat, being pulled around by a fish little, if any, over a pound!

Well, after a good run that shellcracker tired out and Daddy was finally able to reel him in and get him in the boat. That proud, mighty little fish ended up frying in the skillet, along with all the others in that day's catch. But his heroics on that long ago day I will never forget! He was the stuff of legend, but I'm here to testify that he was real - as real as the boat ride he gave us that day! It was one of those special days that imprint in our memories with the clarity of only yesterday, and a day I will treasure always. For me, that shellcracker remains immortal, like Pecos Bill or Paul Bunion - larger than life!

Copyright May 25th, 2008, by Tom Woodard

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