Lake Claiborne Fire Drill

One cold winter’s morning on a clear water reservoir in the piney woods of rural North Louisiana, Dad, Paw J, and I had caught a “mess” (a bunch) of white perch (North Louisiana speak for crappie). In the deep water near Lake Claiborne dam, bouncing jigs near the bottom, I remember my fingers stinging with cold when I had to take my gloves off. I must’ve been five or six years old. What happened at the end of the day is one of those things that stays with you forever. 

Paw J was a tinkerer, you see? Some of his inventions were ingenious, but most weren’t, such as the cage/trap-looking thing I’d noticed earlier in the boat. About one foot in diameter and a couple of feet long, it came to a point at the end and had a trap door - a cage. But for what? 

I remembered Ronnie asking Paw J about it, to which he mumbled something and changed the subject - another one of Paw J’s contraptions…, always MacGyvering something. 

Looking back, I’m pretty sure ole’ Paw J was classic ADHD, which explains much of his “eccentric” behavior, like when he dropped Ronnie and me off at the dock; instead of tying up and getting out, he shoved off without saying a word. Dad started hollering, “Hey! Where the hell are you going!” Off Paw J went, that cylindrical cage-looking thing riding shotgun.

He stopped in the middle of the lake, got up, and started fiddling around, up and down, transferring this to that, tying stuff, hooking things up. Too far to see details, but whatever it was had given my dad what we call a case of the “red a**.” At a steady pace, back and forth on the dock, cussing, “WTF is he doing? Is he putting all those white perch in…” Dad stopped in mid-sentence when Paw J threw the cage out of the boat, sat down, started the boat, and took off. 

Ronnie had figured it out. In disbelief, he said, “He’s trying to knock the scales off the fish…” Paw J’s latest idea was to “scale” the fish without having to “scale” them. Why would one go to such lengths for such a thing? I’ve asked myself that same question. My only explanation is that a popular way of cooking white perch in Louisiana is to deep fry them whole, requiring the scaling process.

There they were, out there skipping and bouncing on the black water of Lake Claiborne like a flailing barefoot water skier.

Paw J came back to the dock slower and less chipper than he’d left, ostensibly dreading what he was about to have to say. I imagine as he approached, he saw his son’s mouth moving and knew he was being cussed. The cage was inside the boat, but as he got closer, we saw no fish.

Reaching the dock, in his “easy like Sunday morning” delivery, he said, “Ronnie, I reckon I might’ve lost them fish…” The latch on the cage door had come undone, allowing all the fish out. I don’t remember how many – a “mess,” like I said.

Amidst Ronnie’s rant, one thing stood out. Red in the face, waving his hands, “GOING OFF WITH YOU IS LIKE BEING ON A CHINESE FIRE DRILL!”

All these years later, I wonder what happened to those fish. Crappie are a hardy species. Can fish live without scales? Hmm… I guess that depends on how well Paw J’s contraption worked. Probably not too well, or someone would have patented the idea by now. Maybe a better explanation is the lack of demand. Only a full-blooded Redneck, a purebred, could have the motivation and wherewithal to design and build a mass fish scaling device. Let’s face it: we’re hardly a demographic large enough to market to.

Author’s note: I originally called this story “Marathon Fire Drill,” chronicling my latest lobster diving excursion. What you read was the beginning. However, like my texts, as most of my friends will attest, it went longer than I anticipated, becoming a story in itself. 

Stay tuned for a tale of high hopes in the Keys gone wrong, as they often do along my quests. And such as life being me, Jed.

Jon Edward Edwards is a local author and avid sportsman.