Bear Grease - Ep. 111: THIS COUNTRY LIFE - Catching Catfish with Trotlines

Episode Date: May 19, 2023

This week, Brent gives you the low down on setting trotlines for catfish. As traditional as it is effective, trotline fishing has been around forever because it works! Setting one up is something you can do yourself, and Brent's here to walk you through it. He'll also share a cautionary tale about packing for an expedition, and a sad solution to forgotten taters. As Clay Newcomb might say, you ain't gonna wanna miss this one!  Connect with Brent and MeatEater MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube Shop Bear Grease MerchSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Welcome to This Country Life. I'm your host Brent Reeves. From Coon Hunting to Trotlining and just general country living, I want you to stay a while as I share my stories and country skills that will help you beat the system. This Country Life is proudly presented as part of Meat Eaters Podcast Network, bringing you the best outdoor podcast the Airways have to offer. All right, friends, pull you up a chair or drop that tailgate. I think I've got a thing or two to teach you.

Catching catfish with trot lines. You're in for a treat today. We're talking about catching catfish with trot lines. We're going to talk about what a trot line is, how to make one, what to use for bait, and where to fish them. Now, if you'll just tie knot and hang on with me till the end, I'll share the Reuse family recipe

for frying up a mess of filets that'll knock you out so hard you'll be hollering who flung the chunk. But first, I'm going to tell you a story. I graduated high school in 1984. Graduation night, about 20 of us were packed and ready to roll to Florida for a week of doing what young ones did back then went away from adult supervision, which probably pales in comparison to what some do now,

but as the time of our departure grew nearer, my interest in leaving for the week grew weaker and weaker, especially after I overheard a couple of acquaintances discussing the drugs they'd acquired and were taken with them. And I had no interest in that or being around it, which was the same view my friends had. They were just folks that were kind of hitching and riding going along. It was also kind of ironic that a few short years later,

I'd be up to my eyeballs in the drug culture and making a living pretending to love it. But I wasn't there yet. And at the last minute, I decided not to go. I surprised my family by showing back up at the house, explaining my decision and calling my older brother Tim and asking him if he'd like to go camping for a few days down on the Saline River. You know, that Saline River, the one that the Rees family owns. Anyway, he said, of course. So we grabbed up all the camping and the fishing gear we could

lay her hands on, loaded them and his old flat-bottomed boat in the back of my truck, and took off for the river the next morning at daylight. We put in the river at the boat ramp that would eventually be named in honor my daddy. We set off for the adventure of living off the land, vowing not to return to the truck until we'd spent our week in the bottoms getting fat and slick off all the fish we were going to catch to go along with all the side items we'd brung with us. It was going to be a week-long fish fry. We were prepared, Jack. This is the kind of stuff we do, and others only wished they could. I hadn't regretted my decision. There was nothing in Florida that I didn't have right here.

I had sand, water, sun, plus my brother. Two tubes of crickets and an ice chest full of eggs and bacon, a grub box full of necessities and an advanced degree in snatching brim out of the river for my supper.

The river was low and just right for fishing. We had a little 9.9 Johnson outboard motor that would push Tim's 14 foot long, 36 inch wide, aluminum deer craft boat downstream slightly faster than a sugared-up toddler on a tricycle. Coming back upstream was a different story, but it beat paddling like a rented mule. We'd already made up where we was going to camp.

It was going to be just below the swimming hole at the head of the stretch, just about our favorite place to fish. The stretch was a section of the river that was deeper than most and had a gradual turn back to the west before sharply turning back east at a spot we called Bug Island. From there it continued on down its crooked path towards the confluence with the Wachita River some 50 miles further south as the crow flies. At the stretch, you could easily float down either side of the river,

fishing the shade, trading back and forth as you went to the best spots because we knew where every treetop and structure that was under that muddy water that always held the most fish. Bug Island had a gravel shoal and a good, cool, shady spot to clean fish. swim, and cook. I'd be scared to guess how many meals we'd at there over the years, much less how many fish we'd cleaned. In hindsight, it would have been a whole lot better place to camp,

and while we didn't think about that before setting our tent up below the swimming hole, I do not know. It also wouldn't be the only thing we failed to think about that week. After emptying the boat of supplies and getting the camp made that morning, we hit the river fishing for our dinner. Now, once again, for everybody, keeping score at home. Dinner, where I grew up, is at noon. And supper comes after that. Breakfast, dinner, supper. Don't make me pull this boat over. We'd had a good breakfast that morning

before leaving Tim's house. So when we started fishing, the noon meal was our target. It didn't take long to get a good mess to eat for dinner and a big head start on supper. The fish were biting and we weren't culling nothing. If it was big enough to bite, it was. big enough to eat. Some folks might think we'd get tired of eating fish all week, but they'd be wrong. We eat a lot of fish all year long. Back then, in the summertime, it wasn't unusual to eat it several times a week. Whether we was camped or not, brim fresh caught was our favorite, still is, and then everything

else after that. So we decided we had plenty to eat and headed back up to the stretch to our camping spot. We done got hungry. And the only thing standing between us and the best groceries on the planet was getting some taters peeled, the fish cleaned, and a pot full of grease hot. Tim said he'd start cleaning fish as soon as we got there. I'd get the fire started in the coal bucket. Put some oil in the Dutch oven and start peeling the taters.

So as soon as we hit the bank by the tent, we both bailed out of that boat and went to work. I started the fire and opened up the grub box for the Dutch oven, oil, cornmeal, tater's onion, salt and pepper. The basics for any fish fry in a civilized country. Staring back at me from that old wooden box was a box of salt, a can of pepper, a gallon of cooking oil, and a loaf of light bread. Oh, Lord, we didn't bring a Tater one,

and it wouldn't have mattered if we'd had a wagon full. We didn't have nothing to cook them in. We had a problem, especially with the oath we took about not going back home for anything we didn't have with us. I walked down to help Tim and give him the bad news about not bringing the Dutch oven. We cleaned the fish and walked up to where I had the fire going in the cold bucket, and that's when I saw our savior poking up out of the sand.

A five-pound metal coffee can. That joker was covered in rust, but not rusted through, and Tim took it down to the river and scrubbed it out with sand and river water to clean it up. We boiled around the water in it, poured it out by grabbing the, Top-lipped with a pair of pliers, refilled it with oil, and started prepping the fister fry. We felt confident that when the grease got around 350 degrees, anything that was still living in that coffee can that the hot grease didn't kill was probably going to get us anyway. Then I told Tim, we'd forgot the taters and onions too. He didn't say a word.

He didn't look up. He didn't make a sound. He just sat there looking sad. His shoulders seemed to wilt a few inches downward like I'd just let the air out of him. I thought he might cry. And back then men didn't cry, especially in front of another one, not in live and tell about it. So while he sadly stared at that rust-colored oil that was starting to bubble in our Maxwell House fish fry,

I looked back way towards the river to let him have his moment, and so he wouldn't see me if I started squalling. And that's when I saw Mr. Jones. Mr. Jones wasn't a local, a fact that would come into play very soon. He lived an hour or so away, but he was retired and had a nice camp back up river and had had it for years, so we all knew who he was. He'd come down by himself and stay for a few weeks at a time at his camp, and I knew immediately where our taters was fixing to come from,

because everyone where I'm from looks out for one another. I hollered at him as he fished by our boat that was pulled up on the bank. Mr. Jones, I'm Buddy Reeves' boy. Me and my brother Tim's down here camping for a few days, and we forgot our taters. Rekin you got some back up at your camp, you could let us bar or let us buy? Who are you, he said? I told him again. We're Buddy Reeves boys.

Oh, yeah. How's Buddy? I say he's good. He'd be better off knowing we had some taters to eat with all these fish we caught today and the ones we're going to catch the rest of the week. Well, he started laughing, and so did Tim. Tim was back from that dark, taterless place he'd gone to only a few moments ago. I think he, like me, could see that Mr. Jones was fixing to hook us up.

You boys got some onions? Now, when he said that, I knew we were home free. He's fixing to give us some taters and onions. Good night, nurse. We're fixing to hit a lick with Mr. Jones. And that's when we were betrayed by our raisin. We were raised to be thankful for what we had and not be a burden to others. If you didn't have something, you just had to work harder to get it or do without it,

but you never asked anybody for it. So when Mr. Jones asked if we had any onions, Tim's brain went on to autopilot of not wanting to be troublesome, and he said, oh, yes, sir, we got plenty of onions. I thought to myself, you need to shut up. He's offering onions, too. We'll take them. Huh? Mr. Jones didn't hear Tim.

So I repeated the lie. Yes, sir, we got onions. Well, if you boys got onions, that'll be plenty. Y'all don't need any taters. And Mr. Jones floated on by like we weren't even there. And like that conversation had never take place. We stared at him in silence as he floated and fished plumb out of sight. We talked about him a lot that week, mostly about how we'd like to drive by him sitting on

side of the highway with a flat while we did donuts in front of him on the highway eating fried taters and chunking onions at him. I learned a lot on that trip besides double checking the grub box for all your supplies. You can survive quite efficiently, I might add, on nothing but light bread and fried fish. Also a balled up slice of light bread dropped in the hot grease is no substitute for hushbuck. And that's just how that happened. On blood trails, the stories don't end when the hunt is over. They just get darker. I've seen something in the road. I instantly thought it was a sleeping bag.

And there was a pool of blood. Oh my God, he doesn't have a hit. Blood Trails is a true crime podcast born in the outdoors. Where the terrain is unforgiving, the evidence is scarce, and the truth gets buried under brush and silence. Indications were he should be right there. But he wasn't. This season, we're going deeper.

from cold case files to whispered suspicions, from remote mountains to frozen backwards. Each story begins in the wilderness and ends in darkness. Because out here, there are no witnesses, no cameras, just fragments and the people left behind trying to piece them back together. He's not an honest person. He's incapable of being honest. Somebody somewhere knows something. I'm Jordan Sillers. Season two of Blood Trails premieres April 16th. Follow now on Apple, Iheart, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Let's get to work with a question. Why would you go to the trouble of making a trot line to catch some catfish when you could just go to a restaurant and eat them or go to a store and buy them? I'll tell you why. Because this is America and we ought to be doing American things. And one of the most American things you can do is gathering up your own grocery from nature's grocery store to feed your family. So you're ready to beat the system?

The system that tries to dictate what the quality of our food is and how we feed ourselves? A lot of you listening are probably already doing this. But most folks get all the groceries from the store, and we ain't about that life. So I'm going to tell you one way to do it yourself. Baiting up a trot line and teaching an ice chest full of fish how to ride in a boat is about as red, white, and blue as you can get. Also, it's fun. Bailey, Suzanne, tell you old mama.

to get the grease hot. We're fixing to catch a mess of fish. All right, you ain't got nobody to show you how to do it? Yes, you do. Me. Lots of good online articles and videos will give you all kinds of methods and techniques to try. You can get trot lines pre-made with hooks and everything at just about any bait and tackle shop or the supplies to make your own, which is what I like to do. Don't be scared. This ain't hard. There's literally no way to mess this up. If you can get one end of a line tied to a stob or a tree and the other end with a hook on it and bait and in the water, you win. But just like anything else, the more you do it, the better you're going to get at it. Better yet, to practice, you got to go fishing. So what is a trot line? It's a

length of line suspended horizontally near the bottom of a body of water with hooks attached by individual links of a line at a measured intervals from one end of the other. I can't believe I did that. Makes sense? No, of course it don't. But do this for me. Picture a section of power line between two poles in your head. Now, if every 10 feet along that power line,

you had a smaller line hanging down five feet from it with a hook on it. That's a trot line. And for the record, there's no such thing as a trout line. You can call it that, I guess, but that ain't what it is. You can say a rooster-dipped snuff, but that don't make it so until you see him spit, and I ain't never seen one to do that.

Another thing, you can rig a trot line and make it as fancy as you want, but it's not necessary. One ball of string and a few hooks will get it done just as well. Them fillets are going to taste the same regardless of how you turn them loose in the grease. Last summer, I was digging around on the interwebs

and found a spot across the river called a Memphis net and twine. These folks have been serving commercial fishermen and anyone looking to fish with lines or nets since 1962. They got more stuff on there than Carter's got liver pills and will fix you up and help you out with what you need. You can look them up yourself at Memphisnet.net.net. That's how you get them. Anyway, here's a recipe for a simple but effective trotline. These are your ingredients. one roll of number 36 twisted tarred line

one roll of number 18 twisted tarred line one bag of trot line clips one bag of six alt circle hooks and some weights around three to five pounds each depending on how long the line is will determine how many weights you use on a hundred foot line I'd put a weight in the middle and then one about halfway to each end

for a total of three. Now, this is one of a million ways to make a trot line. Notice I didn't say the way to make a trot line. We're just talking basics here, and this is how I make a basic trot line. The twisted line has been dipped in tart and makes them easier to hold when they're wet. They're not as slick as regular nylon line, and it helps protect it too. The number 36 is our main line. The drops where our hooks go are made from the smaller number 18 side.

line. And just like the number suggests, the number 18 is half the diameter of the main line. You ain't got to use two sizes of line, and if you don't want to, but the smaller line is easy to thread through the hooks and the clips when we go to put them on the main line. Now, stretch out about 100 feet of that rascal out in your yard and tie each end. Here's where you need to check your local regulations so you don't get jammed up by Mr. Greenge's. First, make sure trot lines are legal for the water you want to fish and what the minimum spacing is for the drop hooks. If they're too close together, it could be considered a snag line and that's a whole different animal when it comes to fishing regulations. I like to space mine about four or five feet between each drop.

That gives you plenty of room for my caught fish to ramble around without fouling himself on the next hook, making it easier for me to get off the hook and when I run the line. Also, it keeps that hook fishing instead of jobbed in the fish I've already caught. So take one of those clips and clip it on the line and repeat that every four or five feet. Give yourself plenty of slack on each end to tie your line off before you start adding the clips. Now, doing some quick math in my head, thanks to Ms. Brenda McDougal, my most favoritist math teacher, who not only worked on my brain, but also the seat of my britches when my focus went from math to anything else I'd rather be doing it. time, you're going to wind up anywhere between 20 and 25 clips, hooks, and drops. Before we start adding the hooks, make sure you know where the young ones are and you've got

your pet squared away. The last thing we want to do is wreck our trout line with a non-targeted species, especially one that can tell mama on you. So how do we make a drop? This is easy. We want that hook to hang about two feet below the main line. So take four foot of a little bit of that smaller line and cut it off the row. Match those two ends together, tie an overhand knot, and take a lighter and burn the cut-ins so they don't start fraying and come unwound. Which reminds me of a horse I was setting the straddle of one time to come unwound. Before it all ended, I'd done travel from one end of that rascal to the other

before he picked out some soft rocks for me to land on when me and him parted ways. When something unexpectedly comes unwound, never good. So tie a good knot and burn the ends. Now you've got a two-foot drop of number 18 line and you're about to rock your first drop on your first trot line. Take a hook and feed the doubled line through that eye and pull the hook through the loop it formed on the other side securing the hook in one end of the drop. Now repeat that process by looping it onto the clip. you've already attached to the line and bingo you got it now do that for the rest of your line and you're ready to fresh but brent what am i going to do now how do i get my trotland from the backyard to the river i hope y'all really don't sound like that but remember memphis net entwine

they make an item called a plastic winder you can buy or you can make one out of a scrap piece of panel or you can just use a five-gallon bucket and hang the hooks from the inside and have all the line contained inside the bucket. Personally, I like the winder because it takes up less bait in my boat, but using the bucket is usually faster to each his own. To me, the best tasting catfish is the belly meat off a flathead, but we're not going to worry about targeting specific species of catfish right now. Outside of them mudcats, we'll take a blue cat, a channel cat, or a flathead. Sometimes the mud cats are fine. It just depends. on the water you're fishing and since we're headed to the river where the water's moving

we're going to be good with any of them there's really no way to wrongly fish a trot line some are just better than others right now we're talking about fishing a river and the example i can give you is the mighty selene river in cleveland county where currently as my niece continues her research the count is up to eight generations of reefs that ran around that part of arkansas breaking hearts, killing animals, and catching fish. That's where the Lloyd Wilton, Buddy Reeves, Saline River access is located. I have so many wonderful memories of this place

and a lot more stories from down there that I'll share with y'all in the future. But now we've got to get some bait, and you can catch some flatheads with live bait, but you can catch them all with bait that leaves in the water. So on the way to the river, we'd stop, and we'd get some beef liver or chicken hearts or livers at the grocery store.

And some folks would just buy some pre-made stink bait to use. Lots of folks make their own bait, and we might talk about how they do that sometime, but right now we're going to go with this. The river wasn't real wide, and we could stretch a line across it pretty easy in most places. We just had to make sure that we weighted it down enough where the boats wouldn't hit it.

And that shouldn't be a problem if you have it set right, because fishing on the bottom is where you catch catfish, so don't forget your weights. Get one end tied off to a stob or something solid on the bank near the water and run that line out at about 45 degree angle to the opposite bank. Now catfish feed upstream on the bottom and having your bait close to the bottom and at an angle gives the fish more opportunities to find it as he makes his way upstream. Once you've tied off each end, go back and get on the downstream side of your line.

catch a hold of it, and pull yourself across the river baiting as you go. Remember to put enough slack on each end so your weights will pull it down near the bottom. We'd usually bait up an hour or so before dark and then either go back to the camp or build a fire on the bank and just sit there or we'd just go back home. We didn't live far from there, so it really didn't matter, but we'd run the line after dark a couple of times at night if we were camped close or if the fish were biting good. When we got all we wanted to clean or we didn't want to keep checking it throughout the next day,

we just take it up and get skinning fish. Y'all please remember to wear your life jackets, and it's a lot safer when you're messing with the trot line to have some help. You're fishing in more water than you can drink if you fall in, so watch yourself. All right, here comes the best part. All the struggle up to now is about to pay off when that peanut oil is 350 degree. That's the time to slip that catfish flay into that golden cauldron of bubbling goodness. For the love of humanity, here's how you do it. Now what I'm about to reveal has been a closely guarded secret for years.

If Colonel Sanders would have had this mixture and cooked fish instead of chicken, a dude would have been a general. This mixture has evolved over time, but at my father's passing, this was the recipe for his fish bread. and we use the same one for all fish, croppy, brim, bass, it didn't matter, this was it. It's our favorite. I'm happy to share it with y'all,

but y'all fix it how you like it. Ours was made by using three cups of yellow cornmeal and a big mixing bowl. Put a third cup of lemon pepper and an eighth cup of granulated goodness that takes your fish to the next level, and that is Cajun Land Brand Crawfish bowl. It doesn't take a lot

because the flavors are pretty intense and concentrated, but at that ratio, at least for us, the flavor is great and the kick ain't enough to knock the baby out of the high chair. But you regulate it for what's best for you and yours. It's a lot easier to add than it is to take out. Also, it's going to depend on how many folks you're trying to feed and definitely how much fish you have as to how much breading you make. A good rule of thumb is cooking about a half a pound of fish per person. If you're a little light on fish, use little plates. and make sure the taters and the hush puppies are out at the front of the serving line.

There's a pro tip for you. Now, I like soaking my fillets and sweet milk before I bred them, but you ain't got to. You can just pat them dry and chunk them in the mill and bread them that way. I've ed them both ways, and I like them both ways. Makes no difference to me. Just be sure and holler when it's done. This is something the whole family can do from start to finish, and you ought to be involving them anyway.

Mama's, daddies, youngins, neighbors, old folks, who don't like a good fishing trip or at least the community and bonding of a fish fry? Man, it's good stuff. I hope y'all have enjoyed this as much as I have. I hope you'll come back next week. We're going to talk about some more country stuff and have a good time while we're doing it.

This is Brent Reeves, signing off. Y'all be careful. Last spring, Clay Newcomb and I collaborated with Jason Phelps at Phelps Game Calls and building each of our own favorite turkey diaphragms called prime cuts. Now, I'm going to tell you, I love mine because it's easy to use. I'm not going to go, I'm not going to win a turkey calling contest. It's just not going to happen.

But when I run this call, I get the sounds that gobblers are looking for. I have a great turkey hunting track record. If you go listen to real turkeys out in the woods, they're not going to win calling contests, right? That's who I listen to. I can make those sounds on my cut. I also hunt with Phelps's cut, and I hunt with Clay's cut because they're all three great cuts. Check out Prime Cuts at Phelpsgamecalls.com. I think you'll be glad you did, and you'll find out that the Steve Ronella cut is an easy-to-use cut for beginning callers who just want to start making good turkey noises and getting action.