Bear Grease - Ep. 193: THIS COUNTRY LIFE - Fishing with Nets

Episode Date: March 1, 2024

What's better than catching fish? If you ask Brent, he'll tell you there's not much, but if you're catching a bunch of fish, now that's something special. He's gonna tell you one of the ways he and his brother, Tim, like to catch them, and tell you a story about the time they got caught themselves. It's "Fishing With Nets" on MeatEater's This Country Life podcast. 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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First Light's new fieldwear gear at firstlight.com. 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 got a thing or two to teach you. Fishing with nets There's two types of fishing when you're fishing with nets, commercial and recreational. I guess there's really four if you count catching fish and not catching fish, and we're going to talk a little about both of them today, but first, I'm going to tell you a story. Now, this story has absolutely nothing to do with fishing nets, only a little bit to do with fishing. But fishing was what Tim and I started out doing before the incident occurred. It was many years ago during the middle of the week,

and we had both found ourselves too sick to go to work, but not too sick to fish. What a coincidence. I know, right? Both of us at the same time. Anyway, we loaded Till's boat with our fly rods and crickets, which is just about the best medicine ever invented, and we took off for the Saline River at Mount Elby.

I know I've set it on here before, but the dot on the map that we all called Mount Elby is actually called Mount Elby. B-L-B-A, for the folks who like to look up the places of where I'm talking about. There was also the name of the boat ramp we were putting in at that would eventually be renamed in honor of my father, the Lloyd Wilton, Buddy Reeves, Mount Elba Access. When I petitioned the Arkansas Game at Fish Commission with the letter of my family's legacy in that area and that place on the river to rename it after my father, I related how we generationally interacted with the land and the river over the past nine generations.

I didn't include the story I'm about to tell you. But that day we backed the boat in, parked the truck, and took off. It was hot that morning and we caught fish pretty quickly. We fished all the way down what we referred to as the stretch. That's the location on the river about three quarters of a mile long where the water deepened and the current slowed down in a long straightaway. At the end of the stretch is a place we call Bug Island. Now, when the river is at normal pool, it splits and wraps around the small island of willet trees, saying the river rocks.

It's shady and a perfect place to stop and cook fish. I've been doing it all my life and plan to do so again in the near future. We took a fish cooker and everything you need and cleaned and cook the fish right there. They'd never touch a cube of ice and go from swimming in the river to swimming in the live well to being cleaned in the river and then being released into 350 degrees of hot peanut oil. If you have the means, I highly recommend it. We were the only folks on the river that day. Everyone else was working. After all, it was the middle of the work week.

But by the time we hit Bug Island, it was close to noon and time to eat. It was also Africa hot and the only relief from the boiling sun was in the shade. Since there was no breeze, still pretty hot under the trees and standing over that fire cooking fish didn't do anything towards cooling us off. We got done eating, got everything cleaned up and was sitting and staring at that running water that flowed around the island and sweating. And I told Tim, man, I'm about to burn up in the shade sitting here like a dummy, wearing the bed. bathing suit I was born with. And with that, we both stood up, commenced to peeling off our sweat, soaked, t-shirts, and overalls until we were naked as picked birds, tenderfooting our way across the hot sand

and rocks until we waited out deep enough to cool off in the muddy water of our river. It might as well been ours. We were the only folks on it. We swam around out in the deeper water for a while, then paddled our way back up to the shallow shoal that tapered our way. off the bank of Bug Island. We were fixing to get out and get dressed and fish our way back to the truck.

But then Tim scooped up a huge river muscle along the way and we laid there on our stomachs in the shallow water admiring that huge freshwater muscle. Our lily white behinds glowing above the surface of the water. I heard a noise behind us that sounded oddly like a boat paddle bumping the side of a boat. Judging from the look of horror that washed over Tim's face, he'd hurt it too. Then out of the blue, y'all catching any fish?

We looked back over our shoulders at the same time to see an older couple float by with fishing poles in their hands and big smiles on their faces. Ha ha! I don't know what happened next or what they did. I slid under the surface, backed out into deeper water, and only came up to take them. a peek to see when they were gone when I could no longer hold my breath. Tim had done the same. I'm sorry Mr. and Mrs. whoever you were. But with two teas, that's just how that happened. Fishing with nets. Commercial fishermen have always intrigued me.

There's just something about making a living catching fish that appeals to kids, and that's when my attraction began. I mentioned Carl's one stop in last week's episode. It was the bait shop on the edge of town where not only could you buy a bait and tackle, but also turkey calls, duck calls, and ammo. You'd also see the commercial fishermen in the area stopping by to visit or pick up supplies or meeting folks that had ordered fish. Seeing those big hoop nets in the boat and knowing that guy was paying his light bills with fish he'd caught from the river,

now what could be better than that? I dare say nothing. That's got to be the easiest job there is. Right now, anyone that's listening that has ever had even the smallest experience of fishing a hoopnet knows that I have finally done it. After almost a year of telling stories and talking about country living on this platform, I have finally said the dumbest thing I'm ever going to say by suggesting that easy is an adjective that describes any portion of commercial fishermen. There was a time when I thought being a duck guy would be a great idea. Who wouldn't want to get paid to go duck hunting?

There's always more to the story. Duck hunting in a way was what brought my brother Tim and I to net fishing. We talked about it forever, but over 25 years ago, we met a man from Louisiana when he came up with a group to hunt with us, and his name was Jerry Bozier. Now, Jerry would later start bringing his son, Zach, along with him. with others over the years and he and his family became instant friends of ours, and they've remained just like our family ever since. I can go months without talking to Jerry and pick up the phone and give him a call, and it's just like I talked to him yesterday. Where am I going with this?

Well, Jerry Bozier is a good fisherman, and most assuredly he's the best net fisherman I know. And it was his advice and tutelage that inspired my brother Tim to call me. one day and say, I'm buying some hoop nets and we're going to start fishing them in the Arkansas River. You're going to be my helper. I don't recall there being a question as to whether or not I'd be participating. So after checking the Arkansas regulations on fishing nets, Tim bought three wire hoop nets and some bait from the good folks down at Nets and More, the Fish Net Company in Jonesville, Louisiana. He brought them back home, sent me a picture of laying in his yard. And I'd never seen wire nets before, but, man, they look cool. I was excited, but it was like ordering the Charles

Atlas Strongman course from the back of a comic book, and when the mailman delivers it, you realize the muscles ain't included. What do we do with them now? First, let's talk about what a hoop net is. Imagine a dip net that you'd used to boat a fish after you caught him with a rod and a reel. But instead of having a shallow bottom in it, think about it being three and a half feet in diameter and 14 feet long. About every two feet is going to be a round fiberglass hoop that holds the net in position, giving it a cylindrical tube shape when both ends are weighted with a head rope and a tail rope and stretched tightly between the two weights. There's all kinds of different diameters, meshing sizes, and lengths of hoop nets.

This is just an example. but they all have what's called the throat inside or flu where a separate mesh funnel gradually narrows down into an opening that fish can easily swim in through but can't easily swim out of. Now once he gets in there, you got him unless he's small enough to swim out through the mesh of the net, which is why there are mesh size regulations on the net so the small fish can get out. Now these contraptions are strictly made for rough fish like, Buffalo and drum, and while catfish is a game fish in Arkansas, it's the only one that can be harvested using a net or a trap. Bring them under four inches can be called in a basket trap and

used as live bait for flathead catfish, and that's a whole other podcast and one we're planning on doing later this year. But this hoop net I've talked about ain't going to catch fish until we get it in the water. 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 full 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 whisper. 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. So where do we fish it? Remember Jerry from Louisiana? Well, Jerry will tell you that when you're fishing in current and the river is inside its banks, that you got to find those eddies to consistently catch fish. A fish can obviously swim anywhere it was to, but they have travel patterns and tendencies just like all creatures.

They like gathering in those eddies. What's an eddy? Well, how about I tell you what one? is. The definition of an eddy is a circular movement of water counter to a main current causing a small whirlpool. Now let me describe it to you like this. Me and you were sitting in a boat facing up river. The river in front of us has a curve that bends around to the right and continues on. The downstream side of that curve is where the eddy forms. As the current comes around that bend it forms a circular motion known as an eddy.

Fish congregate there to catch bait fish and groceries that get swept up and concentrated in the water. It also gets them out of the strong current and let them to rest while they eat. Survival is the name of the game and ingesting calories while expending the minimal amount necessary to do so is priority number one. But you can't just find an eddy to wait both ends and churn. your net in the river, that's no pointo. You're going to have to drag and sound check the depth of the water

to see if there's any obstacles in there that could damage or keep your net from laying out properly. I'm sure those garment depth and sonar units like Clay and I had on our big sea arc boat last January would easily do the trick, but if you find yourself out of modern technology, a net drag on a long rope will do the trick. Most net drags that I've seen are around the, 16 to 18 inches long and made a solid round inch and a half steel. On the bottom they'll have

four pieces of quarter inch rod at even intervals bent in the shape of a U and welded to the shaft. It'll look kind of like a grappling hook. On the other end is welded an eye to attach a rope and you'll use it to drag across the bottom looking for obstacles like tree tops or somebody else's net or anything that could damage or keep your net from fishing properly. You're also going to need that drag to pull your net up when it's time to check it. You're looking for a clean shelf or a bottom where you can lay your net out flat on the bottom like a cardboard paper towel tube. Now, here's a little something extra. At my house, all my kids call those tubes dut-to-dus.

Because they could never pick an empty one up to play with it without sticking it to their mouth and going, Duh do y'all's kids do that or mine the only ones Probably just mine I live in a circus All right, let's get this thing in the water We're going to need a heavy anchor and a long length of rope The length of rope that's tied to the head and the tail

Is dependent upon the depth of the water And Jerry likes to use 516th Holler braided line for a big hoop net He's going to use about 30 pounds of weight or more. That's going to be on the anchor and that's going to go on the tail end of the net and it's always pointed upstream. Get your weight and the line and then the tail end to the net. We start feeding that net out. Tail in first and we're going to float downstream and take all the slack out of that net and the length of rope we've got tied to the head end. That rope is

attached to a rope that's called a bridle and it goes from one side of the hoop to the other on the front kind of like a handle of a bucket the head rope is tied right in the middle stay with me now because we're going to review this and get squared away in your brain bucket in just a minute pulling further downstream about 30 to 40 feet if not further we're going to attach a small weight around 10 pounds and from that weight we're going to run a 20-foot line with two to three-pound weight with a float tied in the middle. Now this keeps the rope off the bottom and makes it easier to catch with a drag.

It doesn't take long for silt to cover a rope up and that makes it hard to find. The float sure makes it easier. Now I know what you're saying. Why don't you just run afloat from the weight on the headline to the surface? It'd be easy to run without even having to worry about using the drag. Well, let me tell you why. The same reason you like your truck when you park it and walk away. you park it and walk away.

Folks will not only covet your hoop nets, but they will also run them, steal your fish, and take your nets. All right, erase the blackboard in your cranium and let's review it. We found an eddy that has a clean bottom where we can place her hoop net. On the tail end of our net, we've attached a long length of rope and a big anchor. Splash goes the anchor, and now we're slowly motoring or floating, backwards down the river, letting the net pull out of the boat, slowly as we hold a little tension so it goes in the water like it's fishing already.

Letting the head rope out, we drop the 10-pound weight, followed by the float, and the rest of the rope with a small weight. Now, it's time to go do whatever and be confident that while you're occupied with some other activity, that you're also fishing with every tick of the clock. Mowing the yard, also fishing. Eating supper, also fishing. Slumbering in the bed? Also fishing.

The hardest part for me and Tim was not going back to check our nets. You got to let them fish and time is on your side. If you remember, we didn't bait this net. We're catching fish that are just out making living and doing their thing swimming upstream. Now, they'll still be snagging grub as it floats downstream and into the water. or call them, brought them there in the first place. We're just going to have them hemmed up where we're fishing. And they'll be just as healthy and full of vigor

when we run the net a minimum of five days from when we set it. So after a week, we're going to head back to the river. We're going to chunk our drag in to catch a hold of that headline. We put it out tail in first, so we're going to do just the opposite to run it. And when you throw your drag out, you're aiming for the head row. That's the end with the little float holding the line off the bottom so it wouldn't get silted in. Now, you don't have to do that. So don't be hollering me about this is wrong and it ain't the way your grandpa did it.

While I'm interested in hearing how you did it, I ain't about to listen to anything I've described here is wrong because it ain't. Now, how do I know it ain't? Well, Jerry's son, Zach owns one of the best restaurants in Louisiana. And I understand that's a bold statement because there are a lot of great places to eat. down there. But they run fish through that restaurant faster than grass runs through a goose, and Jerry provides a large portion of the fish. And this is how he catches them, and they feed a lot of folks. It's called Big Zach's Place in Logan's Port, Louisiana. Y'all check it out and tell them I sent you. But guess what? We ain't done yet. Me and Tim don't even fish the county nets that I just described.

We're going to, but right now, we're fishing that big nests. We're fishing that big nests. We're just described. We're going to, but we're fishing that big net's little brother, which works the same way, but it's a lot easier to handle, and we use bait. The wire nets we fish are 18 inches in diameter and four feet long. They're the same as regular hoop nets,

except there's no hoops. The net mesh is held in place by wire on the inside, which is concrete reinforcement wire. You just bend it into a loop. You can fish them several ways, one of which is how I just described with the big hoop.

net. Another way is to suspend it vertically beneath the water with the throat facing down above the bottom. Fish will feed upwards drawn into the net by the bait. And you can also just bait it up and chunk it overboard in a good spot you've already picked out. Now the bait we use is usually soybeans and cheese mashed them into a big old block. And we put it in a mesh bag and throw it inside and it slowly dissolves and leaves a scent trail of food downstream. And as the fish feed upstream, they follow it into the net. Tim and I fish ours in current, always with the mouth facing downstream and anchor a tie off the tail. It's pretty simple and a very effective way to catch fish.

It's also a lot of fun, and we have a great time doing it. If you're interested in do it, check your regulations where you live. You hit the folks up down there in Jonesville, Louisiana, and you can get you a net that you can fish. Hey, I hope y'all enjoy the squirrels and coons in Arkansas film Claybow and I did over on the Meat Eat Eaters YouTube channel. If you haven't seen it, hop on over and check it out. Clay's Alaska Wolf episode dropped this week too. Man, it's good. We got two more loaded and ready to fly, and they'll be dropping over the next two weeks on Tuesdays.

We'll also be at the Black Bear Bananza in Bentonville, Arkansas on March the 9th. Tickets are available on their website. You just search Black Bear Bananza and you'll see the link. It's going to be a lot of fun. There's going to be some great demonstrations. We're going to record a podcast. I'll be emceeing the Al Houten contest and get ready for this. Case Nives will have a booth there.

And my friend John Pantuso and my fellow Arkansason, Chris Taylor will be there too. Chris is a knife maker and has designed to build three skinning knives for case. I got all three. Man, it's something special. Rinse the onions off, help Grandpa find his teeth, and y'all come see us. It's going to be a good time. Until next week, this is Brett Reeves.

Signing off. Y'all be careful. Last spring, Clay Newcomb and I collaborated with Jason Phelps at Phelps game calls in 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 Phelps game calls.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.