Bear Grease - Ep. 227: This Country Life - TNT, Limb Lines, and Flathead Catfish

Episode Date: June 28, 2024

We're after flatheads this week and Brent's gonna tell you about a fun way to catch them. He's also gonna tell you the story of a different way to catch them without nets or hooks. His uncles employed this method back in the day, and it's very efficient but not recommended. All that and more on MeatEater's This Country Life podcast. opelousasbankpoles.comThe Riverstead on YouTube Subscribe to the MeatEater Podcast Network on YouTube Connect with Brent and MeatEater MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube Shop This Country Life Merch 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.

TNT, limb lines and flathead catfish. Nothing says good eating like flathead catfish. The belly meat is prized amongst catfish folks, and the taste is flat head and shoulders above the rest of them. You see what I did there? We're going to talk about a fun way to catch them, point you towards some equipment you might like to try and tell you where you can see a great way to clean them.

But first, I'm going to tell you a story. You've heard me tell stories about my great Uncle Bob Fry. He was the grandfather of Valerie Frye Stone. Valerie was the one who recorded my dad telling stories, some of which I shared back on Father's Day. But Uncle Bob was married to my grandfather's beautiful sister, Arleigh Mae. Uncle Dobb, whom I've talked about before on here, was of no blood relation to me, but you couldn't tell it.

He was part owner in the cabin at the Saline River where the boat ramp is now named in honor of my dad. The same cabin where I decided to punch my dad when he was taking a nap because I wanted to go swimming instead of laying down, the decision I would immediately regret and an endeavor I would eventually grow quite fond of. But he and his wife and Avice lived just up the road from my dad all of their lives. Uncle Bob and Uncle Dobb they hunted and fish together. Their methods at times didn't conform with the game laws of the state of Arkansas. They were hunting fishing to feed a community of family members. Times were hard back then, and if the fish were biting, as the old saying goes,

you better load the boat. Now, that's saying wasn't necessarily limited to fishing. It was a metaphor for squirrels, rabbits, and anything else. and if the game wasn't moving, they'd cut the dogs loose to get them moving. They do deer drives to try and get in front of the few deer that lived in the river bottoms, hoping someone would get a shot, and then the deer would be divided up accordingly. Now, the same went for fish. While they couldn't do fish drives, they could employ alternative methods to help fill the boat

when the fish weren't biting. Nets and traps were sometimes employed, but the quicker. The quickest way to put a mess of fish in the boat was with explosives. A stick of whatever explosives were available at the local hardware store, prepped with a blasting cap and a fuse, and you were one kitchen match away from seeing what was swimming at the bottom of any deep hole in the river. It may sound crazy, but anyone could buy explosives, and there were legitimate reasons to do so.

Removing tree stumps when clearing farmland was the most common reason folks used it. Putting fish in the freezer ran a close second. At least in our part of the world, that's right. The fish were always biting when the bait was nitro-glissory crickets. And the explosion wasn't loud either, more like a big base-filled thud and deep water followed by water bubbles and fish bowling up to the surface. Or so I've heard. But my Uncle Bob and Uncle Dobb, his actual name wasn't

Dob, it was Troy, Alvin, Matthew Atkins. Still haven't learned the story of how he got that nickname, but Uncle Bob and Uncle Dobb has a whole lot nicer ring to it than anything else, so I'm thankful for whoever gave it to him. But Uncle Bob tells the story this way. He and Dob were camped down on the river at Little Mill. Three shows ago, I talked about that place on the Hogs episode. Lots of things went on at Little Mill on the Saline River in reference to my family, and I promise some of them are good. Anyway, they'd been demonstrating some of the alternate methods

of fishing earlier in the day and were in the middle of cooking their dinner when the local game warden walked up. It had been a pretty good while since they'd quote unquote caught some fish, but still the mere presence of the game warden was a bit unsettling. They all knew one another in exchange pleasantries as southern gentleman would, according to Uncle Bob. Then the Game Warden said he'd been hearing rumors about folks shooting dynamite in the river and asked him if they'd seen anyone down there that looked suspicious. No? Well, they hadn't seen any suspicious folks around.

Hadn't seen anybody at all. Maybe they were further on down the river or plumb up near the bridge at Kingsley. Gainborn said he didn't know, but probably needed to start heading back through the woods, thinking he was about to leave. They invited him to eat. not expecting him to accept since he just said he needed to start his long walk back. Besides, they only had two plates and two chairs. That fish looks good, Bob.

I believe I will eat since you asked. Uncle Bob didn't know what to say, but he was thinking now he'd been foiled by his own gracious home train. He didn't know it, but the plot was about to thicken just a little bit more. With him and Uncle Dobb occupying the only two chairs, the Game Warden grabbed a supply box that was sitting close by and pulled it over for a seat. Uncle Bob said he nearly fainted and fell in the fire when he did that. The game warden was sitting on the box that held all the dynamite.

And he'd have had to do was look inside it, and that would have been all she wrote. He said he didn't think he was ever going to leave, But finally, he did. They packed up first thing the next morning and went home, and that broke them from shooting dynamite in the river. I think he caught him and was just letting them know. He knew without having to arrest them what they were doing

and didn't want to cost them any money that they didn't have. But regardless, according to Uncle Bob and Uncle Dobb, that's just how that happened. Flathead Catfish. comes to catfish taste, this joker's head and whiskers above, channels and blues. Now, that's how I view the world of catfish cuisine, and some may disagree, and that's fine with me. There's no accounting for taste when it comes to eating anything, and folks like what they like. Most of the time, it's a cultural or a community thing.

Or in the case of my friend Brad Clark, that train driving catfish snob of Hernando, Mississippi, I think it's related to a possible concussion, but Brad lists his favorites catfish in this order, starting with number one. Flatheads, and then blue cats, and then cardboard, and then channel cats. Now, Brad has straight-up dissed the channel catfish. We'll know if he still feels that way

by the time this comes out, because tomorrow, which is Monday, really happened four days. ago. I know time travel could be confusing when I'm record these things, but hang with me. By the time y'all hear this, we will have been at the camp on Cash Bowell with some of my favorite persons and eating some of those channeled cat specimens. Tim and I caught last week in the Arkansas River if we don't happen to catch any flatheads, because that's what we're going after. Now, I don't have as discriminating of a palate that Sir Brad Clark had.

apparently because I will eat a channel catfish filet before a blue heron can do number two and fly off. Those of you folks that have seen that, you know it happens pretty quick. My brother Tim and I catch a lot of channel cats in our other career as Arkansas River commercial fishing tycoons. You may have seen some of our efforts on my social media feed, which, by the way, I caught some flak from a few folks saying we were depleting the resource by catching so many fish at one time. So allow me to stray off topic, kind of, for just a minute. After reading the rude comments of one person,

I got to wonder in two things. Number one, does this guy not have any manners? And two, is this rude rascal right? Well, how would I find that out? Well, this is how I found out. I called my friend and resident fisheries biologist Ben Batten, now serves as deputy director, the Arkansas Gaming Fish Commission. And I posed this question to him.

Is commercial fishing depleting the resource? And Ben put me in touch with not one but two fisheries biologists whose sole purpose in their professional lives is taking care of our rivers and fish. Jamie Kanska is our Arkansas River Commercial Fishing Biologist. And Chelsea Gilliland is our large, Rivers biologists. Now, these ladies were helpful beyond anything I could have ever hoped for.

I'm going to do some stuff in the future with the large amount of data and information they provided me, but right now, suffice it to say that not only are our resources being looked after by some truly dedicated professionals, but our catfish are thriving. And they're thriving due to the regulations that govern the harvest of catfish, but also by the voluntary catch and release of egg-laden females by the folks that are selling fish to pay their bills. That's right. Commercial fishermen are literally throwing money back into the river. That's one of the first things a commercial fishing friend of mine told me when I started bombarding him with questions about net fishing.

And I quote, Do what you want, but releasing those big females back in the river is an investment in the future. You think about that when you're running those nets. Well, I do think about it. Tim does too. And if we ever catch one, we'll do just that. But first, I got to catch a flat head. 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 Phelpsgamecalls.com. I think you'll be glad you do. 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. The flathead catfish, that's Palladictus Oliverus for all you fish nerds out there, but it's also known as the yellow cat, the Johnny cat, the Gouillon, Appaluchin, Apollusus, pied cat, and Mississippi cat. And honestly, I ain't ever heard but a couple variations of those terms. where I grew up, and that's opalusus or ops and flatheads. But just like Bill Shakespeare said, that which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

That means an opalusus and a flathead taste the same when you pull them out of that hot grease, which is fantastic. And they smell the same when left out in the sun, which is horrible. Five stars on the former, one star on the latter. I do not recommend that. But to eat those jokers, first we got to get them in the boat so we can get them to the house or at least the bank. Now, you can net them if you're good enough. Me and Tim ain't there yet, but we're working on it.

And just so you know, the water doesn't have to be moving to catch them. Our buddy and net Jedi master Bradley Smith of God's country hunting and fishing on YouTube has video evidence that he knows exactly how it's done. I've talked about him before. He knows how to hem up fish and how to cook them one. they're skint. But we ain't netting this week, and we ain't pole fishing or even trot lining for them. We're limb-lining these cats, and the best way is with live bait because flatheads are predators. They're the grizzly bears of the catfish world. They ain't about being a scavenger. They have similar tastes as my own. They like some action in their vittles, and they like to fish as much as we do.

They do it every day. They eat cropping brim, other catfish, just about anything they can catch and swallow. You can catch smaller ones on traditional catfish baits like stink baits and blood baits and chicken livers if, but if you're targeting the big ones, it's the live bait all the way and limb lines are a great way to catch them. The best thing about it to me is you can involve the little folks. There's not a lot of sitting and waiting for a bite. You bait up the lines before dark and hit the road. If the bite is on, you can check them throughout the night and rebate as you catch,

but lots of times you'll just wake up the next morning and start running your lines. Flatheads feed during periods of low light, they're ambushers, and they take advantage of slipping around and gobbling stuff up when they have the opportunity. Here's the rig that we'll be using tomorrow, which was four days ago. Remember that time travel thing. If we're successful, you'll have no doubt by now seen some evidence of our adventure. This rig is a favorite of my friend Brad Clark, the Mississippi. sip your catfish snob.

We use trot line-sized, twisted, tarred line and make our drops about three feet long. We use anything from six to eight ounce egg weights tied about eight inches above the hook. This gets the live bait down where we want him near the bottom. But the slack below the egg allows him to swim around and coax in the big flatheads. Some folks will have them without weights and up near the surface splashing around, and that works good in places, but you're also going to catch gar and gait. neither which being what we're after. Now the hooks we use are number six circle hooks and they seem to hold big fish without any issues and on the other end of that three foot drop we tie a permanent loop.

Just to be clear we got a three foot section of twisted tarred trot line string. On one end we have a permanent loop. On the other end we have a number six circle hook. And eight or so inches above that we have a a six-ounce egg weight tied into the line. That completed unit is what we call a drop. We're going to clip that or tie it to whatever length of line is needed to attach it to a limb and fish it at the proper depth.

That's all dependent on how far the limb is above the water and how deep you need to fish your bait, which is ideally close to the bottom. Some folks put swivels in their lines, and that's a great idea. There are more ways to rig up a limb line drop than there are ways to skin a squirrel. But getting the clothes off a squirrel and getting a flat head on the drop is the goal, regardless of how it happens. We're looking for green limbs hanging out over the water in the area of the bank. It doesn't take a huge diameter limb to hold a big fish,

but mainly what you're looking for are limbs with a lot of spring in them. They got to be able to take the stress of a big fish pulling on them, just like you would on a fishing pole. So keep that in mind when you're tying your limbs up. A dead limb or one without much spring to it result in a broken line, a broken limb or straightened out hook. And trust me, I know. The limb is just as important of a component as any other piece of the puzzle.

Live bait is what you're using, the target flatheads and brim are about as good as it gets. In Arkansas, you can use brim of any size for flathead bait as long as they're caught while brim fishing. And that has always been a conundrum for me for this reason. I'd rather eat a blue-gill brim from the Saline River than any other thing, bar none. It is my absolute favorite. So to catch a brim on the hook and then put him on the hook to catch a different fish

is more or less against my religion. But it is so much fun catching them big. rascals and the belly meat on a flat head is just something to behold. A brim small than four inches can be caught in a trap and used for bait and there's no limit on. But you know what else works good? Goldfish. Them big goggle-eyed monkeys that look like their bellies are so full that they're about to pop.

Not the little ones you see floating upside down in the bag that you brought home from the county fair for chunking a ping pong ball in a glass jar. But you better make sure that that's least. in your water before using anything than what's a native species. Lim lines are great, but if you're missing trees where you need to fish or if there aren't any limbs like you need, what are you going to do? Enter the bank pole or the ditty pole, as we've always called them. You just job one end of it in the bank of the river and angle it out over where you want to fish

and attach your limb line to the end of the pole. It's like fishing with you. with a cane pole that somebody else is holding for you while you take a nap. Napping and fishing. That's two of my favorite things right there in one activity. Now, there's several on the market that you can purchase, but there's only one available from a fellow that's a friend of mine. He grew up where I did, like I did.

And that guy's name is Jeff Jester. He and his son, Dusty, have Apollusus Bank Poles. You want to see something cool? You check out their website atopalusbankpoles.com. That's O-P-E-L-O-U-S-A-S-BankPoles.com. Reeva's going to put a link to Jeff's website in the show description. You can also see some video of Jeff's stuff in action on their Facebook and TikTok pages. But Jeff and his son designed them from one end to the other, including the hooks,

and when you get them, you get a fiberglass pole that's stout, and they're ready to fish. Hook, line, and sinker. It's ready. all you have to do is add the bait and find the flatheads. Well, you're welcome, friends, so what else can I do for you today? I guess I could tell you how to clean them, but until I can make my own video on that subject, let me direct you to another friend of mine who lives on the Saline River.

Yep, that's Saline River, the one I thought we owned until I was about 10 years old. But this guy lives way down the river from where I grew up. He's near the south end of Bradley County. Keith Brandon and his wife Lee live on the river. And when I say they live on the river, I mean if they lived any closer to the river, they live in the river. But Keith just put up a video a few days ago

on his Riverstead YouTube page. It's a quick, efficient four-and-a-half-minute video of Keith wearing a Magnum P.I. shirt and showing us what a flathead looks like naked. He's a good fella. country as cornbread and a professional forester by trade. His wife Lee makes some of the best pepper relish I've ever ate. I swear it'd be good on ice cream.

Lots of good stuff on Keith's page, too, from curing his own bacon to cooking up some good groceries. Reeves going to add a link in description to his stuff too. Hmm. Anyway, that just about takes care of the flathead. We've talked about how to fish for him, what to bait with, but not where to find them. And in short, you're looking for deep pools where they like to spend the day, moving to shallow water at night to feed. They'll hide in tree roots or under an underwater shelf waiting on darkness,

having your bait swimming around where you think he may be slipping up to feed. That's the ticket. That comes from trial and error, which, like my life up to now, has been one shining example of on repeat. They like big tree roots and benches under the water, but they're going to go where what they're going to go where what they're, they want to eat goes when it gets dark. The space between deep holes and where bait, fish, and brim hang out next to the bank.

That's where you want to start. Get your kids, the neighbors, and the neighbors kids, and go catch some of these fish. It really is fun, and it's a fun way to spend some time out in nature. Plus, you get to eat fish. Y'all check out the new merchandise on the online mediator store if you're so inclined. This country, Life shirts should be back in stock soon, and they're, working on hats, they tell me. Also, please subscribe to our new

Meadeter podcast network on YouTube. You can watch or listen to all your favorite podcasts there in one spot with a lot more stuff coming in the near future. Until next week, this is Brent Reeves. Signing off. Y'all be careful. First Lights Fieldware collection is made

for the work that happens long before opening day and continues when the season ends. Products built for early mornings full days in real use. Hard wearing where they need to be versatile where it matters. No shortcuts. Just gear designed for the work that earns

the season. Built to perform, built to last. Check out. First Light's new fieldware gear at firstlight.com.