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The Unholy
Catfish
by Clay Coppedge |
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During
an otherwise somnolent Sunday sermon put forth many years ago when
I was but a wee lad, the preacher jolted me and at least a few others
from our respective reveries with this pronouncement: “The catfish
is an unclean animal.”
Leading up to that statement he had talked about the human body as
a temple of God, one not be profaned with tobacco, alcohol or, apparently,
catfish. He cited Deuteronomy and a verse about “unclean animals,”
which included fish without scales. That doomed the catfish, a popular
game fish for local anglers young (like me) and old (like my parents)
alike.
My father paraphrased that great philosopher, Jerry Clower, by saying
that the reverend had “quit preachin’ and gone to meddlin’.” As a
kid, I didn’t know who to believe, my preacher or my dad.
One thing I had learned in church was that there were a lot of ways
to go to Hell. Since I had not yet profaned my body with tobacco or
alcohol, this catfish deal seemed to present a legitimate roadblock
on my way to Heaven, a place I would apparently share with my preacher
and no one else.
The preacher’s comments stayed in the back of my mind in the days
following the sermon but became a real problem a couple of weeks later
when my friend Donnie asked if I wanted to ride my bike out to Buffalo
Lake and do some fishing.
Well, of course I did. This, along with sanctioned visits to Prairie
Dog Town in Mackenzie Park and clandestine excursions to the forbidden
caliche pit, was a prime summertime activity with my buddies and me.
Donnie and I made a big production of it, usually cooking our fish
over an open fire and washing it down with several soft drinks.
This time I wasn’t so sure. Donnie’s father also happened to be a
preacher so I was a little confused. Surely, his father knew that
Donnie would probably come in contact with an unclean animal at Buffalo
Lake. If Donnie’s father thought it was all right and my own father
didn’t care I felt I had a strong consensus to go fishing.
The
ride to the lake was long and dangerous as it skirted the speed and
thunder of Loop 289 but we were young and stupid and so we didn’t
care. This was sort of a Tour De Lubbock
for us. As we pedaled closer to the lake caught a faint whiff from
the cattle processing plant on the edge of town. That meant the wind
had shifted, which might affect the fishing. Also, I noticed a small
herd of cows all sitting down as we rode past them. That was a bad
sign too.
So much for superstitions. We made it to our favorite cove and used
the bloody innards of a rabbit we killed with a pellet gun as bait.
When that was gone, we switched to worms. It didn’t matter. We caught
a fish, mostly catfish, nearly every time we cast. This was what you
would call a banner day, and all thoughts of Hell and perdition vanished.
We threw most of the fish back, keeping just three of the biggest
ones to eat. I was Davy Crockett and he was Daniel Boone. We knew
but didn’t care that the two never hung out together; we knew who
we were.
There was something fishy about those catfish but neither one of us
wanted to be the one to complain, to ruin an otherwise perfect afternoon.
Would Davy or Dan’l complain? No way. We each choked down the equivalent
of one fish apiece, then climbed on our bikes and headed back toward
the neighborhood.
We hadn’t gone very far before the rumblings began. The rumblings
came from our stomach and were followed by sharp pains, which preceded
a really unnecessarily long period of throwing up. By the end we had
nothing left on our stomachs but we were still vomiting. This was
not only insulting but seemingly impossible as well.
A neighbor in an El Camino saw Donnie and I sitting pale and dazed
by the roadside and stopped to pick us up. “Medic!” I yelled. Our
neighbor threw the bikes in the back and then consigned us to the
same place. That proved to be a good move on his part because as it
happened we weren’t quite finished puking.
After a long and unpleasant night in which I glimpsed the fiery gates
of Hell every time I closed my eyes, I struggled out of bed the next
day and accepted the challenge that breakfast presented. As the day
wore on I felt better by small degrees and was almost back to normal
when my dad got home from work at the local paper, where he was an
editor.
The night before I had told him I was sick as a punishment from God
for eating those catfish when I had been told by a man of God that
they were an unclean animal. He lost a good deal of sympathy for me
at that point and left me to wrestle with the demons on my own. “They’re
not even an animal,” he said. “They’re a fish.”
When he got home from work the next day he dropped the front page
of the second section in front of me and said, “You might be interested
in that story at the bottom of the page.”
“God Punishes Wayward Youths!” the headline blared.
Not really. The story was about an “accident” at the cattle processing
plant. A lot of, uh, waste products from the facility got funneled
down the wrong chute or something and ended up entering the lake not
far from our favorite fishing hole. I sort of lost all respect for
catfish when I realized that they actually thrive on this kind of
diet. |
A
couple of decades later I wrote what I thought was a fairly insightful
essay for an outdoors magazine. The piece was titled “Ten Reasons
To Hate Catfish.” The story ran in the magazine under the headline:
“9 Reasons To Hate Catfish.”
The editors, without comment, cut reason number one: “The catfish
is unholy.” Instead, “Catfish are ugly” led off the piece.
The main reason I became a fly-fisherman was to make it less likely
that I would hook another unholy catfish. This led to a long obsession
chronicled in another
story, and it also led to redemption and acceptance.
A couple of years after my reasons to hate catfish were published
I was with another fishing buddy on Barton
Creek outside of Austin.
The creek at that time was virtually pristine, as was the land where
untold dozens of shopping centers and housing developments now stand.
In the course of this idyllic afternoon, I caught a catfish on some
kind of small streamer, killing my conviction that catfish wouldn’t
hit anything that didn’t smell bad. My buddy didn’t think much of
the “catch and release” philosophy, saying it was like playing with
your food. Rather than tell him my life story as it related to catfish,
I accepted his offer to fry the fish and fixings if I would buy the
beer.
Of course, those clear water catfish were delicious. It had taken
decades but I had finally made my deal with catfish. If I go to Hell,
it won’t be because of them. |
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