essentials. Boat positioning is important
as well. During our trip last week, Hall
was at the helm and all his focus was
putting the boat in the right place with
the high-water conditions.
“if you noticed, when we were running
the nets, James never let the boat get
sideways to the current,” roberts said.
“if you do, the current’s got you. You’ve
got to keep the boat pointed pretty much
into the current. When i grabbed the net,
i would turn the boat back toward the
river so mr. James could keep control of
the boat.”
Once the tail line is grabbed and the first
hoop comes to the surface, there is no
time for hesitation, roberts said.
“You’ve got to go with it,” he said.
“You’ve got to put it in the boat. if you
don’t, you can tear a hole in your net or
put somebody in the river. When you’ve
got the net in your hands, you’ve got to
commit to putting the net in the boat. if
you don’t, you’ve got to let the net go. it’s
too dangerous.”
That’s especially important if the net is
full of fish, which can happen at any
time.
“We’ve caught about 500 pounds in one
net before,” roberts said. “That was a
job, but you’ve just got to bow up and
get it in the boat.”
The contents of each net are pretty much
like Forrest gump’s box of chocolates.
“When you start running nets, you don’t
know what you’re going to catch,”
roberts said. “When i started this spring,
the water was real cold. There wasn’t
much of anything running. i caught a
few catfish, but not many. When the
sun started warming the water, i started
catching catfish. The other day was the
first time i’d caught any drum.
“i think that when the water gets a certain
temperature, the catfish start running.
When the water gets a little warmer, the
scale fish (drum, buffalo, carp, etc.) start
running.”
When the fish really start running,
roberts and Hall have to be careful
about the number of nets they’ve got out.
“What we’re doing is just for fun,” roberts
said. “if we did it any more, it’d be too
much like work. But i do have people i
can cal