Carl Bishop: Fishing and Swimming in the Tallapoosa

We used canes to fish. We’d cut ‘em off the bank of the creek. We used a line, some kind of a line. We dug our worms. Earth worms, mostly. There were no red wigglers at that time. We’d fish for mud cats or whatever kind was in the river. The first creek I ever fished in was the Tallapoosa.
And, oh yeah, we swam in that creek. We frog gigged and we’d turtle hunt. We’d make a three-pronged frog gig and we’d go along the bank and see their eyes and take that frog gig and gig it. We’d eat the frog legs. We’d cut ‘em off the frog, get the skin off of them and wash them real good. Mother would wash them real good, skin ‘em, then batter them in flour and drop them in hot grease. Next.