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I know this old gent! Check out the bait.
alledan
Member Posts: 19,541
Hermann Leon Bivens, known as Duggie, enjoyed the splendor of the outdoors, making his living by fishing the Tennessee River since he was 11. He is 90 now. His son owns the Bivens Fish Market on Ripley near Reid.
Duggie was born in 1917 in Bluff City, which is off Little Mountain Road in Morgan City, where his parents had sharecrops and fishing.
His earliest memories were in 1921, at age 4. He knew he had good parents, a mother who liked to talk a lot and a good and an old dad who could fish and run a whiskey still.
As a toddler, his Momma's good neighbors, Frank Mitchell and his wife, Molly, a midwife, visited him. Frank had no children, but he would bounce Duggie on his knees and gave him the nickname.
Duggie got into trouble while fighting with his younger brother, Bert, whom he pushed down. His Dad grabbed a hickory stick to whip them, but Duggie ran. Before he made it out of the house, he was punished for fighting and for running away from his Dad. That memory has stuck for 83 years. It became the worst thing he ever did.
Times were difficult and Duggie would only receive two years of education before he was needed to work beside his Dad and uncle, Roscoe Essic, who sold cordwood and barged to Decatur chestnut and oak for the dying of leather.
Education had an influence on him, though he does not read or write. He can cipher exceptionally well. The desire for his children to have an education was a priority.
He began fishing in 1928 when he was 11. Building his own fishing boats and oars for use on the Tennessee River followed that. This involved steaming boards and using his arms to force a curve in them for use as the bow. The river was dammed in 1936, but some sloughs, such as Gar Slough, had not been eliminated by the river changes before that date. Trotlines were placed in the sloughs to get the best catches. A trotline is a long line tied across a section of water like a cove or slough with 25 or more hooks.
"If you think a trot line ain't dangerous, you are uninformed," Duggie said.
He once had to pull a hook that went into his bone.
It is easier to put out the line than to pull it in, as it contains catfish, snapping turtles, eels and trash, he said. He considers the bad storms he was caught in throughout his career and the safe returns as the Lord's work.
Asked about his secrets for catching fish, he named three things:
First, he was one with nature on the river, reading its signs for a good catch.
Second, he used smelly anise oil, purchased at drug stores, for the stationary trotlines as well as dough balls or oven-soft octagon (lye) soap for bait and cut perch and shad for wintertime bait. Third, he was diligent in taking care of his lines. In those early years, he could only use cotton, butcher string for the lines, which were five to eight lines set out with 100 hooks per line. These lines would only last five or six days during July and August before they would rot, so maintenance was a constant.
He caught catfish - blue, channel, yellow or flat head and, in earlier times, spoonbill and big, big buffalo cats.
Duggie was born in 1917 in Bluff City, which is off Little Mountain Road in Morgan City, where his parents had sharecrops and fishing.
His earliest memories were in 1921, at age 4. He knew he had good parents, a mother who liked to talk a lot and a good and an old dad who could fish and run a whiskey still.
As a toddler, his Momma's good neighbors, Frank Mitchell and his wife, Molly, a midwife, visited him. Frank had no children, but he would bounce Duggie on his knees and gave him the nickname.
Duggie got into trouble while fighting with his younger brother, Bert, whom he pushed down. His Dad grabbed a hickory stick to whip them, but Duggie ran. Before he made it out of the house, he was punished for fighting and for running away from his Dad. That memory has stuck for 83 years. It became the worst thing he ever did.
Times were difficult and Duggie would only receive two years of education before he was needed to work beside his Dad and uncle, Roscoe Essic, who sold cordwood and barged to Decatur chestnut and oak for the dying of leather.
Education had an influence on him, though he does not read or write. He can cipher exceptionally well. The desire for his children to have an education was a priority.
He began fishing in 1928 when he was 11. Building his own fishing boats and oars for use on the Tennessee River followed that. This involved steaming boards and using his arms to force a curve in them for use as the bow. The river was dammed in 1936, but some sloughs, such as Gar Slough, had not been eliminated by the river changes before that date. Trotlines were placed in the sloughs to get the best catches. A trotline is a long line tied across a section of water like a cove or slough with 25 or more hooks.
"If you think a trot line ain't dangerous, you are uninformed," Duggie said.
He once had to pull a hook that went into his bone.
It is easier to put out the line than to pull it in, as it contains catfish, snapping turtles, eels and trash, he said. He considers the bad storms he was caught in throughout his career and the safe returns as the Lord's work.
Asked about his secrets for catching fish, he named three things:
First, he was one with nature on the river, reading its signs for a good catch.
Second, he used smelly anise oil, purchased at drug stores, for the stationary trotlines as well as dough balls or oven-soft octagon (lye) soap for bait and cut perch and shad for wintertime bait. Third, he was diligent in taking care of his lines. In those early years, he could only use cotton, butcher string for the lines, which were five to eight lines set out with 100 hooks per line. These lines would only last five or six days during July and August before they would rot, so maintenance was a constant.
He caught catfish - blue, channel, yellow or flat head and, in earlier times, spoonbill and big, big buffalo cats.