Summer of Pearls by Mike Blakely Page A

Yes, I was pretty sure it was a gar, but that was part of the lure of trotlining. When you see those floats bobbing, you never really know what you’ve got until you hoist it up from the deep.
    We paddled to a big cypress standing in the water at the edge of Mossy Brake. We had one end of our line tied to a cypress knee next to the tree. From there it ran down into a channel where those willow cats liked to prowl. Some people, as a matter of fact, call them channel cats for just that reason.
    Adam sat in the front of the skiff. He would grab the line, pull the boat along, and take the fish off the hooks. I was in the back of the boat. I kept the boat straight, helped pull on the line, and put fresh bait on the hooks. Cecil was useless except as a counterweight. With Adam and me hanging over the right side of the skiff, it was helpful to have Cecil sit on the left side, to keep the boat as level as possible. As long as I knew Cecil, he always preferred to let other people do the work for him while he sat back and counted money.
    The sun and the rich, rotten smell of the lake were hitting us when Adam began working the line. We pulled the skiff along, passing the rock we had tied on to pull the line to the right depth and keep it tight. Along the main line were lighter cords, about a foot and a half long, tied at six-foot intervals, and on these lighter cords were our hooks. The
first few were empty. I untangled the twisted cords and baited their hooks with fresh mussels. Then I felt the first tug, despite Adam’s hold on the line.
    The biggest thrill in trotlining is feeling the fish tug from down deep. Even a little catfish can pull the line pretty hard. As we approached the next hook, I saw the flash of gray down in the brown, muddy water. Adam was smiling. He lived for simple pleasures like that. He pulled a three-pound willow cat to the surface. It splashed us pretty good before he got it unhooked and into the boat.
    Catfish have bony barbs on their pectoral fins, and one on their dorsal fin, too. If they stick you, it aches something fierce for a long time. The skin has some kind of poison in it, I’ve heard. But Adam Owens wasn’t afraid of anything you could pull out of the water, and he knew how to grab a catfish around those bony barbs where it couldn’t jab him. He knew how to grab alligators, water moccasins, wild hogs, and snapping turtles, too.
    He carried a pair of pliers in his pocket and had the hook out of the fish’s mouth in no time. He threw it between the bulkheads at Cecil’s bare feet.
    â€œHey, watch it!” Cecil said as the cat flipped and flopped around. “That thing will stick me!”
    â€œOh, shut up, Cecil,” I said, still put out over what he had said about Carol Anne. “Just keep the boat steady.”
    We worked down the line, me and Adam feeling anxiously for the tug of every fish we had hooked, and getting more excited as we came closer to the place where something big was pulling the cork float under.
    â€œAll right, here it comes!” Adam said. We were only a couple of hooks away. “Hold the line tight, Ben. Don’t let it pull a hook through your finger.”
    â€œCan you see it yet?”
    â€œNo, not yet. But, by gosh, I can sure feel it!”
    The plunges of the creature on our line were rocking the boat like crazy.
    â€œJust cut it loose as soon as you can,” Cecil said, calmly. “Don’t let
it tear up our whole line. Hey, maybe it’s a little gator. Watch your hand, Adam!”
    â€œI’m watchin’! Gosh, it pulls hard!”
    We worked the skiff forward and Adam grit his teeth lifting the catch. Then I saw it. A huge, flat head rose in the muddy water, then turned for the deep as if the light hurt its beady eyes. A broad tail flipped and splashed a wall of water toward me, even though the fish was still completely submerged.
    â€œWhat is it?” Cecil demanded.
    â€œIt’s the biggest