hauling a net in reelfoot lake—a ton of shovel-nosed cats and alligator gars—davy rubs his eyes at the sight, and resolves to keep out of the water—he kills fifteen bears in two weeks—he goes home, but soon feels obliged to have another hunt—with his son, he kills three bears the first day—the bear hunt in the cane—takes a hungry man and family into partnership in the hunt—how the “varments” spend the long winters—he trees a bear near reelfoot lake—“mixing it up” with the dogs—salting the meat.
early the next day, davy and his host were at the shore of the lake, waiting for three boats that could be seen coming from a distance, two of them under sail. when they arrived at the jepson landing, close to the house where davy was staying, davy’s friend had his own boat ready, and in a few minutes all four were headed for a bay-like place between some of the islands. in one of the boats was a long cotton net, brought from st. louis. davy had never seen a net hauled, and was eager[169] to watch the proceedings. when near the islands, the net was strung overboard, extending across the bay for several hundred feet. two boats were fastened to it at each end and it was drawn in toward the land, where there were no stumps or trees to interfere. it was slow work, for the net touched bottom, and often caught on sunken logs. there was no appearance of fish within it as it came slowly in, until both ends of the net were fast to shore and the bight was being hauled. when it was about thirty feet out, a great fish broke water with a splash, and all over the surface within the ropes were ripples that told of others.
close to the shore were several stakes standing in the water, and attached to them was the pound-net towards which the catch was being hauled. the two boats slowly narrowed the circle until most of the fish had gone into this. when all was ready, and the large net was clear, the mouth of the pound-net was closed, and it was freed from the stakes, when the ten men of the fishing expedition pulled it to a small dock, built of logs, in a few feet of water. standing on this, they[170] lifted the pound-net from the water and dumped the contents into the largest boat. davy shouted with astonishment at the sight. as many as forty shovel-nosed catfish and a dozen alligator garfish writhed and squirmed before his eyes. they might have weighed a thousand pounds in all, but the traditionist of the samburg settlement has not been admitted to the ananias club, and gives only a vague history of the catch in which his grandfather was interested, under the arrangement of “share and share alike.” he knows that it was a big haul, but one that is, of course, often outdone to-day. in the account of a trip to the lake in 1908, to which reference has been already made, mr. paddock gives a description of the fish named, and it is so much more interesting than anything scientific, that it is repeated here.
“when i went to reelfoot,” says mr. paddock, “i had never heard of a spoon-bill catfish, and when i saw in the boat more than two tons of these slippery monsters of the deep, with paddles on the ends of their noses more than two feet long, i had to pinch myself to see if i was awake.
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“if i have laid myself open to criticism when i told about those three big black bass, i am going to now ‘bust’ my reputation for veracity wide open—beyond all repair—for, by actual weight on the scales at our dock, one-third of those fish averaged seventy pounds apiece, and the smallest would weigh fifteen pounds.
“if you have never been to reelfoot, and doubt this statement, take a trip down there, my brother. they are taking out these whoppers just the same to-day. they dress them and take them to the dock, where they get one cent a pound for them. they are the strangest of all fish; they have no scales or bones, except a gristly spinal column. they have a long, slender, symmetrical, and graceful body, and their upper jaws project away ahead, so that at least one-third of their entire length is nose, which widens and flattens out into a graceful paddle. most likely they use it as a shovel; i never had a chance to see one of them feeding. they live in deep water, but i imagine that they shovel around in the mud for worms.”
the garfish of reelfoot lake are of varying size,[172] with long bills and sharp, interlocking teeth. some of them weigh ten to fifteen pounds, and are formidable specimens. it is likely that after seeing what the water afforded, davy preferred to take his chances with the bears. the fish taken in cold weather often are dried for winter use, and sometimes smoked, affording a valuable supply of food. the lake is frequently covered with wild ducks and geese, and water-turkeys or cormorants act as scavengers. in davy’s time it was too expensive to kill water-fowl. his object in going to reelfoot was to get meat for his friend, who was helping in the building of the boats. davy had already killed and salted down enough for his own family, and as he seems to have loved bear-hunting more than any other sport, he readily took the trip to the lake, where the first day or two was spent in fishing.
the bears were very fat and very plenty, and, for that reason, easily treed. davy said that he asked no favors of the bears, except civility, as he had eight large dogs, as fierce as “painters” (panthers), that no bear could get away from. the hunt near reelfoot lasted two weeks, and in that[173] time fifteen bears were killed. davy then went home, afterwards putting in part of his time with the men who were splitting staves and building the boats. he seems to have been something of a capitalist at this time, or he may have been backed by some one’s money. it was in december that he realized that he “couldn’t stand it without another hunt,” and between christmas and new years he and his son crossed the lake where the men were working for him, and turned the dogs loose. before evening he had killed three bears, which they dressed and salted, putting the meat upon a scaffold built of saplings and brush. this was the only way to save it from the ravenous wolves.
the meat being safe overhead, davy and the boy were eating their breakfast, when a number of hunters appeared with fourteen dogs. the animals were in hard luck, for davy tells us that they were so poor that whenever they indulged in barking they had to lean against the first tree to rest. they fell on the bones left by the other dogs, and after the men had been given some of the meat from the scaffold, davy “left them and cut out.”
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the hunting season was usually at an end before the new year, as the bears holed up when the weather became very cold, and remained hidden until the sap started in the woods. although they have no food or water, they are just as fat as ever in the spring, but as their cubs are born about the time the old ones appear, the mother bears are not hunted then for the sake of meat or fur. the year in which these adventures took place was warm during december, and as the story of davy’s hunting near the obion has been read in a thousand school-rooms in the west, it will be given in as nearly his own words as possible. at this time he was everywhere known as colonel davy crockett, and in the middle of the last century, when each scholar used to bring any book he could get to read from in school, the “history of colonel crockett” rivalled in the small boy’s favor the “life of general francis marion.” the part most beloved of the young american was the following, which starts in at the time he left the hungry dogs to gnaw the bones of the bears killed the day before:
“i hadn’t gone far when my dogs took a first-rate[175] start after a very large fat old he-bear, which run right plump towards my camp. i pursued on, but the other hunters had heard the dogs coming, and met them and killed the bear before i got up to them. i gave him to them, and cut out for big clover creek, which wasn’t very far off. just as i got there and was entering a high cane-brake, my dogs all broke and went ahead, and in a little time they raised a fuss in the cane, and seemed to be going every-which-way. i listened a while, and found my dogs was in two companies, and that both was in a snorting fight. i sent my little son to one, and i broke for the other. [the son was nearly eighteen years old.] i got to mine first, and found my dogs had a two-year-old bear down a-wooling away on him, so i just took my butcher, and went up and slapped it into him, and killed him without shooting. there was five of the dogs in my company.
“in a short time i heard my little son fire at his bear. when i went to him, he had killed it, too. he had two dogs in his team. just at this moment we heard my other dog barking a short distance off,[176] and all the rest at once broke to him. we pushed on, too, and when we got there we found that he had a still larger bear than either of them we had killed, treed by himself. we killed that one also, which made three we had killed in less than half an hour.”
he then goes on to say that the meat was taken care of as on the day before, and that afterwards he came to where a poor fellow who was the very picture of hard times was grubbing in the ground.
“i asked him what he was doing away in the woods by himself. he said he was grubbing [clearing the ground] for a man who intended to settle there, and that he was doing it because he had no meat for his family, and could earn a little.
“i was mighty sorry for the poor fellow, for it was not only a hard but a very slow way to get meat for a hungry family, so i told him if he would go with me, i would get him more meat than he could earn by grubbing in a month. i intended to supply him with meat, and also to get him to assist my little boy in salting and packing up my bears. he had never seen a bear killed in his life.[177] i told him i had six killed then, and that my dogs had just gone after another.
“he went off to his little cabin, which was a short distance in the brush, and his wife was very anxious he should go with me. so we started and went to the place where i had killed my three bears, and made a camp. night now came on, but no word from my dogs yet. i afterwards found that they had treed the bear they had gone after, about five miles off, near a man’s house, and had barked at it the whole enduring night. poor fellows! many a time they looked for me, and wondered why i didn’t come, for they know’d there was no mistake in me, and i know’d they were as good as ever fluttered in the breeze. as soon as it was light enough to see, the man took his gun and went to them, and shot the bear and killed it. my dogs, however, wouldn’t have anything to do with this stranger; so they left him, and came back early in the morning to me.
“we got our breakfast and cut out again, and we killed four large and very fat bears that day. we hunted out the week, and in that time we[178] killed seventeen, all of them first rate. when we closed our hunt, i gave the man over a thousand weight of fine, fat bear-meat, which pleased him mightily, and made him feel rich. i saw him the next fall, and he told me he had plenty of meat to do him the whole year from his week’s hunt. my son and me now went home. this was the week between christmas and new year that we made this hunt.
“when we got home, one of my neighbors was out of meat, and wanted me to go back, and let him go with me, to take another hunt. i couldn’t refuse, but told him i was afraid the bears had taken to house by that time, for after they get very fat, in the fall and early part of the winter, they go into their holes, in large hollow trees or into hollow logs, or their cane house, or the harricanes, and lie there till spring, like frozen snakes. and one thing about this will seem mighty strange to many people. from about the first of january till about the last of april, these varments lie in their holes altogether.
“in all that time they have no food to eat;[179] and when they come out they are not an ounce lighter than when they went to house. i don’t know the cause of this, and still i know it is a fact; and i leave it to others who have more learning than i have, to account for it.” (the bears might be suspected of having learned and practised the secrets of the norwegian stove, or the modern fireless cooker, whereby a little heat is made to last for many hours.) “they have not a particle of food with them, but they just lie and suck the bottoms of their paws all the time. i have killed many of them in their trees, which enables me to speak positively upon the subject.
“however, my neighbor, whose name is mcdaniel, and my little son and me, went on down to the lake to my second camp, where we had killed the seventeen bears the week before, and turned out to hunting. we hunted all day without the dogs getting a single start. we had carried but little provisions with us, and the next morning were entirely out of meat. i sent my son to the house of an old friend, about three miles off, to get some. the old gentleman was much pleased[180] to hear that i was hunting in those parts, for the year before the bears had killed a great many of his hogs. he had that day been killing his bacon hogs, and so he gave my son some meat, and sent word to me that i must come in to his house that evening, and that he would have plenty of feed for my dogs, and some accommodations for ourselves; but before my son got back, we had gone out hunting, and in a large cane-brake my dogs found a big bear in a cane house, which he had fixed for his winter quarters, as they sometimes do.
“when my lead dog found him, and raised the yell, all the rest broke to him, but none of them entered his house till we got up. i encouraged my dogs, and they know’d me so well that i could have made them seize the old serpent himself, with all his horns and heads and cloven foot and ugliness, if he would have only come to light, so they could have seen him. they bulged in, and in an instant the bear followed them out, and i told mcdaniel to shoot him, as he was mighty wrathy to kill a bear. he did so, and killed[181] him prime. we carried him to our camp, by which time my son had returned; and after we had got our dinners, we packed up and cut for the house of my friend, whose name was davidson.
“we got there and stayed with him that night; and the next morning, having salted up our meat, we left it with him, and started to take a hunt between the obion lake and reelfoot lake. as there had been a dreadful harricane which passed between them, i was sure there must be a heap of bears in the fallen timber. we had gone about five miles without seeing any sign at all; but at length we got on some high cany ridges, and as we rode along i saw a hole in a large black oak, and, on examining more closely, i discovered that a bear had clomb the tree. i could see his tracks going up, but none coming down, and so i was sure he was in there. a person who is acquainted with bear-hunting, can tell easy enough when the varment is in the hollow; for as they go up they don’t slip a bit, but as they come down they make long scratches with their nails.
“my friend was a little ahead of me, but i[182] called him back and told him there was a bear in that tree, and i must have him out. so we lit from our horses, and i found a small tree which i thought i could fall so as to lodge against my bear tree, and we fell to work chopping it with our tomahawks. i intended, when we lodged the tree against the other, to let my little son go up and look into the hole, for he could climb like a squirrel. we had chopped on a little time, and stopped to rest, when i heard my dogs barking mighty severe at some distance from us, and i told my friend i know’d they had a bear; for it is the nature of dogs, when they find you are hunting bears, to hunt for nothing else. they become fond of the meat, and consider other game as ‘not worth a notice,’ as old john said of the devil.
“we concluded to leave our tree a bit, and went to my dogs, and when we got there, sure enough they had an eternal great big fat bear up a tree, just ready for shooting. my friend again petitioned me for liberty to shoot this one also. i had a little rather not, as the bear was so big, but i couldn’t refuse; and so he blazed away, and down came the old fellow like some great log had fell.
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“i now missed one of my dogs, the same that i had before spoke of as having treed the bear by himself some time before, when i had started the three in the cane-brake. i told my friend that my missing dog had a bear somewhere, just as sure as fate; so i left them to butcher the one we had just killed, and i went up on a piece of high ground to listen for my dog. i heard him barking with all his might some distance off, and i pushed ahead for him. my other dogs that were with me heard him and broke for him, and when i got there, sure enough he had another bear already treed. if he hadn’t, i wish i may be shot! i fired on him, and brought him down; and then went back, and helped finish butchering the one when i had left my friend. we then packed, on our horses, both to the tree where i had left my boy.
“by this time, the little fellow had cut the tree down that we intended to lodge against the hollow one, but it fell the wrong way; he had then feathered in on the big tree, to cut that, and had found that it was nothing but a shell on the outside, and all doted [decayed] in the middle, as too many of our big men are in these days, having only an[184] outside appearance. my friend and my son cut away on it, and i went off about a hundred yards with my dogs to keep them from running under the tree when it should fall. on looking back at the hole in the tree, i saw the bear’s head out of it, watching down at them as they were cutting. i hollered to them to look up, and they did so, and mcdaniel catched up his gun; but by this time the bear was out, and coming down the tree. he fired at it, and as soon as it touched the ground the dogs were all round it, and they had a roll-and-tumble fight to the foot of the hill, where they stopped him. i ran up, and, putting my gun against the bear, fired and killed him. we had now three, and so we made our scaffold and salted them up.”
