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 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 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.
“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, 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 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.”