From a 1945 Outdoors Magazine. Lake Catherine in the Ouachita hills east of Hot Springs, with its rocky banks, sunken logs, grassy islands and innumerable nooks and inlets offers some of the best bass water on earth, but they won’t bite in midsummer when the water gets low and clear. And this was July. The water was low ... and clear. I was thus reflecting bitterly when I suddenly became aware that I was not alone. Through the woods, down the incline near me, came two teenage boys. I was partly hidden from their sight by a large boulder and my boat, which was pulled up to the bank around the point, was entirely out of sight. In their low hum of conversation as they approached the shore of the lake, I recognized the anticipatory tone that is always associated with two or more true fishermen at the beginning of every fishing trip. I somehow felt sorry for the two boys with their stubby cane poles, their tomato-can bait bucket and their large white lines and bottle-stopper corks. Then I observed something else: one of the boys carried a gallon bottle, which at first I assumed was a water bottle. Closer scrutiny revealed some species of insects or bugs buzzing around inside the bottle. “What kind of monkey business is this?” I thought to myself. Now I noticed yet another weird contraption: Under the arm of the boy with the poles was what appeared to be a half-gallon bottle and swinging from the bottom of the bottle was a rock twice as big as my fist. I sat perfectly still and watched developments. The longer I watched the more interested I became, for suddenly I realized that I was the unknown, perhaps unwelcome, observer of the beginning of a method of fishing altogether unknown to sophisticated city anglers; at least, it was unknown to me. I have fished all over the South. Before the gas and tire shortage my wanderings took me into many out-of the-way places. Time and again, returning to camp from a luckless morning on lake or stream, I have met natives with unbelievable strings of fish which examination convinced me were taken with hook and line. My questioning sometimes revealed simple unthought-of methods or bait, but more often the answers were obvious evasions or misleading revelations. My experiences convince me that the natives who fish for meat are acquainted with methods of obtaining fish in plenty at any season, methods oftentimes unknown to outsiders. I am also convinced that different methods are applicable to different localities and that the local Isaac Waltons know their stuff. I was soon to have my convictions further confirmed: When the two boys had deposited their tackle on the rocky ground, they turned their whole attention to the two bottles. First, they removed the cork from the half-gallon bottle with the rock attached. Next, they cautiously and gingerly unscrewed the perforated cap from the bottle containing the insects, quickly shoving two bottle necks together. Then watched carefully as two or three of the insects in the larger bottle buzzed into the smaller bottle. The stopper in the smaller bottle and the screw cap of the larger bottle were dexterously replaced and the larger bottle was deposited in the shade of a nearby bush. Now the line was unwound from the stiffest of the three cane poles and the end of the line, which I now observed did not contain a hook, was fastened securely to the top of the smaller bottle. The cork on the line was pushed up about ten feet, and then the bottle, with the heavy lead swinging underneath, was carefully lowered into the water. The boys were not more than thirty feet from me and as they lowered the bottle into the water I could see the insects buzzing around inside. The lead was just heavy enough to sink the bottle slowly, and the boys watched in interested silence as the bottle disappeared from sight. They misfigured the depth, as they had to readjust the cork a time or two, finally arriving at the depth desired, the anchor apparently resting on bottom and the bottle floating probably two feet above it. Then they sat down to await I knew not what. After a wait of perhaps five minutes I saw them quietly begin unwinding the lines on the other two poles. From the tomato-can they produced what appeared to be June bugs or dung-beetles and proceeded to bait their hooks. Then they quietly dropped the wiggling beetles down, on either side of the jug. Their lines had hardly straightened out when one of the bottle-stopper corks went down with a distinct “pop!” The boy set the hook with a jerk that would have broken ordinary tackle, and the fight was on. It didn’t last long. The stiff cane pole, the heavy line and the animated youngster manipulating the pole produced a startling climax: there was a splash and a three-pound bass sailed through the air and landed with a paralyzing thud against the rocks above. The second boy wasn’t watching his bobber closely enough. He was too interested in his partner’s tussle. His float quietly slid under the water, the line traveled outward with increasing speed and his pole slapped against the water below, almost jerked from his hand, before he knew he had a bite. He jerked with the same amazing speed and power employed by his more fortunate companion, but he struck too late. His line tangled in the overhanging limb of a tree some fifteen feet above his head. While he was untangling it, his partner caught a channel cat and another bass. Then, with clock-like regularity, they both plopped fish after fish against the bank and rocks above. As suddenly as the astounding run of luck had started, it stopped. One boy looked over at the other and said something I couldn’t understand, then both of them took out their lines and began pulling up the jug. The insects were crawling about inside but were no longer buzzing about. The air inside the jug probably had become foul. Now the boys unstopped the two jugs as before, but this time they held the jugs vertical with the smaller jug on top, allowing the crawling insects to drop into the larger jug. Then, after screwing the cap on the larger jug, one of the boys untied the smaller jug from the line, grasped the heavy lead and whirled the jug about his head so that the foul air would be quickly dispelled. Then they placed the mouths of the jugs together as before and replaced the exhausted insects with fresh ones. After the five-minute wait as before, down went their baited hooks and up came more fish. I watched in open-mouthed amazement as they continued to fill a four-foot stringer. I do not know how long this would have continued, but for an altogether unexpected and amazing thing that happened: the stiff pole used for manipulating the jug began excitedly bobbing up and down. Both boys flopped their hand-poles on the bank and with an excited shout of “Bumblejugger!” they grasped the pole. I could contain my excitement and curiosity no longer. Hurriedly scrambling to my feet I ran down to where the two boys were wrestling with the pole. Then, with a splash like a cow falling in, with a prodigious heave that should have wrecked any kind of tackle, the two boys flung a twelve-pound jack-salmon to the rock-studded bank beside them! The smaller bottle accidentally crashed into the larger bottle on the bank. Both boys made a dive for the jack-salmon and almost at the instant they dived they began the strangest contortions I have ever seen. I watched in amazement! One boy ran up the bank and into the brush, slapping himself on the head and yelling like a drunk banshee. The other danced around in circles, on the verge of falling into the lake, both hands clasped to his right eye, then he too took off for tall timber. I saw to my dismay that the jack-salmon had gotten loose and was slowly flopping and rolling back into the lake. I made a dive for the fish, instantly I wished I hadn’t. I heard a buzz, and the next moment something had fastened itself onto my eyebrow. Immediate and excruciating pain almost upset me. Instinctively I stooped, my hand flew to my eye, and the next moment I straightened up again quickly and with considerable animation, for another of those buzzing infernos had taken hold of me where my trousers were tightest when I was stooped. Without further thought or even a backward glance at the magnificent fish rolling into the lake, I followed the two boys into the brush. From my vantage point behind a giant pine I peeped out with my one good eye. The two boys from similar vantage points were beginning to get themselves under control. One boy, like myself, had one eye swollen shut; the other boy was ruefully caressing a knot on his head. I cautiously eased over near them. “Will one of you please tell me what this is all about?” I asked. “Well,” said one of the youngsters, we was bumble-juggin’, when we had a accident.” “Bumble’-jugging?” I questioned. “Yes, sir.” The boy appeared hesitant, then the sight of my closed and badly swollen eye, a match for his own, must have merited, in his opinion, an explanation of the unusual happenings. “When it gits hot and dry and the water gits real clear, fish won’t bite, leastwise without they gits teased up. Our grandpa larnt us how to tease ‘em up so they’ll bite ever’ time. He told us to go out and find a bumblebee nest - you know, the kind o’ bumblebees that makes holes in the ground or in old logs. You takes a jug, turns it upside-down over the hole, then hammers on the ground with a chunk or rock and the bumblebees comes out and goes in the jug. They comes out fightin’ mad and sets up a turrible buzzing, and the longer you keeps ‘em the madder they gits. “Then you puts a few of ‘em in a little jug and sinks it whar you wants to fish. Fish has got uncommon good hearin’, and when they hears the bumblebees buzzin’ inside the jug, they gits curious and comes from all around. They sees the bumblebees buzzin’ around inside the jug but they can’t git at ‘em. This makes ‘em fightin’ mad. Then we baits our hooks with June bugs, tumble-bugs or most any sort of bugs and lets em down side o’ the jug. We calls it bumble-juggin’.” The two boys cut some switches with brushy tops and cautiously approached their fishing place. I followed at a safe distance. A few of the bumblebees were still in the vicinity, but after a short battle-royal, they were whipped out. I picked up the stout pole, with the top part of the broken bottle tied on, and examined it. From the top, on either side, there dangled a line about six inches long, with a large unbaited hook on the end. “What about these hooks?” I asked. “They’re for bumble-juggers,” answered the boy. “Bumble-juggers?” “Yes, sir. Ever’ now and then comes a big bass or jack-salmon or opalousas cat and he gits so mad he tries to bite the jug-like the one you saw us pull out a whilst ago. He got hooked on one of them there hooks.” Just then we heard a splash near the bank and one of the boys leaned out and looked straight down at the water. “Well I’ll be ... !” he yelled, and quickly slid down the bank. He reached down, got a careful hold and came scrambling back up with the jack-salmon. The plop against the rocks had stunned the fish and he had been unable to submerge.
Posted on: Wed, 10 Jul 2013 15:23:31 +0000
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