vituperation

Before you do anything else, go watch the new trailer for Superman Returns, just released yesterday. I haven’t been this excited about a movie since Forrest Gump came out in 1994.

My whole life, I’ve only liked two comic book superheroes: Spiderman and Superman. In recent years, Sam Raimi has done Spiderman justice; I hope Bryan Singer can do Superman as well. Christopher Reeve left some mighty big tights to fill. Judging from the trailer, Kevin Spacey has done a bang-up job in Gene Hackman’s role as Lex Luthor.

Please God, don’t let this movie suck.

And before you start asking in the comments: I post only when I think I have something worth posting. I haven’t had anything to say for the last month. Today I do.

“This, and two bags of ice,” I said to the young woman behind the counter as I set a bottle of water down. She shifted the telephone in her hand from one ear to the other. “Oh, and a whole tube of crickets.”

“I’m on hold with the bank,” she said. “They sent my new checks to the wrong house.”

I marvelled at how people in the country — for I was out in the tiny nearby town of Valhermosa Springs — were so willing to divulge unsolicited information to complete strangers who walked in off the street.

“Is that who sent me those new checks?” my friend Rodney asked, grinning. “I’ve already written three.”

“You won’t get far with ‘em,” the woman said. “We don’t have hardly any money at all. And after this, I think I may close the account. Y’all going fishing?”

I nodded. A mutual friend of Rodney and I, Tim, owns a goodly chunk of land out in Valhermosa Springs. His family raises cattle and as such, they have several ponds (seven or nine, I forget which) sprinkled around the property to provide water for the cows. A few years ago, Tim stocked a couple of the ponds with bass, bream, and catfish.

And now the ponds are overstocked, so Rodney and I had invites to come fishing. Monday after work we loaded our gear into my [redacted] and headed south across the river.

I grew up fishing, and loved it. As the years passed, I did it less and less, though. The last time I went, two or three years ago, I caught squat (but did get peed on by a turtle so the whole trip wasn’t lost) and pretty much didn’t have any fun at all. Hearing about the catfish in these ponds got me excited to fish again, because we love us some catfish at casa Fred.

“Yeah, we are,” I said.

She walked around the counter and led us outside to the cricket box. After much discussion by Rodney and the woman over why the crickets didn’t jump out of the box when she raised the lid, she filled a tube and dumped it into my cricket, um, thingy. We went inside and Rodney paid, pointing out that I’d already paid because of the gas it took to drive there.

Fishing in a stocked pond ROCKS. I wish I’d taken the time to restring all my rods first, though. I lost four fish to broken line because it was so old. Fortunately, I’d restrung my ultralight in anticipation, so it held up. Nothing beats landing 5-7 pound catfish with a rod and reel designed for 1-2 pound fish.

We fished for about three hours and ended up with fourteen catfish between us. On the way back to the office, where we were going to clean them, Rodney told me about his catfish cleaning technique.

“First, I cut through the skin down the side, then along the bottom and top. Then I hang the fish on a hook and use pliers to peel the skin off.”

“You don’t filet them?” I asked.

“Sure, I have filets when I’m done. I split them and take the guts out, then cut away the meat into filets. It takes me about an hour to do six.”

“An hour to do six? I think you’ll like the way I filet them.”

Back at the office, it took me about 20 minutes to filet all fourteen catfish. No guts, no peeling, just slicing and dicing with an electric knife and we ended up with two big-ass stacks of catfish meat, just like you get at the grocery store.

Goddamn, fishing was fun.

We ended up using three crickets out of about 100, and caught two bream. All the catfish were caught with raw chicken livers.

It is simply beautiful out in the country. I’m ready to move there.

This sign tickled me.

The cows slowly moved over to see what we were doing at their watering hole.

One of fourteen victims.

Rodney shows off one of his catches.

Tim showed up around 5:30 and the cows lost their minds to come be near him.
Their antics–particularly the sniffing of everything–reminded me of a certain gaggle
of cats. They left big streaks of cow spit all over my vehicle from checking it out.

Another catfish, waiting to go into the cooler. That’s the end of my size-12 foot, for size reference.

A cooler full of good eats.

I show Rodney the easy way to filet a fish. He’s cleaning off any little bits of rib I left on.
Think of this as just one more thing you didn’t know about me. I have the mad fish chopping skills.
Warning: the above picture is graphic and may not be suitable for the squeamish.

Twenty minutes of slicing and one finger blister later, we have maybe
15 pounds of fine-ass catfish filets. When I finished with the fileting, Rodney said,
“I’d still be on the second or third one!”

I can’t wait to go again.