Something was shaking me, maybe them hogs? “Boy, time to go check the lines!” It was my Dad and checking my watch with radium numbers, it was 3:00 AM. Back into the cold water, and it was really cold now, but keeping a stiff upper lip, I said nothing, more growing up.

Pulling up the first line there were firm tugs coming back to us, we had five more cats on the first line, two blues, two yellows and one funny one, my Dad called a high fin blue, but later I found out that it was a channel cat. Baiting up as we went, we found many twisted stages meaning we had lost more cats than we had caught.

The second line, more pulls, had three more cats, all yellows and several twisted stages. It looked like we were loosing more than we caught! We kept the eight we’d caught in my wet toe sack and went back to bed, but my Dad was up with the sun. More shaking, more hogs? No, just my Dad, saying those cold words, “Let’s go check the lines.”

Gasping when the cold water hit me, saying nothing, more growing up, we checked both lines, six more cats, two blues, three yellows and another high fin. Crossing to the other side we rolled up the first line, returning, we checked the second line, took the fish off, walked back across the river and rolled up our second line and set to, cleaning the fish.

Our total for the night was eighteen catfish, which meant some good eatin’ for everyone!
However, I was still suffering chills from the cold water!