“I Got One” by Doug Fincher

PamApril 25, 2017 - I’ve always liked to fish and faithfully search for the best fishing places when I move to a new town. In Starks, Louisiana, it was Bearhead Creek and Bill Buxton Slough. In Mauriceville, Texas, it was the “Lake Bar W” lakes at Newton and the Arabie’s 8-Gate Check. In Shelbyville, it was Alford’s Pond and Dr. Jack’s Lake. In San Augustine, it was stock ponds and the Attoyac River. And over the years I have fished with some dyed in the wool fishermen who think fishing 24 hours a day…. but not one of them could hold a light to my wife Pam when it comes to fishing enthusiasm. Pam doesn’t just like to fish. She LOVES to fish. And when she hooks one… whether it’s a five ounce perch or a five pound bass… she hollers at the top of her voice, “I got one!” 

One day At Pineland’s Devil’s Ford Creek I heard Pam shout “I got one!” And when I looked across the creek she was standing in waist-deep water holding her rod high in the air with a two-pound bass trying desperately to get off. Another day while fishing at Bayou Seipe Creek I noticed her weaving and bobbing from side to side and wildly speed-winding her Zebco reel. “I got one!” she hollered, and when I got to her, she had a monstrous fish laying on the bank. “I’ve caught a big catfish”, she panted. “I thought I’d never get him in”. But instead of a catfish, she’d managed to land a huge Grendel… one of the biggest ones I’d ever seen. 

When a big rain falls at my brother John’s Landing on Toledo Bend and the fresh water pushes the channel catfish into Harris Branch, I know I’ll soon hear from John. He doesn’t ask me to come and fish. He says, “Bring Pam down to the barge.” “I’ve got her chair waiting and plenty of “Catfish Charlie' bait.” John knows like I do that watching (and hearing) Pam fish is an entertainment all its own.

Pam and I haven’t fished much lately, but as soon as we get a few irons out of the fire, we plan to start fishing again. I’ll probably stop fishing after a little while and start photographing. But Pam won’t stop fishing. She’ll slide up and down the banks till she hooks one. Then there’ll be that earth-shaking shout: “Hey, Doug… Come see….”

“I got one!”