My old partner Bush and I would play the trains on the Jackson Road
out about forty miles above New Orleans, and then get off and wait
for a down train. Some times we would be compelled to get off
before we had gone that far; but, as a general thing, it would be
about that distance before we would get our work in on the suckers.
We would go up in the morning to a place called Manshak, and fish
until the train would come down in the evening. One day we were
fishing and had got some distance apart, when I saw a school of
large jack-fish coming down like lightning. I jumped up and grabbed
a pike pole that was lying near, slipped the noose over my hand
and let fly at them. I struck a big fellow, but he did not stop;
he kept right on and pulled me in after him. I yelled to Bush,
and he came running to assist me; he reached me a long pole, and
then pulled me out. The rope was still on my hand, and the fish
was on the pike pole, so we pulled him out, and he weighed about
sixty pounds. We took him down on the evening train, and had a
part of him broiled for our supper. Bush said it was the largest
fish he ever caught. I told him I caught it, when he said: "Why,
George, I caught you both."