Jim Buchanan's Scona Stories: He Caught My Fish!

 

HE CAUGHT MY FISH

by James Buchanan 

A couple hundred yards from our house at Scona, a small mountain stream by the name of Tallassee Creek ran into the Little Tennessee River. It was a great little creek where a kid could do some fishing. At its mouth where it ran into the Little Tennessee, was a really good place to catch fish.

On our very first day at Scona, I went fishing there and caught two pan fish that Mother fixed for our dinner that evening. The following spring there was a pan fish spawning run. My parents let me play hooky and fish all day for a couple of days at the creek’s mouth. I don’t recall exactly how many fish I caught, but it was over ten each day.

About a third of a mile up Tallassee Creek there was a nice big pool that was maybe about five feet deep at its deepest point. The boys who lived at Scona used this as a swimming hole in the summer. When the summer days were good and hot, we took advantage of our swimming hole quite frequently. I noticed that there was a nice big small-mouth bass, maybe fourteen or fifteen inches long, that was doing the same. So, I set out to catch it but nothing worked. I tried all sorts of baits and lures, but it just wouldn’t take a bite. I tried slipping up so it couldn’t see me, but that didn’t help. I slipped in a way up stream and let the current take my bait down to the pool, but still the big bass would not take the bait.

Sometime during the summer, my cousin Eddy came to visit, and I told him about the fish I had been trying to catch. Of course he was interested in trying to catch it, so we grabbed some fishing gear and bait and headed off to the pool. As soon as he threw in his line, the bass took the bait and Eddy pulled in my fish. I could not believe it. I had tried everything to catch the fish.

I was really upset I had told Eddy about the fish and taken him to the pool, but I tried not to show it. The fish wound up as our dinner that evening which would have been its fate if I had caught it, so I guess it didn’t really matter, at least for the fish, who caught it.

Below: a scene along Tallassee Creek