A Fishing Tale with Dad
When I was in high school, my dad was obsessed with fishing. He had his favorite methods—fly fishing with a delicate rod, trolling the lake with a spinning reel—but he also had a soft spot for the more unconventional approaches. Trot lines and homemade wire baskets were his secret weapons for hauling in catfish, even if they required a little extra effort.

The Art of the Trot Line
For those who’ve never seen one, a trot line is a masterclass in passive fishing. You tie a long line from one bank of the lake to the other, then attach shorter lines with baited hooks every foot or so. The whole thing sinks to the bottom, and over the next day or two, you check it repeatedly, re-baiting hooks and collecting whatever’s been caught. With a hundred hooks in the water, you’re bound to pull up something—even if it’s just a grumpy turtle or a small crappie.

The Mysterious Wire Basket
But the real adventure came with Dad’s wire baskets. These contraptions were basically giant fish traps—tubes made of chicken wire, about three feet wide and five feet long. One end was tied shut, and the other had a funnel-shaped opening. Fish could swim in after the bait but couldn’t figure their way back out.

The trick was placement. You could tie the basket to the bank with a rope (easy to retrieve but also easy for thieves to follow) or drop it somewhere hidden, relying on landmarks to find it later. The second method meant dragging a grapple hook behind the boat, sweeping the lakebed like underwater detectives until we snagged the basket.

The Ice-Cold Misadventure
One winter morning, we set out in Dad’s 14-foot aluminum boat—no frills, no depth finder, no cushions. Just cold metal under our feet and the hope of a good haul. But when we got to Lake Tuscaloosa, we found something unexpected: ice. Not thick enough to walk on, but enough to make the lake look like a slushy.

Did that stop us? Nope.

We plowed through the thin ice, the aluminum hull crunching along like a dull knife through a freezer burn. The cold seeped through our shoes, and every splash felt like a betrayal. But we had a mission: find the basket.

Back and forth we went, dragging the grapple, scanning the water for any sign of our trap. The minutes dragged on, our fingers numbed, and the boat got colder. Just when we were about to give up—success! The grapple hooked the basket, and we hauled it up, shivering with anticipation.

Our reward? A few small catfish.

Not exactly the monster haul we’d hoped for.

The End of an Era
Dad pulled the fish out, tossed them in the bottom of the boat, and yanked the basket from the lake for good. As we motored back to shore, the cold biting at our faces, we both knew: No more baskets.

From then on, we stuck to bank fishing in farm ponds, using light tackle to wrestle with monster catfish. Those big ones fought like demons, thrashing and cussing (yes, I swear they cussed) when we finally dragged them onto land.

Looking back, those frozen mornings and near-fruitless hauls were some of the best times. Not because we caught much, but because we were out there together—breaking ice, telling stories, and learning that sometimes, the best part of fishing isn’t the fish at all.