Dad’s Favorite Spots and Techniques
I know I’ve been writing quite a few posts lately about my Dad and fishing, but if there is one thing you need to know about the man, it’s this: his heart belonged to his family, and right after that came fishing. Today, I want to take a trip down memory lane and share a few of his favorite fishing holes, the unique techniques he used, and some of the best stories from our time on the water together.
Barnett Lake: The Jitterbug and “Save My Matches!”
Our first stop is Barnett Lake in Fayette County. Back in the day, this was a beautiful private pay-to-fish lake. You’d turn off the county road and head down to the water, where they had a little building stocked with drinks and snacks. If no one was manning the shop, the rule was simple: just honk your horn. The owner lived close by, and the sound would bring him right down to take care of you.
We fished Barnett Lake a lot, but one particular trip stands out. Dad was up at the front of the boat, casting one of his favorite crank baits—a Jitterbug. He threw it right near the little island in the middle of the lake. As soon as it hit, the water just rolled up. Dad snatched the rod back, started reeling, and immediately knew he had a monster on the line.
The more he reeled, the more excited he got, until he couldn’t contain himself and yelled out, “Save my matches!”
Now, I have no idea where that phrase came from. Dad didn’t smoke, he didn’t carry a lighter, and he certainly didn’t cuss. “Save my matches” was just his clean, purely excited way of celebrating a great catch without offending anyone. He got that fish into the boat, and it was such a beauty that he had it mounted. It hung proudly on our wall for years.
Lake Tuscaloosa: Trot lines and the Monster Catfish
When Dad was fishing for food rather than sport, he had a different method altogether: running a trotline across Lake Tuscaloosa. A trotline is basically a heavy nylon line stretched from one side of a narrow section of the lake to the other. To set it up, you add weights so the main line sinks to the bottom. Then, about every foot or foot-and-a-half, you attach a smaller drop line with a baited hook. The whole setup just sits right there on the bottom, either overnight or throughout the day, just waiting for catfish to cruise by.
We would put the boat in at Binion Creek and head north toward Holly Springs where the lake narrows. One morning, we pulled up to check a line we had set the evening before, and the bush it was tied to was violently shaking. That meant one of two things: we had a massive fish, or we had caught the Loch Ness Monster (and I’m pretty sure Nessie wasn’t living in Alabama).
We started at one end, pulling up the heavy line little by little, checking each hook. About halfway out, Dad pulled up a monster catfish. We had already caught several good ones that morning, but nothing like this. We wrestled him into the boat, finished checking the line, and headed home. When we put that catfish in a large galvanized wash tub, it was so big that its nose reached all the way around the curve of the tub and actually overlapped past its tail! That single fish provided us with several amazing meals.
Lock 17: Concrete Oatmeal and the Blue Rock Wall
When Dad wasn’t in the boat, you could usually find him at Lock 17, right at the Alabama Power Company discharge chute. This is where the water from the upper side of the dam rushes through the powerhouse turbines and blasts out into the Black Warrior River. The flow could be absolutely fierce—you could stand on the rocks nearby and actually feel the ground vibrating beneath your feet.
Dad wasn’t there for dinner; he was there for the fight. He knew huge carp hung out in that turbulent water, and he had a very specific strategy for catching them. He would take a sturdy treble hook and use plain old oatmeal for bait. He’d moisten just a little bit of the oatmeal and mold it into a tight ball right around the hook. The secret was that the oatmeal ball would harden up like cement, refusing to fall off even in that rushing water.
Dad would cast his rod as far out into that swift water as he could, and almost every time, a massive carp would take it. Fighting a huge fish in that strong current was exactly the kind of thrill Dad loved. He would catch a bunch of them and either release them or share them with his coworkers at Bryce Hospital.
His buddy Mr. Jack used to tag along, but Mr. Jack was a bit like me—he didn’t trust that raging water and hated being there when the dam was discharging.
My own experience at Lock 17 was a little different. The last time I went over there with Dad, I was fishing below the chute where the water is calmer. I hooked something that put up a really good fight. I reeled it in, and up came a doggone eel. To me, it looked way too much like a snake, and I wanted absolutely nothing to do with it. I laid my reel down right there on the bank, climbed up the Blue Rock wall, and yelled down to Dad where my rod was. I told him, “I’ll meet you back at the car. I ain’t doing nothing with that!”
A Changing Landscape
Looking back, I realize how lucky we were, because you just can’t recreate those memories today. Barnett’s Lake is now closed to the public. Out on Lake Tuscaloosa, there’s far too much boat traffic nowadays to safely string a trotline across the water. And Lock 17 is completely barricaded. After 9/11, they put up gates for security, meaning you can’t even see the dam or the powerhouse from the bank anymore.
I understand the need for safety and the changing times, but it’s a genuine shame that so much of this history is locked away. People today can’t experience the simple, wild freedom of fishing those spots exactly the way we did. But even if the places are closed off, the memories of the vibrating ground at Lock 17, the monster catfish in the wash tub, and Dad shouting “Save my matches!” will always be perfectly preserved.