Hogging or Graveling??

I had a friend of a mutual friend today email me today that they had just stocked a stream near his home that he was going "fishing."

That developed into a discussion of how to harvest fish. He favored dynamite and I favored an old magneto from a telephone. And when I mentioned hogging he indicated he thought I was referring to graveling. Perhaps.

Hogging is not for the faint of heart. The essence of it is to take a toe sack, strip off and walk in waist deep, or more, water along the banks of sloughs and streams, reaching up and under where the water has undercut the bank looking for enclaves where catfish have made their homes. You grab what you can, pull it out and put it in the sack. The question is, what have you grabbed?

As a youth I was always cheered by the assurance of my elders and peers that a snake can't bite you underwater. I later found that to be untrue, or perhaps the snakes of my youth had been convinced that they couldn't. Truth be known, I never unwittingly or knowingly grabbed a snake, and was known to quickly yield possession of the water to any snake I saw at any distance. However,on dry ground I was a deadly and dedicated foe to the cotton mouths and copperheads we saw at every turn. My memory of these dastardly reptiles and actual pictures are somewhat different, but then one can't be too careful when it is known that one bite will result in death within two minutes.