Page 83 - a-columbia-county-boys-recollections-and-memories-of-columbia-county-florida-(2012)-lenvil-h-dicks

A Columbia County Boy's Recollections and Memories of Columbia County Florida (2012) Lenvil H. Dicks

FISHING THE CAT-HOLES

About a mile and a half south of Ft. White, Highway 47 crosses the Santa Fe River. Not too far east of
Highway 47, I would say within 1/8 to 1/4 of a mile east of the highway and north of the bridge out in
the woods, there are some ditches that are filled with water, and one would first assume that these were
just ditches that had become filled with rain water. There was nothing attractive about these ditches, and
a person might walk by one of them many times and not realize really what they were.

East of that area, the Santa Fe River takes a large sweeping bend toward the northwest, and these so-
called ditches are sort of inside of the modified letter “C” that is formed by that curve in the river.

My oldest sister Golde’s husband, Eric Markham, and my sister Emerald’s husband, Otis Stewart, were
avid hunters and fishermen, and I became aware of what really was going on with those ditches from
them.

1 found that we could put an extra heavy weight on a fishing line attached to a reel and rod, with a large
hook and a chicken liver just below the weight, and if a person would hold the tip of that rod out over
one of these ditches and allow it to unwind it would start falling down into the water and would go 50—
75 feet down before the weight would bump the bottom, and then you could simply rewind your reel
until you had that weight and the hook a few inches off the bottom.

Actually what it was, was the Santa Fe River actually running partially underground across the bottom
of the so-called ditches, which we called the “cat-holes”. The reason we called them the cat-holes, is
because you could always without fail catch a bunch of catfish out of them using the method I have
described, and it was so odd just apparently fishing in a little ditch out in the middle of the woods, where
you could not even see the river, and every few minutes pull up a nice size catfish that would weigh
anywhere from a pound and half to 5 pounds. Of course that is why we call them the cat-holes, and 1
wonder if anyone ever does what we did anymore.

I was doing this with Eric and Otis when 1 was a boy probably between the ages of 13 and 17, which
means it has been between 60 and 70 years since I dropped a hook into one of those cat-holes. I wonder
if anyone ever does that anymore, and I also wonder if many people even knew what was there besides
Eric, Otis, and me.

Sometime when I get time, and I’m doing nothing, I may park my car north of the river bridge on 47 and
walk back into those woods and see if those cat-holes are still there, which I’m sure they are. I do not
think they could move, and certainly no one could move them.

If I decide to do that, 1 will have to guarantee Beadie that someone will be with me to keep me out of
trouble trying to explore for the cat-holes at age 83.

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