Mississippi

I arrived in Biloxi the Friday before Labor Day, a day before we were going fishing. Dick Wilson gave me the local tour, starting with a drive by the casinos that have sprung up on barges along the coastline. Apparently the voters approved the concept of gambling as long as it isn't on Mississippi soil. On my way to Biloxi I passed several communities which had gambled on gambling. People voted to make it legal, but only if it's on a boat or a barge or a Native American Reservation.

Dick also took me to the Marine Museum and Aquarium. It started small, with fishermen and beach combers donating stuff for local children to see. Now it has several large aquariums, some with reptiles, some with saltwater fish and some with freshwater fish. It's still low key, still stocked by local fishermen, but now it's an impressive place where I got to see the fish we hoped to catch over the next two days. If I lived in Biloxi, I would spend lots of time at the aquarium. In fact, it disturbed me when I heard the casinos want to purchase this place to get the land for parking. This is not only a museum of what Biloxi used to be; it's a symbol of what Biloxi could be.

We went to Ocean Springs to see the studio of the artist, Walter Anderson. Walter died in 1965 and this studio has been converted into an art museum. Walter painted the studio walls and door and window sills and ceiling of this small room. Then he rowed his dinghy to Horn Island about seven miles out in the gulf, where he spent months at a time drawing and painting the wildlife. He even perched in trees hoping to be able to better understand herons and egrets and other sea birds. The Smithsonian magazine recently did an article about Walter Anderson (October, 1994) and I'd suggest anyone interested in art should read it.

While in Ocean Springs we went to look at the site where the new Vietnam War Memorial is being built. Dick was a fighter pilot in Vietnam and he is the driving force behind the building of this memorial.

We ended our tour with a trip to the harbor to see the entries in the Labor Day weekend fishing rodeo. Fishermen paid $40.00 each for the opportunity to catch a fish big enough to win a cash prize. In other words it was their fishing casino. Dick had entered this competition and so had his son, Marty. Dick didn't fish the first day of the competition and he wanted to see what we had to catch in order to win and I think he wanted to see how his son had done on his first day of fishing.

Early the next morning, Dick and his brother-in-law, Mike and I put the boat in the water and started the 50 or 60 mile ride to the offshore drilling rigs where the Cobia hang out. We didn't get far when Dick announced the sea was too rough for his boat and we were going to have to fish on the leeward side of Horn Island. This we did, catching some Spanish Mackerel and Snapper Blues and Ladyfish. Next we motored over to another island and anchored near a buoy used to mark some under water structure. Here we caught Grunt and Croaker and White Trout (not really a trout) and nuisance Catfish (a White Catfish with extremely poisonous side barbs) and 3 Black Tip Shark about 25 to 30 inches long. These fish are great fighters and catching them made my trip worthwhile. One Shark was on the boat floor while I reached for pliers to remove the hook from his mouth. I had my left hand on the boat floor about six to eight inches away from the Shark's head. I didn't know a Shark could see while it was out of the water, but it can see and it did and what it saw was my hand and what it did was jump me, putting two teeth marks in my hand. I didn't want Mike and Dick to think I was stupid, so I sucked the wound until the bleeding slowed enough to put a bandage on it.

In two days we fished a lot and caught a lot of fish, but not what we had planned on catching. Dick's son, Marty had spent these two days fishing with his friends and he caught lots of Cobia. I could see the subtle way Marty told his father about his fish and where he had caught them. He put the knife in and gave it a turn, but his dad knows; if you teach someone something and they do it better than you do, you have been a successful teacher.

Marty invited me to fish with him the next time I'm in the area. After listening to him talk about the Cobia and how they zoom out of the deep water to get the chum tossed in by fishermen and how they hit the bait and run with it after they're hooked, I know I want to catch a Cobia. Anyway, I need to catch a Cobia just to finish this story.