Catching Crawdads

Under the dilapidated blue bridge the sound of rushing water was music to my ears. It was a hot July morning and all I wanted to do was stick my feet in the creek. I ran across the bridge, lugging a bucket in one hand and a stick with string tied to it in the other. I yelled at my brother to hurry up with the bread, and flung my shoes off on the green marshy bank.

My brother and my cousins Matthew and Timmy strolled across the yard from the house. We were on a mission. We were going to catch some crawdads.

Finally, I heard the sounds of six feet clopping across the bridge. The crinkle of the bag of bread being swung above my brother's head made me crazy. I wanted to catch the most crawdads, but he held the key to my fortune.

I pressed the mushy white bread onto the end of the screw. It formed a hard ball, which landed with a plop when I flung it into the steady stream of water. I watched as the current pulled it along the bottom and it got stuck between two jagged rocks. A minnow fluttered by, its silvery back glinting in the sunlight. Patience. A cloud of dirt swirled up from a shadow next to one of the rocks, a claw poked out and probed the bread, testing it. I waited. The claw moved closer and a small body inched out from the sadow and into the pool of light. Timidly the claw grabbed at the bread, and all of a sudden the string became taught on my stick. I felt the tug and yanked the stick back.

"I got one," I yelled over my shoulder.

I pulled the end of the white string up to my face and looked into the eyes of the crawdad that had just become prey to my evil plot. Two beady eyes stared back at me. One pincher was stuck on the end of the string while the other clinked open and shut, grabbing at thin air. I seized the slimy tail and wiggled it back and forth to loosen the claw from the screw. The creature put up a fight, but eventually let go. I threw it in the twenty gallon pickle bucket and produced another piece of bread for the screw.

Moving down the bank, I squished my toes into the cool, damp mud. I was looking for the perfect spot. I had a strategy. Crawdads use shadows to hide in. Further down the creek were a lot of trees that hung over it as a canopy. The water was murkier here, lots of debris stirring around on the top. I crouched down and gently lowered my string next to a huge rock. I waited. A breeze blew and the leaves fluttered above, moving enough to scatter beams of sunlight across the bottom of the creek near my bait. Seconds later several bodies moved out from the shadows and hastened towards my trap. It didn't take long to catch one. It grabbed, I pulled, and a few seconds later it too was scraping the bottom of the pickle bucket.

After a few hours, I counted the critters cluttering the bucket. I had ten. Seth had seven, Timmy five, Matthew eight. My plan had worked. Feeling satisfied, I dumped my bucket and watched the crawdads scamper across the bottom of the creek bed to find solace in the shadows of another rock. "You can hide, but I'll catch you again tomorrow," I said as I walked back to the house for dinner.