Warm weather is here and that means fishing. For most people catching fish brings rods and reels or cane poles to mind. That, however, was not always the case.

The history of the methods of fishing is an interesting journey through time. Written accounts and archaeological evidence of fishing in the Tombigbee River Valley of Mississippi and Alabama tell an interesting story.

In prehistoric times and early historic times, Native Americans would fish using bows and arrows, spears or gigs, nets, fish weirs or traps and by poisoning the water. They also made hooks from turkey bones to use with a line thrown into the water or attached to a trot line. If there were large fish visible, they might even try to lasso them by getting a noose around its tail.

A good early view of fishing along the Tombigbee River and area lakes and streams is given by Gideon Lincecum who moved to Tuscaloosa in 1816, the Tombigbee in 1818 and Columbus in 1819. He also spent time living with the Choctaws and near Cotton Gin Port before moving to Texas in 1848.

Many of Lincecum’s fishing experiences are included in “Adventures of a Frontier Naturalist, The Life and Times of Dr Gideon Lincecum,” edited by Jerry Lincecum and Edward Phillips. The book includes hunting and fishing accounts Lincecum published in The American Sportsman in 1874 and 75.

One of Lincecum’s favorite methods of fishing was at night with a bow and arrow. He and a companion would wade into shallow water at night, one with a torch made of fat pine while the other followed with a bow and arrow. The light would attract fish. As they came close and became visible, they would be shot with an arrow.

Lincecum mentioned that a favorite bait on a line thrown into the water or on a trot line was deer liver. He soon learned that the best bait for big catfish were eels. He discovered that when he was gutting large 40- to 80-pound catfish and finding their principal diet was eels.

He also told of fishing in White Slue, now the Island across from Columbus. “The river was an excellent river for hook and line fish.

Buffalo fish took the bait freely all winter; large cat-fish and soft shell tortoise were abundant on troll-line; innumerable perch of many kinds could be caught all summer with young wasps and pinworms. In the round ponds and the big lakes in the White Slue, the black bass and large goggle-eyed perch were very plenty; minnows, large water spiders, lizards and small frogs would raise them any fair day in the winter time.”

Lincecum recounted another occasion in 1828 when he attended a grand Chickasaw “national picnic” at the invitation of Itewaumba, an “old chief.” The picnic was to be in August during a dry spell in which the Tombigbee near Cotton Gin Port (near present day Amory) was very low except for deep still water above some shoals. The Chickasaws had camped along the shoals as they gathered buck-eye root to make a fish poison. The poison was placed in baskets which were then plunged into the deep still water above the shoals. Soon the surface of the river was covered with stunned fish. English Indian trader James Adair had described the same Chickasaw method of fishing in 1775.

One popular prehistoric mode of fishing which survived in Mississippi until 1930 was a fish weir or fish trap. Some remains of prehistoric fish weirs have been found in Mississippi creeks and rivers. The oldest known image of a Native American fish weir is a circa 1585 painting by John White possibly while he was at Roanoke Island off present day North Carolina.

About six years ago I received a painting of a fish weir or fish trap, which was said to have been located near Fulton on the Tombigbee River. I sent a photo of it to John Connaway, a friend and retired Mississippi Department of Archives and History archaeologist. John’s book on fish weirs, “Fish Weirs: A Perspective,” was published in 2007 and is considered the authoritative book on the subject.

According to John the painting is, “definitely a fish weir, with wooden posts supporting wooden wings, and a fall trap in the apex. 1880s is an OK suggested date, although it could have lasted up to 1930s when they were outlawed. It is a historic type trap, not Indian. A fall trap had slats in the bottom for the water to run through as the creek rose or fell but narrow enough to trap the fish when they swam into it, and it was tilted up to adjust to the water levels. My Fishweirs book has a photo from 1925 of one similar at Fishtrap Hollow in Bear Creek, Tishomingo County. … It clearly shows the fall trap with slats and stair-step construction, with three people on it. I recorded several others in the northeast and east part of the state that are described in the book. … Late 1800s – early 1900s is a good time frame. I also noted a lean-to or rack of some kind up on the hillside perhaps where the fisherman camped out waiting for the trap to fill.”

As to the tree cut down and lying across the river, John said, “I suspect that was done as a bridge across rather than blocking the flow, since they would want the fish to flow with the stream into the weir, which acts as a funnel into the fall trap. Maybe they walked across the tree to get the other side of the weir for repairs or access to the trap from that side.” The painting is an example of the survival of an ancient mode of fishing into the early 20th Century.

Rufus Ward is a Columbus native a local historian. E-mail your questions about local history to Rufus at [email protected].

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