WhatFinger


Three words describe Grady’s gullibility: hook, line, sinker

Use Female Crickets



Mark Fratesi, who owns a country store in the Mississippi Delta, is an outstanding perpetrator of practical jokes, a skill shared by my boyhood best friend and mentor, the beloved old black man known by everyone as Jaybird. At his store, Mark sells all kinds of fish bait, including worms and crickets for bream fishermen. Jaybird and I always bought our crickets from Mark before going after the biggest, scrappiest, best-eating bream of all: the Chinquapin.
Another of Mark’s patrons was a grouchy character named Grady who always stopped to buy crickets, drinks, and sandwiches before heading to the lake for a day of fishing. The old reprobate insulted Mark every time he entered the store, especially when he bought sandwiches, the Delta’s tastiest. “You make these sandwiches three days ago, or four?” he’d sneer. Although Mark prepared them daily, he always answered, “Can’t remember.” Mark was biding his time, knowing that someday he would get a chance to even the score with the cantankerous old coot. One morning, while Jaybird and Mark were dressing a mess of Chinquapins, Grady sauntered up. “I’ll swunnee! Where’d y’all catch them monsters? Whud they hit?” Jaybird winked at Mark. The luminous gleam in their eyes signaled that revenge time had come. “We caught ’em at Percy Blue Hole,” Jaybird said. “They are bedding up around cypress knees. We woulda caught more but run out o’ crickets.”

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“Run out? Mark’s got aplenty rat here at the store.” “We learned something about Chinquapins today,” Jaybird said. “They prefer female crickets.” Grady stared at the two men suspiciously, his grizzled jaw shifting a cud of tobacco from one side to the other. “Shoot! Sell me some of them female crickets — I gotta git to Percy rat now!” “Too bad, old podnuh,” Jaybird said. “We used up all the females. But, best I can tell, the only difference in females and males is the black stripe down the female’s back.” “I’ve got plenty of male crickets,” Mark said. “If you buy a felt-tipped marking pencil and draw a black line down a male cricket’s back before you put him on the hook, the Chinquapins will hit just the same.” Three words describe Grady’s gullibility: hook, line, sinker. Mark filled Grady’s bait box with “male” crickets and sold him a marking pencil.

After Grady left, Mark said, “Let’s go to Percy, slip up close to where he’s fishing, and take some pictures of him trying to paint a stripe down a wiggling cricket’s back.” “Then you can put those pictures up in the store for everybody — including Grady — to see,” Jaybird snickered. Barely able to control their laughter, Mark and Jaybird managed to snap the photographs and sneak away unseen by Grady. If you stop at Mark’s store to eat one of his world famous sandwiches you will see the photographs displayed on the store’s wall. Below them are these words: Grady is the best bream fishermen in the Mississippi Delta. What is his secret? Use female crickets.


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Jimmy Reed -- Bio and Archives

Jimmy Reed is an Oxford, Mississippi resident, Ole Miss and Delta State University alumnus, Vietnam Era Army Veteran, former Mississippi Delta cotton farmer and ginner, author, and retired college teacher.

This story is a selection from Jimmy Reed’s latest book, entitled The Jaybird Tales.

Copies, including personalized autographs, can be reserved by notifying the author via email (.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)).


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