Female Crickets Really Do Catch More Fish

My friend Mark, owner of Fratesi’s Grocery, a famous Mississippi Delta country store, is a superb perpetrator of practical jokes, a skill shared by my boyhood best friend and mentor, the beloved old black man known by everyone as Jaybird. Mark sells a variety of baits, including crickets for bream fishermen. Before spending a day on the lake fishing for Chinquapins, the biggest, scrappiest, best-eating bream of all, Jaybird and I always bought crickets at the store. A grouchy, mean-spirited, surly character named Grady also bought bait there for his fishing trips, and never failed to insult Mark, especially when he bought homemade sandwiches, the Delta’s tastiest.