One of the advantages of living in North Florida is that one discovers "things" that are known to the Georgia Crackers that settled there. In the spring when frogs get about their business of procreating and when the rains come every day between one and two in the afternoon, the small ponds, sinks, bar pits, and ocassional streams swell to overflowing. Then when the water seeps through the sandy soil to join that in the near-surface aquifier, the fish, turtles, tadpoles and what have you are trapped in areas which become smaller each passing day after the rains stop. It is only necessary to drive (or walk) through the pines to find a likely spot for trying your hand at fishing. It may be only ten or twenty feet across but litterally swimming in fish. Too small for casting, you have to use the natives approach, just a line on the end of a cane pole (in an emergency, one need only tie the line to the end of the spinning rod). Just about any bait or lure will work and if you have chosen well, you may catch 50 or 100 pan size and larger fish in a manner of an hour or so. This is really fishing in a barrel. If your concious bothers you, you may salve your sole with the thought that if you hadn't helped nature reduce the number of fish in the entrapment, they probably would have become a part of the detrius as the pond finally dried up. But what about the tadpoles?
When I worked for the "big frog" (Dr. Earl Frieden> at Florida State University, we were into studing metamorphis of tadpoles . Wondered how the creature could possibly survive passing from an aquatic to a terristial enviroment? The answer, at least in part, is that the hemoglobin of their red blood cells changes in molecular charactistics, aggregating if you like, to form dimers and tetramers that had vastly different oxygen binding capacities, so the tadpole can scavenger oxygen from the water more efficiently than necessary when it is living on land. But for these studies, you need tadpoles, and lots of them as the may be only the size of a pencil eraser (some species however are over a foot long). So our task was to "harvest" a couple of garbage cans full of tadpoles and keep them in our lab in bathtubs rigged for the purpose. Those same fishing spots could sometimes yield so many tadpoles that they litterally were one molar in concentration. One need only take a net designed for catching bait fish and a couple of passes through the water, being careful not to disturb the water moccosins and snapping turtles "nets" all the tadpoles one can carry in a plastic garbage can with just enough water added to keep them swimming.
Now on the subject of frogs and such, I must say the most enjoyable "fishing" experience is using a fly rod to catch frogs. Frogs can't keep a secret as to their presence and once they have sounded off, you can select a big one (usually the bigger the voice, the bigger the frog). Now casting the fly just infront of the frog is the easy part. Once he has decided that that morsel is for him and taken the bait, the tussle begins. Catching a pompano that is shaped like a plate involves trying to pull it through the water as it darts from side to side, a bass with acrobatics in and out of the water is a good fight and the catfish entangling your line on the bottom is a challenge but none equals the pound or better frog as he tries to make his escape. First diving, then swiming on the surface and finally he leaves his aquatic home to try a bout of water walking and acrobatics that would make the bass proud. Then when you have finally "landed" him, you have to chase him down to disentangle him from you line. And frogs like fish and snakes don't have a ready handle for holding when you are trying to remove the hook, but finally you can release him back to the pond.
ABOUT Joe Wortham