Gregory Dupre
Fisherman
Bayou Pigeon, La.

Porceline Figure of Spoon Billed Heron Courtesy of Hill Memorial Library McIlhenny Collection

You hear all types of stories even the fact that John Lafitte when he was a pirate came up the Atchafalaya and buried treasures right here in the bayous. A lot of folklore you carry down from one tale to the next.

I fish crawfish and fish hoop nets for catfish, I occassionally caught crabs, also frogged, more less whatever is seasonal, whenever I need to be doing it. I did a lot of fur trapping, when I was a kid mostly. The value of fur nowadays is dwindled pretty low, and these animal activist people have been putting the bad rap on it. So the fur business has been going down.

I think as long as the basin keeps producing, I maybe prejudice in saying, but my idea of it is when you get good wild crawfish you got one of the best. These ponds, they do get some nice looking crawfish but most of them have bought seed stock out of the Atchafalaya Basin and planted it in their ponds. They're just growing a pond crawfish from our crawfish really, a lot of them, I'm not saying every one. I would hope that they would continue to take them from the Basin because it's the livlihood for a lot of people. You may not be the fisherman that's benefitting from it, but you might be a outboat dealer. You could be Winn Dixie getting groceries bought from a lot of these people.

Porceline Figure of Green Heron Courtesy of Hill Memorial Library McIlhenny Collection

Just all types of things, your gas, all your material supplies you need, someone else benefits by someone else doing a living with crawfishing. If it stops, especialy these little local stores down here, they know it. Because they do a nice business during peak season, and then when the crawfish is gone it is like death has passed over this place. There is no hustle and bustle, no activity.

There's an art in fishing and since the invention of the two-flew trap it doesn't take that much of a knowledge to know how to fish. If you can tie the string, opent the trap and throw bait in it you can virtually become a fisherman, overnight. It takes a lot of the skill away. There is skill in fishing, as far as knowing how to handle yourself, know what moves to make, to better your catch or things like that. But, like I said, nowadays we used to fish with 200 traps now they got peopele with 2000 and they're just playing like the casinos, gambling odds, just run, run, run. Really, we're losing a lot of space in the Basin because everyone's got the woods all tied up with traps.