Coon Dogs, Out Houses and Corn Cob Wine

Jessie’s Killer Attack Frog

 

By Gale Sparks

 

 

            Ever since old Jessie and I had become friends, we had had more adventures that I can possibly remember. Since Jess had been a confirmed bachelor for his seventy plus years he was

always anxious to see anyone pull in his drive. Someone to come up and help him hold his front porch down, sip homemade wine and watch the sunset.

I loved Jessie like a grandfather he was tall and lanky, he talked with a very slow laid back southern way. One of Jessie’s attributes that I admired from the first day we met was his dry sense of

humor. He had a talent for delivering a wise crack while looking you straight in the eye as serious as a judge handing down death sentence. I rarely ever heard Jessie break out in a hard belly

laugh, but he had a million dollar grin and every wrinkle in his face looked like laugh lines to me.

One of our more common interests was in frog legs, and agreed that that catching of the frog legs was every bit as enticing as the actual eating of the frog legs. In late spring and through the summer we would spend at least one night a week gigging frogs from most of the stock ponds in the county. Since Jessie was a native as well as a respected farmer in our county we managed to have free access to nearly any pond that we could think of.

Late into the month of August I had meandered up to Jesses a bit before sunset, and as was custom when I would arrive at his house a little early, Jessie would break out a bottle of his home made wine (what ever he happened to have in the Fridgedare at the time) along with a matching pair of Welch’s jelly glasses.

This particular evening our wine of choice was a unique and yet somewhat rare bottle of persimmon wine. That had been bottled and aged since the previous fall. Persimmons are as bitter as quinine during the summer, but after the first frost of the year and they fall from the trees they have more sugar content than any other fruit I know of.

After Jess and I had finished our final round from the jelly tumblers, and the bottle nearly finished, it was dark enough to go gig a few frogs. When I stood I realized I was just a bit too wobbly to get behind the wheel of my truck and drive to any of the area farms.

I admitted to Jessie that I didn’t think it would be too safe for either of us to be driving anywhere. We went ahead and finished off the bottle of his potent persimmon wine.

He suggested that since we hadn’t gigged his ponds since early spring that we might ought to just stay on his place and hunt his ponds. Over years of practice Jess and I had gotten our frog gigging down to a fine science. Since I was the only one of the two of us that owned a pair of snake proof hip waders. I would wade around in the pond slowly scanning the bank with my coon light, my headlamp slung over my shoulder as I carefully searched for pairs of red frogeyes glowing back at me.

I would signal Jess and we would sneak up on the frog in stealth mode. Something I acquired over years of gigging. I moved as slow as possible carefully easing towards the unwary amphibian trying not to ripple or wake the water. We found that using this method I was able to stick the frogs that were still in the water near the shore as well as point out the frogs that were near the waters edge sitting on the pond’s bank to Jessie.

After driving us safely through Jessie’s cow pasture to the water’s edge, without floating the truck. I slipped into my snake proof, hip high, swamp waders, and strapped on my coon light, ready for action in a wobbly kind of way. We gently closed the doors of the truck as we slipped into our stealth mode mind set.

I gently stepped into the water around midway in the pond at the shallow end. Jessie’s cattle had the bank mired from the constant use. We already knew from past experience that the bullfrogs, never bothered to hang around this end of the pond. We knew from the many times that we had hunted this pond that the best plan of action was for me to ease directly across the pond to the far side, while Jess made a wide sweeping pass through the pasture to slip around and join me on the opposite shoreline.

We had found that since this side had steep bank, it was usually up to me to stick most of the frogs we found on this side. Jessie standing high on the bank holding his flashlight had a better vantage point than me at this particular spot. I managed to pick up three frogs on this side of the pond in a few minutes.

Our normal pattern was to go down towards the deep end of the pond before returning to the spot where I had originally waded into the pond, usually by the time we had made the complete circuit the frogs on that side of the pond had came back up from the bottom and returned to their nightly serenade.

I slipped almost in a slow motionless manner to the deep end of the pond, as I neared the bank I discovered a huge cow pie that was sporting a pair of red glowing eyes. I froze, standing where I stood waiting for Jessie to catch up. I stood there motionless, trying to distinguish what it was that I had found. It was simply too big to be a frog. It sat nearly four feet from the bank of the pond behind the trunk of a big cedar tree, underneath a tangle of honeysuckle vines, and a tangle of blackberry briars

Jessie had finally gotten around to join me. I was filled with confidence that we had the creature pinned between, with no means of escape as we both crept forwards. I couldn’t believe what it was as it got with into view. There behind the cedar, under the honeysuckle all fat and crouched down was the biggest bullfrog we had ever seen in our lives.

We both saw the Mac daddy frog at nearly the same time. He was crouched to high up on the bank for me to reach, and Jessie was standing in the edges of blackberry brambles with a shot not much better than mine but better nonetheless. I still don’t know what it was going to prove but instinctively I crept closer as Jess drew back his spear. Like I said I don’t know what I was thinking. Maybe I thought that if Jessie missed his chance I could catch the monster before he hit the water or get a shot myself.

When Jessie chucked his gig it hit the honeysuckle vines telegraphing to the whopping frog that something was lurking above. I didn’t see it coming, ‘til he was in mid flight, flying at me was a frog that stretched out was nearly two foot in length. When he was almost upon me I could plainly see that his legs were almost the size of a turkey’s drumsticks and he had to weigh well over five pounds. I know because of the impact when the killer frog hit me at the point between my legs where my hip high waders met.

Yep the attack frog hit me right in the straddle. I lost my wind and balance simultaneously as I clutched myself and fell backwards into the water. I remember the cold spring water that fed the pond flooding into my boots, as well as the momentary strangeness of seeing the eerie brightness of my coon light waving underwater before the fuse blew on the battery.

I also felt the deep lung full of water I sucked in as the impact of pain in my crotch escalated. In a desperate attempt to keep from drowning I struggled to bob to the surface for a breath of air. When I broke to the surface everything was dark, no sign of Jessie’s flashlight or anything. I lost my balance once again from the five gallons of water inside each wader and now the extreme pain in my nether regions.

I managed to hold my breath as I went down for the second time. I managed to regain a bit of my balance and to finally stand once again. This time as I stood, I staggered towards the bank. I could recognize what looked like a light strobing through the cedar tree. After I leaned against the bank I realized that the strobing light was Jessie’s flashlight flickering as he rolled in the blackberries laughing at my pain.

Jessie managed to settle into his familiar chuckle long enough to help drag me out of his pond and pull off my water logged waders, a full body quiver ran through me as five gallons of water ran down my back from each boot.