As soon as Toledo Bend opened it was my lake. If time and opportunity permitted I tried to fish there. In those days I had never seen bream the size that were being caught in great abundance. On this day, ‘Scratch’ and I started off with 200 crickets and the fish, ‘They were a bitin.’ We had worked our way back into this relatively shallow cove and had found our ‘Honey Hole.’ We had lost all track of time and how many fish we had caught when we realized we were out of crickets. We had been catching the huge Red Ear bream as big as my hand and about two inches thick…we were tearing them up. We were not ready to stop fishing even to go get more crickets which would have interrupted our fun. I then noticed a lady fishing from the bank and what luck, she had crickets. I eased the boat over close enough that we could speak without yelling. ‘Having any luck,’ I asked. She said, rather proudly, ”I’ve got about five in my bucket, but I’m about ready to go.” I saw an opportunity. ‘Would you consider trading some of your crickets for some fish?’ I asked. She said, ”I sho’ would. I got about 10 crickets lef, but I’d be glad to trade.” Well, she the same kind of cricket box as I, so we just exchanged cricket boxes. I never counted the crickets, but there were more than 10. I asked her, ”How many fish do you need for a mess?” ”Oh, I don’t know. Maybe 10.” I said, ”Would you consider it fair if I give you 20 fish for the crickets you have?’ ”Oh, my Lord. That would be more than fair. That would be like Jesus feeding the 5,000.” And so we struck a deal and she gave a biblical lesson in humanity and love to boot. She left happy, yet we received the blessing.

Editors Note: Be sure to read Dennis Coleman’s column each month in the paper issue of Around The Town.