Exford King House as it looks today

 

The very first part of Exford’s house was built aproximately in 1933.  I know because my name and the date can be seen in the concrete footings.  I would have been one year old.  We were living in Grandpa Xavier’s house. 

Dad was being paid 25 cents an hour laying cement for the new road.  He had a wife, four kids, and was building a house.  The floor joists came from an abandoned barn.  The vertical wall studs came from abandoned telephone crossbars.  (Recyling is nothing new). 

 His cousin, Father Moses Minnie, loaned him 800 dollars to complete the structure.  There were later additions on the right-hand side starting in 1940.  So, this is where I grew up.  My bedroom was near the left dormer window upstairs.  I lived there much of the time until 1953 when Uncle Sam grabbed me.

Posted by cheryljk for Richard

Bullheads

We called them bullheads. Some other folks called them bullpouts. Francophones around Chazy Lake called them barbottes. I think that black bullhead is the accepted term. They are actually a type of catfish with “whiskers” near their mouth. These are feelers, I suppose, because they usually feed after dusk.

When we were kids we caught hundreds of them over the years. In some places people disdain them by saying they taste bad or look ugly. But, hey, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Actually the taste is very much like that of a brook trout. The flesh, however, is less firm, not like that of a pike.

In May, during their spawning time, one of the best places to catch them was at the mouth of Seine Bay Brook. In full sunlight, if one looked out into the shallow water, he would not be able to see the bed of the stream because it would actually be black from shore to shore with bullheads all heading upstream. Many folks came from Lyon Mountain and other places to fish for them there.

The tackle people used was basic. Some used telescoping steel rods with a simple reel. Others used cane poles or hand-cut saplings. I would cut myself a pole on the way to the bay. Usually it would be of alder. Boys, at that time, almost always carried a jackknife, and alder was easy to cut. Mostly for line we used a heavy threadlike, black fishline. A large hook with a long shank worked best because it was easier to extract the fish from inside its mouth. Normally we didn’t use lead sinkers although sometimes I would use a steel washer or nut for weight in current. The bait of choice was a big, juicy nightcrawler. Naturally, I knew the best places to dig for them was at the outlet of the cesspool.

Another good place to fish was Mud Pond. At that time there were a few brook trout there, but one didn’t catch many. The very biggest bullhead we caught there weighed about two or three pounds. In the lake they were much smaller. Once I was at the edge of the brook and I noticed hundreds of bullheads on the shore gasping for breath. some were dried out and dead. Obviously there had been a flood. I followed the course of the brook upstream all of the way to Mud Pond, and still there were dying fish everywhere–no trout just black bullheads. When I finally reached the big beaver dam I saw immediately that a section of it had washed out either by a flood or, perhaps, it had been blasted out with dynamite. Whether this was an act of nature or just that of some dam damn fool, I never found out. Soon the beavers went to work, however, and repaired the damage. It took a few years before good fishing returned.

One could catch the bullheads all summer long at dusk and at night time. They could be caught almost anywhere one dunked a worm. My brother Jim and I liked to go up to the bay at Deep Inlet to fish them. I remember one clear, dark, moonless night while we were fishing and looking at stars and constellations that the first Russian Sputnik came tumbling across the sky. It is common to see them now, but, at that time, it was a thrill.

Of course, I have to mention the numerous times I was stuck in the thumb by one of the spines on the fish. There were three spines. One was on each side near the fish’s gills. The other was along the spine on the dorsal fin. The spines were very sharp, and if a person was unlucky enough to get pierced by one, it was very sore for quite some time. Some people say that there is poison on the barb. One or the other of my thumbs was usually sore all summer long. Eventually I learned how to grasp them safely.

These fish had no scales. Instead they were covered by a tough hide that had to be peeled away. My dad taught me an easy way to strip the skin off quite easily. Some other people would use pliers.

Normally we would just fry them unbreaded with salt and pepper. One never worried about bones because they all came out at once sort of like with brook trout but easier.

I suppose that now I should thaw out some frozen salmon that I bought at the store. That will be good, but it’s not the same. I’d rather have the bullheads.