Feature Story
Grabbin’ Suckers
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rabbin’ suckers are nothing complicated, nothing new. Just ask the folks from Nixa, MO. It goes back to a time when families lived from the land. They raised pigs and fattened and butchered them. They milked a few cows by hand and drank the milk. They kept plenty of chickens for their eggs. When they wanted fried chicken for Sunday dinner, they would just grab one, cut off its head, pluck the feathers and fry it up in lard, made from the pig, on the old wood stove. They always looked forward to April and May when sucker fish would school together in significant numbers in the shallow shoals of local streams and rivers to spawn. Fish from the sucker family include yellow suckers, white suckers, blue suckers and redhorse. They were a special treat to the hard-working families, and they caught them any way they could.
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CONSERVATION FEDERATION
In later years both farmers and city folk started using fishing rods with 20 to 30-pound test line, heavy sinkers and big treble hooks. A small white cloth was attached above the hooks, so they always knew where they were in the water. When they saw a sucker swim past the white marker, they would jerk hard and hope the hooks sunk into the fish. Fishers would stand on the gravel bars or elevate themselves on trees, rocks and even ladders to better see the fish in the water. Some even used stable flat bottom boats. Polarized sunglasses became popular because they could better see the fish. There was no limit on the number of suckers you could keep back then.
