Cajun Pap
One Friday afternoon we were all sitting around the Shanty spinning yarns, when Cousin Baby Gayle and his crew come drifting in. It was Teddy and Pete, Two Dogs, Max Green and Cajun Pap. We were all yackin', listening to diving stories.
The Weir Dam
After the droughts of the 80s and the plug blowout. The lake would stay up with the river rise, and drop again with it's falls, which made fishing conditions awful. I started out with the County Board of Supervisors. You see in the 80s the four fish camps were almost as big as the town of Tunica, about 160 acres of property, 1 mile long and 1/4 mile wide.
The Wildlife League
In the 1960s we had the Wild Life League, a piece of property between Mhoon's Landing and the north end of the Cutoff. It was a big timber company's property and our Tax Assessor, Bill Webb, worked it out somehow to form this league.
The Cutoff, In The Beginning
The Cutoff, in the beginning. The southern-most fish camp was H & R camp, south of Nel-Win. A man named Henry Lee ran H&R and they had a rail and tram, no dock. They would put their boats on, loaded with gear and motor, and launch it into the water ready to fish. The camps all had restaurants with cold beer and the kitchens would always cook what you caught that day.
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Looking Back
Let's rewind back in time to 1947, to 74 years ago and war had just ended for our country. The Army Corps. of Engineers planned to turn a 20 mile bend in the river into a 1/2 mile long "straight". This created the Tunica Cutoff, now Tunica Lake, and Bordeaux Point landing, or fish camp.
Hickie’s Place
Grand daddy’s old commissary building over the last 35 years has been 15 different bars, one was Hickie's. He was a local boy whose dad had the city barber shop on Main Street in downtown Tunica. The barber shop was on the corner where Fox Island Road meets Main Street. That's where all the men played dominoes during the day in the back room.
Grabblin or Noodlin’
We'z goin' Sunday 'bout dark to see how our luck for grabblin is. Some of y'all may know this as noodlin' I kin use the word "y'all" because most above the Mason-Dixon line have no idea what these are, though some Yankees have heard tell of noodlin'. See, what happens is... Well, we'll get to that.
The Cutoffs Burial At Sea
We had a tenant once, Larry White (God rest his soul), with a bad case of cancer. He was a coon-ass from Louisiana, Cajun, you know.
Casinos for Tunica
It was all the talk, King Baby had cut a deal with the Casino crew from the Gulf Coast to move to the Cutoff and set up shop. The coffee shop folks were a talking, I came in for a glass of tea and the retired crew wanted to know if I was going to get a "boat" at my camp.
Droughts of the 80s
During the drought’s of the mid 80’s we had only been in business about 5 years. The river would be below zero on the Memphis gauge by earl July. The lake silt bar would keep the lake at about a six foot river gauge. Early next year the timber company, Anderson Tully, was cutting timber on the island. They were loading flat top barges with timber to take to their Vicksburg mill.