Fishtales
March 30, 1998
Jim Pope has been catching fish of all kinds in Tennessee for years. Catching hog suckers is a lot like hunting, too.
Memories of Hog Suckers from the Creek
Jim Pope
The hog sucker is a unique fish. It is a member of the carp and redhorse family, and supports a small, round, sucker-like mouth on the underside of the end of its head. The hog sucker is a beautiful fish with its brown and black blotches of color randomly placed along the sides and back of its long body.
In the early spring, this unnoticed aquatic creature seeks others of its kind in preparation for the spawn. It was then when Dad and I would walk the creek bank looking for potholes full of hog suckers.Hog suckers have always been considered a `rough fish'. Their flesh is meshed with tiny bones, and only those who appreciate their great taste sought them out. As a child, I appreciated their great taste simply because Dad said that they were good, and Mom made them good.
Catching the hog suckers required stealth similar to today's modern jet fighter. The bottom hanging creatures were extremely spooky. Dad had a way of locating a school from a great distance. Once located, we would try to work our way to the creek's edge, within cane pole's distance of the fish. The next trick was to manipulate the large set of grab hooks under the nose of a chosen hog sucker. Once that was accomplished, a quick jerk usually connected. Some of the big suckers probably weighed over two pounds, and they put up a good fight.
The school would scatter, but the fish would return in a couple of minutes. Dad and I would take turns hooking up with the biggest fish we could find. We had a great livewell system. It was a burlap bag tied to a root or limb and hung in the water. As we caught the hog suckers, we simply pitched them in the bag. Dad must have been wildlife conservationist. We never took more than a good mess of fish. I can remember him suggesting that we could always come back and get some more. We didn't have a freezer at that time, and there was no good way to keep more than we could eat.
Preparing the hog suckers for the table was a bit different than preparing a bass or perch. Dad would scale and clean the fish, then he would cut through the sides (both vertically and horizontally) at approximately one-quarter inch intervals. Mom would then salt and coat each whole fish in cornmeal. She would rub the meal into all of the slits. In smoking hot lard or bacon drippings, Mom would cook the fish until they were `crispy done'. The multitude of tiny bones was never noticed. I don't know how a hog sucker would taste now, but they sure were good forty years ago.
