The ‘Too’ River

by Timothy F. Rogers

For some, fishing presents a conundrum: if you’re a vegetarian, you don’t do it. If you’re not a vegetarian, you probably can’t get enough -- particularly freshwater game fish like blue bream, red-breast, big-mouth bass or catfish. Nothing like a plate of fried catfish, grits, gravy, and red-horse bread. Nothing like it.

Modern-day fishermen are known to complain about the Edisto River as the “Too” River. Too hot, too cold, too wet, too dry: missing some essential ingredient necessary to be in good fishing shape, defined by “my catch being too small!”

But I come from a line of fishermen. Frank Folk and Roy Cooner fished the Edisto River in Bamberg County. Rarely did they come back from a trip not loaded to the limit with as much big-mouth bass as the law would allow.

For this, there were several reasons: one was regularity. Pap & Roy fished every Thursday. Not most Thursdays. Every Thursday. Any other priority trailed. Someone would have to die and their funeral would have to wait. That was just the way it was. Over the years, they became familiar with the River, with the fishing holes, the shifting beds. They knew where the fish were.

Second reason was they had a paddler. For Pap, he had the same paddler every time: Trigger.

Trigger lived in an apartment over Mammy & Pappy’s Western Auto Store on Main Street. He was always ready to go. Paddling was his profession and his calling; his art. And he was an artist. There was no motor in Pap’s boat: there was Trigger. The Edisto’s current is swift, but Trigger could maneuver the boat easily across it. He was a master at holding the boat in place long enough for Pap to work a hole where he knew a giant big-mouth loved to hang out.

A third reason was traffic: there was much less of it, and Pap and Roy were quiet - careful not to add any noise to the atmosphere.

Frank Folk, a.k.a. Pappy, died in 1964. Six months later, Roy Cooner, the Bamberg mortician, died. Both had been predeceased by Trigger. An era came to an end.

Many more fishermen ply the Edisto now, with fancy motors and sophisticated gear. Despite that, one thing remains the same: the Edisto River itself. To quote Trigger, one of its best paddlers: “It always has.”