When I was young and with much fewer tethers I lost count of
how many frogs fell to my gig. My cousin
and I decided to go out and gather frog legs from all the ponds in our area
with our newly gained driver’s licenses.
We struck a deal with a friend to use his old aluminum flat bottom boat
for the small fee of a mess of frog legs, and we were in business. We had no paddles, nor did he have any
paddles to borrow along with the boat, so we used spades and shovels to
motivate through any water we encountered.
We carried that boat mile upon mile through fields and woods to get it
into all the farm ponds we knew of.
Most of the ponds we gigged soon showed evidence that they
had not been harvested in years due to the number and size of the frogs we were
able to collect. Flashlights came and
went and I believe we ended up with the most success using my cousin’s old coon
hunting light with the cord and large detached battery. We worked at first to remove the legs from
the frogs in the boat with a large skinning knife, but soon found that a
hatchet or machete worked really well against a flat piece of lumber. Several nights we collected upwards of 50
sets of legs and not nearly as much sleep.
We fought off many snakes and jumped many sleeping herons and other
wading birds from their night perches as we worked each bank of each pond.
Since then I have not gone gigging nearly as much, but each
year I do attempt at least one foray into the frog waters to claim a small
batch of legs. I plan to do much more of
this in the future, but my situation is thus at present that I am squeezed for
time more so than anything. My equipment
has gotten much better and I’ve developed a one man system that is much more
efficient, lighter and quicker. I have a
few head lamps and some smaller but brighter lights, I have a small kayak and a
longer gig handle I’ve fashioned from bamboo.
The Eating
I love frog legs, and I have since also come up with quite a
few more ways to prepare them, one of those being a sauce piquant I will
attempt to post a recipe for in the future.
I also try to bring frog legs to all the people who used to support my
adventures growing up, from the friend who lent us his boat, to the various
other folks who were always good to me along the way, who now may not be able
to go out in pursuit of their own fresh frog legs. I believe the very rarity of such an item and
the knowledge of what went into getting them really leaves an impact more so
than anything that could have been bought at any grocery store. I hope that I will be able to continue to gig
for many years to come, and I do plan to pass this knowledge down to my children
and God willing grandchildren when the time comes. I have scouted out a great many new locations
that I have not yet been able to take advantage of since I’ve moved back home,
but I will hopefully get to do just that soon and I will be sure and post
further about any successful forays. God’s
bounty isn’t always easy to obtain, it isn’t always aesthetic, but if you have
never had properly prepared frog legs, then you have not truly experienced this
bounty at all. I never thought I’d be
thankful for a frog, but as it turns out the more time I spend not gigging the
more I value each outing I do get to go on.
Psalm 105:30
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