Mom tells me (because I was way too young to remember) about the time when all the Hoggard-clan had had a big “Texas sized” day of Bass fishing on Lake Whitney. One at a time, the stories seemed to get bigger and better as my dad and each of his brothers told of that days fishing events, around the campfire at our family-reunion (as the telling of fish-tales went around, so did the jug). The stories came round till it became my turn to talk of the days fishing. In my cute little six year old voice, I stood up and told everyone quite sincerely how I had caught a 15 pound catfish with a 16 pound goose in it! Well, this got the attention of everybody. I went on to tell that when we first weighed the fish, it weighed 16 pounds! And that when we cut it open, I said “We tooked a big old goose out from inside”. “Then the fish weighed 15 pounds!”, I said.
My Uncle Russ was quick to tell me that the math shows that the goose weighed one pound. I said “uh-huh, and you should have seen that sucker… that old goose was this big” as I streched out my arms as far as they could go, to show that the goose was THIS huge! This got a big laugh from the bunch and lots of praise for years to come for telling the biggest fish story ever. The best of all Hoggard fish tales, for that day …. I had not even caught a catfish!
My math has improved quiet a bit, but the fish lies, um… I mean stories, have not!
“Hoggie” Hoggard
