On Friday night, Junior and his Dad took me to do something that I’ve always wanted to do, and that is in fact required to graduate with a Redneck major.

Yes, they took me frog gigging.

And of course, during a prime goofy-picture activity, I was having flash issues, and none of my photos came out.

We left the house about sundown, which is almost my bedtime, and drove out to the canals on the Westside. Once we pulled off the road and onto a canal bank, we all piled out to listen to the bullfrogs sing to see if there were any around. Didn’t hear much, but went on anyway.

One person drives, right up against the edge so another person freaks about falling into the canal. The person in the passenger seat shines a spotlight along the edge of the water, looking for beady little eyes to shine back and keeping her mouth carefully shut to keep the swarms of bugs out. The third person rides on the tailgate with the spear in hand, waiting for the truck to stop, or else sits screwed around sideways to see what’s going on.

When someone spots a frog, he stops the truck, and the spotter tells you where to go - from the front or the back, depending on which way the frog is facing. Then you sneak up on it, hovering the gig tines about six inches above the frog’s back, and then whammo. Shove that gig all the way down to the mud, and hold it there for the other person to get one if there’s another right there.

Then comes the tricky part. The little bastards are tough, and once you pull them out of the water, they’ll take their back legs and push themselves right off the tines, if you’re not careful. So you have to hurry up and yank him off, and toss him in the cooler. You better open that lid carefully though, or all of them will come bailing out, and then you’ve got a rodeo on your hands, chasing bullfrogs in the dark. Sometimes they do get off the gig, and then there’s a lot of hopping around, on both parts. Two full-grown men might be scrambling to re-catch one wounded frog, while someone’s girlfriend giggles helplessly from the sidelines and desperately wishes for the camera.

Junior outdid himself at one point, nailing two at once. They were getting it on and stacked vertically, like frogs do, and he ruined their whole night. They got him back though, and squirted nasty black eggs all over his pants, stinking up the truck to the point where my stomach was revolting. It was either sit on a sweatshirt or take the pants clean off; he sat on a shirt so he could keep gigging without tearing his knees up.

But after a couple of hours and a really good night, that cooler was full and I was having a hard time staying upright. We dropped Dad off, who’d volunteered to clean them, and rolled in home around 2 AM. Somehow, 2 AM is a lot easier to see when you’ve been drinking, and we hadn’t, although I thought that was also a traditional part of frog gigging. That must be in the advanced course.

Those frogs were meaty. A big bullfrog’s got at least as much meat on his legs as a hot wing. Dad cooked up a mess for lunch on Sunday and we ate ourselves silly, and he’s still got two or three good meals’ worth left in the freezer. It’s great meat too; sort of reminds me of clam, but stringier. Maybe a clam-chicken cross? It doesn’t taste at all like canal water smells, as you might expect, seeing where they come from.

I really had a good time too. It’s like hunting, but much faster paced, and you don’t have to be terribly quiet. It’s one of the few things that’s legal to spotlight in this state, and I realy enjoyed being the spotter the most. Gigging was fun too, but getting them off the prongs was a little bit on the gross side. Oh, I did it anyway, because gross don’t stop me, but it wasn’t my favorite part.

One more thing on my resume; frog gigging. Awesome.