Pitchforking for Flounder

An afternoon drive along Seaside Road revealed fish drying on hot tin roofs.

Illustration by the late Doug Corkern of Bluffton, SC. Doug created this special drawing for my book Southern Traditions, where the story was first published.

Between St. Helena Sound and Port Royal Sound, lying along the South Carolina coast just a short distance from Beaufort, are eight barrier islands. Two miles north is the southern shoreline of St. Helena Island.  It was on this island at the water’s edge that legendary sportsman and Lowcountry native, the late Pierre McGowan grew up. 

It was about the year 2013 when I was on St. Helena Island signing books at the Red Piano, Too Art Gallery. Little did I suspect what was about to happen. None other than the legendary Pierre McGowan walked through the front door with a load of books in his arms and sat down on the bench right next to me. Pierre was a thin man wearing neat blue jeans with a plaid shirt. I knew this was going to be a very good day. I soon learned that If you let Pierre talk long enough, you wouldn’t have to buy the book.

I introduced myself and motioned to a lady standing nearby waiting to talk with him. And that was when I was in just the right place to listen to one entertaining story after another.

I learned that his French mother, who was born Henriette Vurpillot but was called Nancy by most, brought him by steamer from Savannah to St.Helena Island. She often said he’d been in the river ever since.

During the 1930s St. Helena was home to about 5,000 Gullah and 65 whites in those days. It did not yet have access by bridge. Pierre graduated from the Citadel and fortunately for him, his career as a civil engineer enabled him to stay in Beaufort, unlike others in his Beaufort High School class of 1943.

Those were the days of the “real” Lowcountry, when the tides, moon, wind, and even voodoo guided life, not the GPS. Things back then were harvested, bartered, and recycled. Folks appreciated their world just for what it was.

He liked seeing Gullah folks fishing and gigging in the river and mullet drying on the hot tin roofs of Seaside Road. I, too, remember the first time I saw fish on the roof tops of homes along Seaside Road. It was later exlained to me that it was done to preserve them for the winter ahead.

Hunting quail was a favorite sport for Pierre who told me there were at one time about 500 coveys on the island. A major cause of their demise, he said was the fire ants.

It’s now legend how for nearly 80 years, Pierre fished and hunted amongst these rivers and tidal creeks. His father was the mailman on St. Helena for over 30 years and looked forward every day, after his route, going either hunting or fishing. He had no problem letting his three young sons navigate deep rivers, day or night, but no doubt his mother endured many sleepless nights. Flounder gigging was mostly a nighttime sport and high winds with high seas could make it treacherous even along the inlets.

Pierre said, “Spending money was scarce during the Great Depression, and we had to look for ways to come up with extra cash. The easiest way for me to make a few extra dollars was to go into the creek out in front of our house on the island.”

Vast oyster beds were located in front of Pierre’s house that intertwined with numerous small creeks at low tide.  This area extends east toward Coffin Point for about five miles and varies in width from several hundred yards to as much as a mile. Historically the area had been called the Harbor River Flats.  At low tide, the creeks separating the oyster beds provided refuge for an abundance of flounder.  

To my surprise, he turned to me and said, “ Drive on out to the house and go with us into the river and we’ll gig some mullet.” Here’s how he explained it.

“Once flounder eat a meal of finger-length mullet, they bury themselves in the mud and silt at the bottom of the creeks to await flood tide.  When the tide is ebbing, the water in these creeks becomes muddy and the unwary flounder are not able to detect approaching predators - mainly a two-legged one holding a pitchfork in his hand,” said Pierre with a smile.  

This method of fishing is called pitchforking and was probably introduced or started in estuaries along the coast during slavery and was passed down from generation to generation.  “It was taught to my brothers and me when we were young teenagers by older black folks as an easy way to catch flounder,” says Pierre. “Often this was the only way we had to put a meal on the table.”

If you are brave enough to try it for yourself, here’s how he says to do it:

“This is a method where the fisherman walks through the muddy water sticking the pitchfork into the bottom in front of him blind gigging.  A gig is a fish spear usually of five prongs mounted on a sturdy lightweight pole and the darker the night the better.  Back in the ‘40s we used gas lanterns to light the way.”

On many Friday nights, Pierre and his two brothers would leave the house at dark, returning home at two o’clock on Saturday morning with seventy-five to a hundred flounder. 

“We were selective about where we peddled our fish.  We sold them door to door only in the aristocratic neighborhood in downtown, “The Point.”  Word traveled fast, and it didn’t take long before residents would be waiting at the sidewalk usually with a metal dishpan in hand.  A five-pound flounder could bring fifty cents,  In about two hours our catch would be gone and three very happy boys then made their way home.”

This is a sport still participated in today in the creeks and rivers of the Lowcountry by natives and newcomers alike.

I’m ashamed to say I never took him up on his offer to join them on the river. I missed a part of real Lowcountry culture. But somehow I never really liked the thought of stabbing a fish with a pitchfork. Now I’ll never know the thrill of having a flounder wiggling on the end of a spear, but perhaps somewhere in the great beyond.

He signed a note for me on the back of his book before we left that day.

“The stories and times depicted herein are all gone, due primarily to the second coming of the white man.” Pierre McGowan

His was a South Carolina life that can never be repeated. Not too long ago I ran across this photo of Pierre with me and a couple of local authors.