I caught this bass after a bad cold front

For a normal January day I will start with insulated underwear – what we used to call “long Johns.” New material is light-weight and very warm, and it will wick away any sweat so you don’t feel wet and clammy. Thin socks of similar material help keep feet warm and dry.

My next layer is a soft flannel or modern material long sleeve shirt and flannel lined jeans. Several brands make flannel lined jeans and you can order some from ads in magazines that are not expensive but are very warm. I top the thin sox with wool sox.

My fishing jacket is a baseball type lined jacket with a hood. It is water resistant and very warm, and the hood is great. I put on my baseball cap so I will have a bill to shade my eyes, pull a stocking cap on over it down over my ears, then pull up the hood. That keeps head, neck and ears warm.

If the day is real cold I wear insulated boots. If it is not too cold I go with walking shoes but try to make sure they are loose on my feet. If they are tight, especially with heavy sox, it cuts off circulation and actually makes your feet colder.

That is plenty if the temperatures range from the 30s to the 50s like it does most days. On really cold days I pull on a snowmobile suit over everything else and will put two to four chemical handwarmers in inside pockets. It is amazing how much heat those things put out.

If it is ridiculously cold, in the teens, I have Gortex insulated Cabelas Guidewear. These suits zip and snap up and with bibs and the coat you are covered from head to foot. The hood has a flap that snaps across your chin and mouth, covering it. For long runs I add a face shield and heavy gloves so no wind hits me anywhere.

I have fished in temperatures as low as 11 degrees and have been comfortable. My hands get cold, though. I have tried all kinds of gloves but none allow me to cast and feel the fish like I want so I always fish bare-handed. It helps to switch from a bait casting reel to a spinning reel. For some reason opposite hands get cold with the different reels so switching helps warm one. And one of the handwarmers in both side pockets allows me to stick one hand in there and warm it for a few seconds.

Dress right and you can be comfortable while catching fish, even on the coldest day.

When I get home on a cold day I love some kind of fish stew to warm me even more. One of my favorites is s spicy red Manhattan style stew I make with bass. It is fairly simple. Boil about five skinned and gutted bass in enough water to cover them with a bay leaf. Let it set to cool. Fry up three strips of bacon then brown a chopped up onion in the grease. Drain the fish broth through a strainer and put it back into the pot, then pull all the meat off the bones and add it back to the broth.

Crumble up the bacon and add it and the onion to the stew. Put in a can or two of chopped tomatoes. I like the ones with chili peppers in them. Add salt and pepper and let it simmer for 30 minutes. For a heartier stew add rice or diced potatoes. I also add a good bit of Crazy Jerry’s hot sauce – I like it and its motto is “A Lot Hot” but you can add any kind you prefer.

Serve a big bowl with saltines and this stew will warm you inside and out.

Another favorite stew is a white or New England style fish stew. For this one I just use bass filets – no bones to make a broth since it is much milder. Chop up an onion and sauté it in butter. Put a half-gallon of milk, more for more stew, and real milk makes a richer stew, on and simmer it. Add the onion, a stick of butter, salt and pepper to the milk. Cut up the filets into bite-size pieces, and simmer until done. You can add rice or diced potatoes to this one, too.

I really like this with saltines or oyster crackers. You can make it as rich as you want by adding more or less butter and using regular or skim milk. For me, the richer the better.

I’m hungry – gotta go cook some fish stew!

Talk about cooking roots and most southerners think turnips, potatoes and carrots. But it makes me think of other roots, going back to learning to cook from my mother and the cooking traditions passed on from parents to children generation after generation.

My mother was a fantastic cook and baked cakes for sale for many years. Since we had chickens and cows milk and eggs were easy to get. She taught me a lot about baking and always rewarded me with beaters and bowls to lick. There was no worry about eating raw eggs in those days.

I learned the basics from seasoning all vegetables with fatback and cooking them forever to pouring the salt in all kinds of sauces. Mamma could take a package of cheap hotdogs, add chopped onion, bell pepper and BBQ sauce and make a dinner as good as anything I ever ate. Another of my favorites was egg casserole, made by layering stale crumbled up biscuits and bread with sliced boiled eggs and covering it all with milk and baking it. The real butter dotted on each layer helped! We never wasted anything. Leftovers were eaten as is or mixed with other ingredients to make a completely new meal.

I leaned to fry fish from my dad. He loved to fry up a big mess of crappie, bass and bream for family and friends. He and a family friend made fish cookers with wheel hubs, pipe and rebar. I used mine for many years and it seemed to do a better job than any of the commercial cookers I have tried. Dad knew exactly when to take the fish out so they were golden brown but still moist and delicious.

One thing I never got right were the hushpuppies. Mamma mixed them up and dad dropped them one at a time into the hot grease, using two spoons and dipping one in water between each hushpuppy. I can cook them but have never been able to get the ingredients exactly right.

I asked my mom to write down the recipes for me and she tried, but many have instructions like “add some pepper till it tastes right.” I can usually make a good stab at things she wrote for me but, unfortunately, soon after she started recording them for me on index cards she developed Alzheimer’s and many of my favorites were never recorded.

I also learned from aunts and uncles. My uncle Adron could kill game like the best of the pioneers and his wife Nancy could cook anything. I often thought if he brought in an old boot she would make a great meal out of it. I especially loved their catfish stew. They both worked grinding the catfish and adding the ingredients until just right, then Uncle Adron would cook it in a big pot outside over an open fire.

I am afraid a lot of the southern cooking traditions are being lost. It seems we don’t have time to cook a meal and kids would rather be playing video games than learning cooking roots. And fast food has replaced so much of our cooking that little will ever be the same. Some of it is good but nothing will ever taste as good as something you picked or killed, cleaned and cooked yourself.

Don’t let your cooking roots die. Learn them now before it is too late.