CLARENCE TWIFORD
Clarence Leland Twiford was "homefolk." He
lived and died in Powells Point. Only Highway
158 separated his birthplace on the east from the
home on the west where he and his wife Erma
raised their "five younguns." Clarence would not
have had it any other way He loved the land, the
people, and the water — especially the water
which was his life. Renee Burdette, class of 1978,
interviewed Mr. Twiford a few months before his
body yielded to the demon cancer. This is his
story:
I was born on September 23, 1917, and have
lived right 'chere in Powells Point all of my life —
right 'chere in a hundred yards from where I'm
sittin' is where I was born. When I was 'bout six, I
guess, I went to the Powells Point School. I went
to the sixth grade; then I quit 'cause I got all the
education I needed.
Heck, I learned to hang and mend net before I
started school. When I was a boy, I spent all of my
time on the water. After I quit school I started
fishing. I hung haul nets and purse nets and cut
net — I've done all of it. Heck, I've hung enough
net to go to the moon.
I can remember mornings when I used to get
up here at home, take a five-gallon can of gaso¬
line in each hand, put my lunch inside my shirt
and walk clean over to Currituck Sound to go
fishing. I'd stay over there 'til it got dark and then
I'd walk back home. I have walked from Powells
Point down to the Point and back when I first
started [fishing].
We used to go up to the Rivieria [by water] to
set our eel pots after we got home from school
and be shoving with a shoving pole nine or ten at
night; didn't have no outboard motor then. I'd
pick up eel pots in the morning and not get back
'til late that night.
Always caught the most fish — perch, rock, eel,
cats, and carp — in cold weather. I've been in Cur¬
rituck Sound mornings when it was so cold out
there I had to use a pop bottle to beat the ice off
my coat sleeve so I could keep fishing. I've been
in some bad ones [situations] out there. I've been
out in Currituck Sound with over 2,000 yards of
net laid up over the ice. By the time I got done
pulling [the net] it would go through the ice.
That's when I'd catch those big carp. I've seen the
time when I'd take one boat full of fish out of the
nets when it was icy and go back to the next
morni ng and get another boat full. Then I'd go to
Poplar Branch landing with fifteen-, eighteen-,
or twenty -thousand pounds of fish. That's how it
used to be. It's a lot different now. Now, I sell what
few fish I catch right here at the house.
I used to catch a boat load of fish and now I
can't even catch a water bucket full. In 1941 I
Clarence Twiford holding shad.
could go out there, make a haul of fish, and catch
5,000 pounds of speckled trout — $1,300 or $1,400
worth of fish — about 11 cents a fish. Now they
are worth 30 to 35 cents. Used to catch rock out
here for 10 cents for the little ones and 20 cents
for the big ones. Now they are 70 cents for the
little ones and 80 cents or 85 cents for the big
ones. I could get $25 a pound for 'em and still not
catch any.
I used to go over by Camden Point to set a net
and wouldn't see one outboard all day long. Now
it's one right behind the other, and the net is cut
into an hour after you set it. A lot of outboard
motors have made a mess of fishing. I used to be
able to find a school of rock out in the Sound.
They'd stay out there for ten hours feedin' on
little fish. Now a school of rock jumps and there
is an outboard motor from every direction; fish
don't get a chance to feed. Used to see 20 to 30
schools of rock in Albemarle Sound. There ain't
been a decent school seen in about three or four
years that I've heard about.
I used to do a lot of eeling; eeled for forty-two
years. Now I mostly make eel pots for New
Fowler Store. Sold 500 and some to Norman
Gregory [co-owner of New Fowler Store] this
spring. A man from Durham told me he spent
S17 for two little eels in Denmark this past year.
Yep, fishing has changed, but that ain't all. I
remember when you could sit here in the house
and it would be eight or nine hours 'til an auto-
