Letter from the Gulf: the 62nd Mississippi deep sea fishing rodeo

Independence day in the US means it is time for the Mississippi deep sea fishing rodeo, the largest of its kind anywhere. It also happens that this year, no deep sea fish could be entered; last week, federal officials closed down offshore fishing as oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill hit the coast. Louisiana had to cancel its rodeo, the oldest in the country, but the 62nd Mississippi deep sea went ahead in Gulfport, with fishing confined to the bays and bayous. I went along to see oil, fish, or both.

Driving along this coast of sunshine and sand, it is hard to fathom that something is amiss, until you realize that this is the 4th of July weekend, and the beaches are empty save for odd groups of neon yellow-clad safety workers, trudging along in search of tarballs.

I arrive at the rodeo to find a sedate crowd braving the sun in baseball caps and shades. Passing stalls hawking albino snakes, hunting knives, and snow cones, I make my way to the fairground, where I meet the corn dog king and carnival impresario, Danny Mitchell. His family has been working the event for 40 years. I ask him how business is this year. “Oh baby, it’s rough,” he says, handing me a giant lemonade from his stand. “Is that sweet enough for you?”

Danny tells me the rodeo used to take place in a custom tent. After Hurricane Katrina blew it to bits—and tossed a casino barge into the adjacent parking lot for good measure—in 2005, the rodeo set up shop in a seven-storey concrete parking garage.

I’m curious to see the fish, so Danny sends me off with his son, a self-effacing 12-year-old named Chris. “I like eatin’,” Chris says, patting his belly as we stroll by the tilt-a-whirl. “I’m a fat guy.” It does seem it would be difficult to stay trim given the food on offer: Milky Way funnel cakes, jumbo sausage, shrimp-on-a-stick, bacon ranch fries, and bloomin' onion—a deep fried dish that delivers 200 grams of fat—to be washed down with a pint of sweet iced tea.

Over at the scales, things are busy. It’s the kids’ rodeo today, and everyone wants to get their entries in before the 3 o’clock deadline. Young anglers wait nervously with their parents for their turn to hoist their fish on the scale: a steel block covered in Budweiser stickers and slime. A clutch of Rodeo princesses—all tans, pink t-shirts and tiaras—make notes on each fish, shuttling the results back to the judges while the catch is put on display in a long case of ice.

In line, Chase Moran, 6, stands over the 23lb black drum he battled that morning. His parents, Steven and Erin, tell me they’ve seen oil in the bay from their boat. I ask what it looked like. “You don’t want to know," said Steven. "Thick sludge—like sewer waste.”

Reminders of the disaster spreading across the Gulf aren’t hard to find at the rodeo. Behind the scale tables, lists of tournament species divisions resemble a nightmarish airport flight board. Saltwater fish from tuna to barracuda are “cancelled.”

In the corner I meet Boss Hog, a retired police chief turned cook sitting next to a cauldron of alligator gumbo. “I’m a Cajun,” he says with grin. “We eat everything.” I tell him I’m a journalist from London. He laughs. “You gonna tell ‘em, ‘These people eat all kinda crazy shit!’” The Boss cooked for news anchor Dan Rather and his team during Hurricane Andrew in 1992. In 2005, Hurricane Katrina blew his entire 3-story house away. For him and other residents of Gulfport, disasters are common. Self-pity, however, is in short supply. “If we all work together, it’ll come back,” he says, ladling chunks of gator meat into my bowl.

Later in the afternoon, the junior division awards ceremony gets underway. Kids skip up to the stage to collect their prizes - bikes, trampolines and fishing rods - and pose with the princesses. "I think the Allens pretty much got the mullets corralled this year," says the announcer as a 4-year-old staggers off stage clutching a skateboard.

Next to me, Mason Page, 10, is disappointed that his 14 oz blue gill—a tawny freshwater fish known for stealing bait off the line—came in 3rd place. He stands holding his prize: a plastic tackle box.

His father, Kennatch Page, wears a T-shirt with a picture of a stag in the crosshairs. “The buck stops here,” it says. Kennatch is a Gulfport bricklayer. His older son was too, until the spill. Now, he works as an oil spotter for BP, spending his days on a shrimp boat, scanning the Gulf for patches of crude. “He was makin’ about $100 a day with me,” Kennatch says. “Now he got a raise! The people workin' on the spill love it.” Catching sight of a pelican sitting by the dock, I ask on a whim if he feels sorry for the birds oiled in the accident. He pauses, and Mason pipes up.

“I feel sorry for the fish.” I kneel down to talk to him.

“And what do you want to be when you grow up Mason?” He shrugs and turns away. “A fisherman?” I suggest.

“Nah, he doesn’t want to be a fisherman,” said his father with a laugh. “He wants to be a lawyer. For BP.”