"What I done and what I been accused of covers everything, you put
'em both together." Wyatt Moore of Caddo Lake exaggerates, but
perhaps not very much. During his long life at Caddo Lake, Moore
was at various times a boat operator, commercial fisherman, boat
builder, farmer, fishing and hunting camp operator, guide,
commercial hunter, trapper, raftsman, moonshiner, oil field worker,
water well driller, and mechanical jack-of-all-trades. Still, he
al- ways found time for his lifelong study of the natural and human
history of Caddo Lake. Here, in words as fresh and forceful as the
day they were uttered, is his tale. Moore, who was given the gift
of a unique story to tell and great power to tell it, was the
historical interpreter of his strange homeland of Caddo Lake.
Twenty-three miles long, some forty thousand acres at high water,
stretching across two Texas counties and one Louisiana parish,
Caddo Lake's fresh waters merge into a labyrinthine swamp
punctuated by inlets, holes, and geological oddities like Goat
Island, Whistleberry Slough, Whangdoodle Pass, and the Devil's
Elbow. Here among these lost reminders of steamboats and old bateau
men is Moore's world. Born in 1901 at Karnack, Texas, Moore grew up
in a time when kids wore button shoes and in a place where pigs and
chickens roamed the backyard. He drank his first whiskey at age
eight, gigged fish, trapped, and hunted for pearls as a boy, and
grew up to an easy assurance on the lake that comes only to those
long accustomed to its ways. A walking library of the history of
Caddo Lake, Moore delved into almost every nook and corner of it,
and wherever he went, whatever he did, he sought to learn more
about his subect. Sought out by writers and journalists-among them
James Michener and Bill Moyers-because of his laconic wit and
remarkable command of the region's story, Moore became known as a
resource as precious as the lake itself. Moore's story is
eloquently introduced by Thad Sitton in an opening essay that
chronicles the history of Caddo Lake. Striking photographs of Moore
at home and at work on the lake beautifully amplify his life story,
and an exuberant word-and-picture essay of Moore expertly building
the traditional boat of the region, a bateau, reinforces the vivid
image we have of this remarkable man.
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