James R. “Grasshopper” McDonald waves as he drives down U.S. 61 South following his last stop delivering fish at Glass Road Saturday morning.(Melanu Duncan Thortis The Vicksburg Post)

[10/12/03]James R. “Grasshopper” McDonald says he was one of the first people to stock a pond in Mississippi.

“I ain’t bragging at all, but they call me the Fish King,” he said Saturday morning while waiting for customers at a convenience store on U.S. 61 North. Grasshopper, owner of Pond Stockers and Farm Fisheries in Carthage, and his sidekick, Timmy “Tadpole” Eakes, travel 140 miles to Warren County once a month October through March to deliver a spectrum of fish.

“We are like the Coca-Cola people we’ll sell you one (fish) or a million,” Grasshopper said. “We’ll even split ’em in half if that’s what the customer wants,” he said, laughing out loud to his joke.

Fish deliveries were slow in Vicksburg around 8:15 Saturday morning, but they had already sold a couple hundred catfish and bream to some residents in Edwards around 6:30.

“It’s a gamble when you load up,” he said. “You just never know what will sell.”

Grasshopper said a majority of his customers will call in their orders, but extra fish are brought along just in case.

The 73-year-old said he started a bait business in 1952 with $10 and one artesian well.

“I paid $5 for lumber that was way back in the ’50s- and paid my daddy-in-law $5 to build me a minnow bed.”

Expanding in 1955, Grasshopper started stocking ponds in Flora, in Madison County, and Leake County with carp, bass, crappie, bream and catfish. He started his trips to Warren County in 1991.

“I have sold thousands of catfish and bream in Warren County,” he said.

One of his local customers is Mike Alexander, who bought bream and catfish from Grasshopper to stock his one-acre pond off Mount Alban Road about five years ago.

He remembers Grasshopper as “a colorful old gentleman who knew a lot about fish.”

“We talked about the difference between blue gill and coppernose bream and what types of fish you could mix together,” he said.

Grasshopper said he tries to be honest with his customers about what types of fish to buy. “Some people will try to sell ya’ anything,” he said. “I don’t do that.”

With more expansion of his business came more travel, so Grasshopper said he tried shipping orders up North for a while, but the 3- to 5-inch catfish often died before delivery.

“Ain’t nobody gonna pay for a dead fish,” he said. “Can’t really blame ’em.”

Grasshopper said reliable transportation was the only way his business could stay afloat. Thirty-seven trucks later, Grasshopper said he finally met his match in the truck he uses today.

The 20-year-old Ford has had five engines and three rear ends, but “that truck has 1,700,000 miles on it, and all it’s ever done is haul fish all over the Southern states.”

The truck, which is labeled with Pond Stockers name and telephone number on the sides, carries four aerators and oxygen sacks to deliver up to 100,000, 5-inch live catfish.

To load the truck full of carp, catfish and bass for Warren County customers, Grasshopper rose at 1:30 a.m.

Sidekick Tadpole was with him all the way.

Now 20, Tadpole said he got his nickname when he was 6 years old and asked to help seine a pond.

“Everybody gets a nickname around Grasshopper,” he said.

“Let’s see, I got Cricket, Crawfish, Turtle, Frog … helping me seine the 663 acres of water” in 193 ponds in Leake County, said Grasshopper, who got his own nickname after breaking his leg when he was 6 years old.

“When I first started to school, I was the last one getting on the bus,” he said. “A boy on there said, Look at that grasshopper coming across the yard.’ Now everybody in the country knows me as that.”

Today, Grasshopper and his crew hand-pull two 400-foot nets to grab the fish six days a week during the busy season and with orders at other times.

“We feed ’em in the corner of the pond where they are used to eating and then pull them in that way,” he said.

Grasshopper spoke fondly of his years as a fisherman of sorts and says all of his success is due to his faith.

“Every time we seine the pond I thank the good Lord one more time,” he said.

Tadpole said many prayers were answered when his friend survived his fifth heart attack this past March.

“The doctor said, Grasshopper, I hate to tell you this but you’re dying.'”

Grasshopper prepared for death as he was flown by helicopter to the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson.

“I surprised all of ’em, and here I am six month later, stronger than ever,” he said.

“As long as I can wiggle, I’m gonna be here,” he said.