Page 1 of 2 12 LastLast
Results 1 to 20 of 38

Thread: Old School Southern Names

  1. #1
    Mergie Master's Avatar
    Mergie Master is offline Dedicated Tamiecide Practitioner
    Join Date
    Sep 2001
    Location
    Saluca (not Saluda)
    Posts
    71,579

    Default Old School Southern Names

    I saw some Yankees catching yellow perch in a video about a week ago and it got me to thinking about the names of fish, birds and beast I grew up with. My dad was a surprise baby, he came late to Grandma and Grandpa so all my uncles and aunts were older folk and still used all the old Southern lingo. That's what I grew up with and I catch myself to this day using names for critters and younger folks sometimes have no idea what I'm talking about. Although most of them won't ask for fear of looking dumb, some will ask. Anyhow with that in mind I commenced to writing them down when they came to mind. Lets see if y'all remember these or how many you remember. Your grandpa's, if they grew up southern probably remember all of them.

    Like I said above the Yellow Perch was what got me started cause I always heard them called Eisenhowers or coon fish. For obvious reasons, they were bait thieves when we were crappie fishing with minners. It was said if you throw them back they'll just commence to stealing your minners again. So we threw them in the bushes for the coons. My grandma was fond of twisting their head till the spine popped afore she threw them in the bushes. I guess she didn't want them to suffer. Grandma was kind like that.

    Oh and why Eisenhower, the story I heard was they were stocked down here by the government during the Eisenhower administration. But that's probably just folklore. I dunno.

    • Yellow perch - Eisenhower - coon fish
    • Bowfin - mud fish (I've heard old kinfolk from down around Lugoff call them - cypress trout)
    • Crappie - papermouth perch
    • Largemouth bass - green trout
    • Chain Pickerel - jackfish or jack
    • Di Dapple - grebe
    • Pileated woodpecker - wood hen (we shot'em and ate them)
    • Northern flicker - yellowhammer
    • Bobwhite quail - partridge or just "birds" when used with the word hunting
    • Great blue heron - Rain Buzzard - Old Joe - Lonesome Joe (cause they are almost always alone)
    • Swamp rabbit - canecutter
    • Striped skunk - polecat
    • Spotted skunk - civet cat
    • Salamander - spring lizard
    • Snapping turtle - mud turtle
    • Cuckoo - rain crow
    • Barred owl - hoot owl
    • Screech owl - skrunch owl
    • Redtail hawk - chicken hawk
    • Cooper's Hawk and Sharp-shinned hawk - blue darter (for both)
    • American kestrel - sparrow hawk (although it's actually a falcon)
    • Eastern hognosed snake - spreading adder
    • Rat snake - blacksnake
    • Creek chub - horny head
    • Downy woodpecker - sap sucker
    • Turkey vulture-buzzard
    • Flathead catfish - mudcat
    • Most sunfish-bream
    • Redear Bream - stump knocker - government bream (I think the lowcountry calls them shellcrackers)
    • Blue jay-jaybird
    • House sparrow - English sparrow
    • Ruby crowned kinglet - shot dodger
    • Towhee - Joe Reese
    • Wood duck - summer ducks
    • Coots - gizzard ducks
    • Pond slider - water cooter
    • Cardinal-redbird
    • Red-headed woodpecker - black coattails
    • Gray squirrel - cat squirrel
    • Copperhead - high land moccasin

    • Jonquils - Johnny Quills
    • Any mushroom you orta not eat - toadstool

    From kin in the mountains:

    • Native brook trout - speckled trout
    • Stocked trout - doughbellies

    Non-Animals

    • Fertilizer - guano (pronounced: guanner)
    • Burlap bag - croaker sack or guanner sack
    • Ghost or spook - haint
    • Any scary unknown monster type critter that would grab you from behind in the dark - booger

    I'm sure I'll think of more. I ain't as sure that I'll add to this.
    The Elites don't fear the tall nails, government possesses both the will and the means to crush those folks. What the Elites do fear (or should fear) are the quiet men and women, with low profiles, hard hearts, long memories, and detailed target folders for action as they choose.

    "I here repeat, & would willingly proclaim, my unmitigated hatred to Yankee rule—to all political, social and business connections with Yankees, & to the perfidious, malignant, & vile Yankee race."

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Nov 2004
    Posts
    49,820

    Default

    Eisenhowers got their tail cut off and tossed back in the river to fatten the turtles.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Feb 2004
    Location
    Akupla Acres
    Posts
    4,448

    Default

    A copperhead was a pilot in Horry County.
    Honey...I'll do it after the season is over.


    Originally Posted by cudexter
    I would argue that JP has the highest "quality" to "trash talk" post ratio on this site.

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Air Raid
    ... Wait till 3 years from now! ...



  4. #4
    Join Date
    Feb 2013
    Location
    Edgefield
    Posts
    301

    Default

    A spreading adder. All my life I thought it was a spreading outer, as in, that's what he did. I haven't heard a lot of these in a long time. And btw the name shellcracker spreads far past the low country. Sometimes it morphs into shell crappie if you're fishing off the bank in McCormick. Good post to
    Last edited by Cooney; 12-18-2018 at 06:56 AM.

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Nov 2013
    Posts
    4,992

    Default

    Grandaddy used to always call armadillos possums on the half shell...back in the 70's they were everywhere around here... apparently starting to make a comeback.

    Redfish are still spottails and cudas area still Walterboro wahoo...

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Dec 2013
    Location
    Here
    Posts
    5,282

    Default

    Auto gyro. Pronounce ottogiro. Helicopter.

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Posts
    10,551

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Mergie Master View Post
    • Redear Bream - stump knocker - government bream (I think the lowcountry calls them shellcrackers)
    growing up on and around the Edisto River, a stumpknocker and a shell cracker are two different things. a shellcracker is a redear...big ass bream that people go nuts over during the spawn, that i think tastes like mud...

    BUT, a STUMPKNOCKER is a "spotted sunfish". short but thick little bream that almost always has buddies with him. You catch one stumpknocker, drop a cricket right back in the same place and almost everytime you will catch a few more. stumpknockers make excellent groceries when fried crispy.

    stumpknocker-
    spotted-sunfish-.jpg

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Jan 2017
    Posts
    320

    Default

    I always thought a "cat squirrel" was a fox squirrel. Being that some are about the size of a house cat.

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Oct 2005
    Location
    Parole
    Posts
    5,092

    Default

    Heard a swamp rabbit called a blue belly and a canecutter is a big ass rabbit. Sounds crazy but a canecutter isn't that common.around here. Those guys in Mississippi and Louisiana had some pictures.
    Last edited by SCDAWG; 12-18-2018 at 08:54 AM.

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Aug 2012
    Location
    Holly Hill
    Posts
    2,446

    Default

    johnny no shoulders...

  11. #11
    Join Date
    Dec 2006
    Location
    Spartanburg
    Posts
    6,297

    Default

    Doe-Slick head
    Pack of crackers-Nabs
    Turtle-Cooter
    Last edited by Tha Dick; 12-18-2018 at 09:12 AM.

  12. #12
    Join Date
    Dec 2002
    Location
    Charleston
    Posts
    2,619

    Default

    I always called a mudfish a lake lawyer.
    DILLIGAF

  13. #13
    Join Date
    Aug 2003
    Location
    goose creek
    Posts
    1,459

    Default

    Anything carbonated is a coca cola
    Big bream= titty bream
    Coon-trash panda
    Snake-mr no shoulders
    Doe- slick head or nanny
    Squirrels=tree rats
    Antique farm equipment= cant post that 1
    every expert was once a beginner

  14. #14
    Join Date
    Jun 2014
    Location
    The G
    Posts
    9,485

    Default

    Red drum = spot-tail bass.

  15. #15
    Join Date
    Nov 2011
    Location
    Manning, SC
    Posts
    10,712

    Default

    Chicken snake = a rat snake that isn't black.

    Cottonmouth = water moccasin

    Heinz 57 = mixed dog

    and one I learned from here was ditch tiger.

  16. #16
    Join Date
    Nov 2004
    Posts
    49,820

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by SCDAWG View Post
    Heard a swamp rabbit called a blue belly and a canecutter is a big ass rabbit. Sounds crazy but a canecutter isn't that common.around here. Those guys in Mississippi and Louisiana had some pictures.
    Might have gotten a little confused with a Blue Tail which a Marsh Rabbit, small and aggravating as hell to run. Opposite end of the spectrum, running and size wise, from. Canecutter.

  17. #17
    Mergie Master's Avatar
    Mergie Master is offline Dedicated Tamiecide Practitioner
    Join Date
    Sep 2001
    Location
    Saluca (not Saluda)
    Posts
    71,579

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by SCDAWG View Post
    Heard a swamp rabbit called a blue belly and a canecutter is a big ass rabbit. Sounds crazy but a canecutter isn't that common.around here. Those guys in Mississippi and Louisiana had some pictures.
    There are more of them down in MS and Ark. A friend in Arkansas who guided for ducks had a biology prof and some students come down from university in Little Rock and he took them out for the express purpose of studying the swamp rabbits. But we used to kill them occasionally around here back when I rabbit hunted a lot. They'll give a pack of dags hell. If they get back to the water you may as well pull the dogs cause the run is over. Suckers love some swamp water. I was wading a big swamp off Hard Labor creek after shooting summer ducks one morning. I got near a big log with grass growing on it and a big canecutter jumped out of the grass ran down the log full speed and literally ran across the water and turn while doing it to get to the bank about 15 yds away. It was like a flash that's still frozen in my mind. Dangdess thing I ever saw, before Ru Paul. I just stood there and stared while trying to figure out what I just saw. I knew they were good swimmers and would dive in a flooded logging truck rut when dogs were after them but I had no idea they could run on water. Their name says it all I guess, Swamp Rabbit (Sylvilagus aquaticus), Eastern Cottontail (Sylvilagus floridanus). Until I realized they were a sub species of cottontail I always thought they were the same rabbit that just took to the swamps. I knew they were bigger, especially their feet. Sort of like the darker colored deer that live in the swamps. But I didn't realize they were a different subspecies.
    The Elites don't fear the tall nails, government possesses both the will and the means to crush those folks. What the Elites do fear (or should fear) are the quiet men and women, with low profiles, hard hearts, long memories, and detailed target folders for action as they choose.

    "I here repeat, & would willingly proclaim, my unmitigated hatred to Yankee rule—to all political, social and business connections with Yankees, & to the perfidious, malignant, & vile Yankee race."

  18. #18
    Mergie Master's Avatar
    Mergie Master is offline Dedicated Tamiecide Practitioner
    Join Date
    Sep 2001
    Location
    Saluca (not Saluda)
    Posts
    71,579

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Tater View Post
    Might have gotten a little confused with a Blue Tail which a Marsh Rabbit, small and aggravating as hell to run. Opposite end of the spectrum, running and size wise, from. Canecutter.
    That's probably what he's thinking about. There are about 20 lagomorphs of the cottontail according to what I could find.
    The Elites don't fear the tall nails, government possesses both the will and the means to crush those folks. What the Elites do fear (or should fear) are the quiet men and women, with low profiles, hard hearts, long memories, and detailed target folders for action as they choose.

    "I here repeat, & would willingly proclaim, my unmitigated hatred to Yankee rule—to all political, social and business connections with Yankees, & to the perfidious, malignant, & vile Yankee race."

  19. #19
    Join Date
    Aug 2013
    Location
    GreenHood
    Posts
    13,833

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Mergie Master View Post
    There are more of them down in MS and Ark. A friend in Arkansas who guided for ducks had a biology prof and some students come down from university in Little Rock and he took them out for the express purpose of studying the swamp rabbits. But we used to kill them occasionally around here back when I rabbit hunted a lot. They'll give a pack of dags hell. If they get back to the water you may as well pull the dogs cause the run is over. Suckers love some swamp water. I was wading a big swamp off Hard Labor creek after shooting summer ducks one morning. I got near a big log with grass growing on it and a big canecutter jumped out of the grass ran down the log full speed and literally ran across the water and turn while doing it to get to the bank about 15 yds away. It was like a flash that's still frozen in my mind. Dangdess thing I ever saw, before Ru Paul. I just stood there and stared while trying to figure out what I just saw. I knew they were good swimmers and would dive in a flooded logging truck rut when dogs were after them but I had no idea they could run on water. Their name says it all I guess, Swamp Rabbit (Sylvilagus aquaticus), Eastern Cottontail (Sylvilagus floridanus). Until I realized they were a sub species of cottontail I always thought they were the same rabbit that just took to the swamps. I knew they were bigger, especially their feet. Sort of like the darker colored deer that live in the swamps. But I didn't realize they were a different subspecies.
    Last time I went rabbit hunting we got on a swamp rabbit, seemed like it took all morning to kill that rascal
    Houndsmen are born, not made

    Quote Originally Posted by 2thDoc View Post
    I STAND WITH DUCK CUTTER!
    Quote Originally Posted by JABIII View Post
    I knew it wasn't real because no dogbox...

  20. #20
    Join Date
    Aug 2013
    Location
    GreenHood
    Posts
    13,833

    Default

    Merg, you ever rabbit hunt with Brock (lawn mower man) in 96?
    Y'all might have even worked in the mill together
    Houndsmen are born, not made

    Quote Originally Posted by 2thDoc View Post
    I STAND WITH DUCK CUTTER!
    Quote Originally Posted by JABIII View Post
    I knew it wasn't real because no dogbox...

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •