Hooked for Life

I never was one to go with the grain; I was more like the splinter that stuck you out of a nice pile of freshly sawed and sanded lumber. What does that have to do with the outdoors and me loving it? Well, quite a bit.

Most people who didn’t grow up hunting or fishing can’t grasp how, or why on earth, a girl would want to spend her time indulging in such things. To go a step further, being biracial, I don't see a lot of African American women in this lifestyle. either. So, there's the splinter part: me being a woman, and of a different race, outside of the stereotypical box of who people expect to see out in the muddy backwoods and small rivers of rural Arkansas and the Mississippi Delta.

I was born in Jonesboro, Arkansas—not a small town, but not a huge city either. Slow enough to know plenty of folks, but big enough not to flip out if there's a truck on the road you haven't seen before. But growing up, I spent summers and most weekends in Maynard, Arkansas, where the population is 379, and if an unfamiliar truck passes you on the road, you mention it at supper that same night.

Maynard is about 20 minutes south of the Missouri state line and has some of the best small-river fishing one could ask for. To this day, I still spend most of my free weekends up there hunting and fishing and helping my Mema now that she’s older.

Earning My Seat

Growing up, I was the only girl among a handful of boy cousins and grandkids. I got tired of being left out and left behind whenever they went fishing or hunting. What I noticed most was what happened afterward: at the dinner table, they would all be laughing, swapping stories, and reliving what happened while on the river or in the woods. I wanted in on that. I wanted my seat at that table.

So I made up my mind early that I was going to do what the boys did, and prove that I could hold my own.

If you have any real time outdoors, then you know the best memories usually don't come from the ish you catch or the game you harvest. They come from the hunt, the boat ride, the stories, and the people beside you.

My first taste of that life came when I was little, riding the tractor with my Papa and helping lay corn in the backyard for deer because my Mema enjoyed watching wildlife in her back field. That was the beginning for me.

But the person who truly deserves the credit to—or blame—for my love of the outdoors was my Great Uncle, Harmon Seawell. We lost him last November at 82 after a sudden and quick fight with lung cancer. There isn't a trip to the woods or river that doesn't make me think of him.

He wore many hats in his life: preacher, author, historian, educator, state representative, and unintentional comedic storyteller, to name a few. But the hat that fit him best was “good ol' boy.” He never forgot where he was from, and he believed in a life lived outside.

I was probably seven or eight when he took me on my first trip on Fourche’ River (pronounced foshee) in a 12-foot aluminum john boat.

Finally, it was my turn.

Before the sun came up, we packed sack lunches and a cooler full of drinks and ice, loaded the boat into the back of a truck by hand, threw in our paddles, poles and dip net, and headed to the river. We put it in under one bridge and floated all day to another bridge across the county, where somebody woudl pick us up about sunset and take us back to the truck.

That first trip gave me more than a fish story. I heard the river wake up. I saw wildlife up close on the banks and in the water. I learned lessons about fishing and life. And from that day until the day he died, Uncle Harmon kept teaching me.

It’s safe to say more than fish were hooked that day; I was hooked for life.

Raised by the River

There's not much that can beat fighting a channel catfish on rod and reel in a tight little river crowded with roots, vegetation, and underwater logs.

By the time I was 10 or 11, I was taking river trips with my younger brother all on our own. No cell phones. Just instinct, common sense, and what Uncle Harmon had taught us.

We knew how to cast, how to rig our gear, where to cast, and how to handle the boat if we came up on a drift or a fallen tree. He made sure we knew how to clean our fish properly too. We than that, he taught us how to read water.

He taught us to let the river tell us when to fish. If it was too high, too low, or too muddy, then you waited. Let the river settle. Respect the land. That kind of knowledge had been handed down in my family for generations by people who survived hard times because of what the river provided.

We also learned how to make, tie up, set, and run limb lines, and how to yo-yo fish for crappie in the winter with minnows. None of that knowledge was treated like a novelty. It was part of life, part of survival, part of family tradition.

Hooked on Hunting, Too

Of course, once I got my way with fishing, I demanded to go hunting too.

Just like that first trip on the river, that first hunt got its hooks in me. We started with small game – rabbits, doves, and squirrels. Honestly, I still think that's the best place for anybody to start. If you can hit a running squirrel, everything else gets easier.

But along with learning how to hunt came learning how to do it the right way. We were taught to treat every gun as if it was loaded. We were taught only to take animals we would eat. If we had more than we needed, we shared with neighbors in need. We never hunted simply for sport. We hunted for food.

We also understood that taking a life, no matter what's on the other end of the barrel, is a serious thing. You do it to protect yourself, to protect the defenseless, to end an animal's suffering or to put food on the table – but never carelessly.

Even now, when my brother and I introduce somebody new to hunting or fishing, those are the same values we pass on.

As I got older, I started hearing more stories about the family members who came before me, men and women alike who were hunters and anglers in their own right. Legend has it my great-grandma used to shoot rabbits off the back porch, and her husband got the nickname “Grab” because he would go noodlin’ and just grab catfish barehanded like it was nothing.

I only knew the calmer versions of those two people, which may be why those stories still make me smile. But I guess it's in my blood to be a little animated myself.

During my first year as a college coach, I was late for practice because I had shot an 8-point buck off my Mema’s back porch and was out trying to track it so I wouldn't waste the meat. My coach was not happy. She old me she had never heard that excuse for being late in her life.

I still say it was a good reason.

Service, Sports, and Coming Home

My first love has always been basketball. That's still true. Today I coach college basketball at a junior college in Memphis, work youth basketball camps for the Memphis Grizzlies, and coach with a nonprofit called Memphis Inner City Rugby in the offseason.

But the outdoors runs right alongside it.

I served eight years in the Navy as a boatswain’s mate, where I was trained to drive search-and-rescue boats. I was stationed in California the whole time, completed back-to-back deployments, and got to see a lot of the world. Still, nothing ever beat coming home to Arkansas to hunt and fish with my family.

Looking back, it makes perfect sense that I ended up driving boats in the Navy. My love for the water started years earlier in that aluminum john boat we had to shove in and drag out of the river by hand.

These days, if I've got free time, chances are I'm in the woods or on the river. Hunting and fishing with my brother, who is also a veteran, is a close second only to my love for basketball. And I'll say this much: I don't know if there's a better small-river catfishing duo on this side of the Mississippi.

More Than a Hobby

Since honorably discharging from the Navy in March 2023, I've fully leaned into anything camo, hunting, and fishing.

That first Christmas home after the Navy, I told all the boys in the family I got them chili for Christmas. Since none of them managed to harvest a deer, I handled it myself so we could be sure to have deer chili at Christmas dinner at Mema’s house. We are very competitive, but we also genuinely support each other in our adventures.

Now, at 36, I’ve had my seat at the table with the boys for nearly three decades. I've got stories to tell, laughs to share, and memories that mean more to me than any turkey, buck, gator, or fish I’ve ever taken.

Yes, we've got freezers full of meat. Yes, we've built skills and traditions that tie us to generations before us. But more than that, hunting and fishing have bound us to one another. They've given us a way of life and a legacy.

And now I get to help pass that on to my brother’s kids, to friends who have never been introduced to the outdoors, and to other people looking for the same kind of connection I found in it.

I've even become pretty good at cooking wild game, so these days I enjoy swapping recipes almost as much as I enjoy the hunt. As a Southerner, I believe food is a staple for bringing people together, and wild game has a way of carrying the story with it all the way to the table.

I’ve been fortunate enough to travel, hunt, and meet incredible people. I've watched the world wake up as the sun rises and listened to it go to sleep from the woods and from the water. There's something spiritual in that, and I don't know any better word for it.

From the backwoods of Arkansas, to gators in the Louisiana bayous, to turkeys in the tall pines and creek beds of Georgia, I am thankful for every bit of it.

Most of all, I'm thankful for Uncle Harmon, who introduced my cousins and me to the outdoors, and for my mom and Mema, who supported me wholeheartedly in love it from the start.

I'm also proud to serve as a Tennessee staff member for the Fallen Outdoors, an organization that helps vetersans know they are not alone in their struggles and builds relationships through the outdoors. That mission means a great deal to me because of the people I served with and lost to battles with mental health – people whose names I now carry in my tattoos as remembrance.

So when people wonder how on earth this girl got into the outdoors, the answer is simple.

I got there through family. Through faith. Through mud, water, and woods. Through the people who taught me, trusted me, and made room for me until I earned my place.

And once I got there, I never looked back.

Check out Nicole's Stuffed Venison Backstrap recipe here!