From a tape-recorded interview with Lake Seminole legendary fishing guide Jack Wingate.

I saw five eagles diving in a school of coots out on the lake. Five bald eagles working on one raft of coots. It’s a sight to behold. Made them coots a nervous wreck, I’m tellin’ you. We got probably 200 osprey nests here, and I’ll venture to say that in the Lake Seminole area there’s 100 bald eagle nests. Unbelievable. There’s an osprey to your left now. He’s fishing. He’s fixin’ to catch him something. We got the great blue heron, just loads of them, and the little blue heron. I remember one time there was four photographers, each one loaded with cameras, got out of their cars and was about to jump over one another to get shots of the blue heron sittin’ around the basin there. The white egret, the crooked beak ibis, the wood stork. Wood storks migrate but they have certain places they come back to every year. (more…)

By Richard Stenger

A talent show, fishing rodeo and photo contest take place every year at the annual watermelon festival in Cordele. But there’s just one real competition, the one people talk about the rest of the year–the expectoration of the watermelon ovules, better known as the seed-spitting contest.

Skill, style, technique and luck all have their role in the main event, drawing competitors from as far away as China and press from as far away as England. Greg Leger, a local melon grower with national and Georgia spitting titles under his belt, offers some insight to those seeking to unseat the champion:

What are some of your best performances?
I spit forty-two feet one time in the state finals. The Georgia Watermelon Association sponsors that. The Nation Watermelon Association (in Morven, Georgia) hosts a national convention for watermelon growers and I won that two years ago. It was in Nashville, Tennessee, at the Opryland hotel. They put out a big sheet of paper in the lobby. That was a big deal. Bragging rights are fun.

How about your competitors?
One guy from Chicago spit sixty feet on top of a hotel in New Orleans. He spit between two buildings. He set it up in the wind and it caught it. No one ever spit that far, I think. The wind really got a hold of that one in what was left of a tropical storm.

Does the event draw a lot of press?
The BBC called one time. They were rather intrigued. I told them it’s kind of similar to their Wimbleton. We have a foot fault occasionally.

Any tips for tenderlips in the event?
Some people try to bounce the seed if the wind is in their face. They try to aim low and let it roll. Bounces count for distance.

Do you have a personal spitting method?
I guess the technique I use is roll the tongue to blow seed through. You can’t just put it between the teeth. From the back of tongue, direct air flow through the tube of the tongue. That works pretty good. Of course we’re in the business. We’re eating watermelon all year long and blowing seed.

Some rules of competition provided by the National Watermelon Association:

• Official spitting seeds will be provided.
• No one will be permitted to use their own seed.
• Contestants who accidentally swallow seed while sucking in air prior to seed launch will be given one extra seed.
• Denture wearers whose teeth go farther than seed shall abide by the judge’s decision.
• No running, jumping, skipping or lying down while spitting.

By Wilson Hall

Wilson met Ernest Brocket while researching a fishing story on Lake Seminole in the southwest corner of Georgia for Brown’s Guide.

When I first met Ernest Brockett he was sitting in the reclining chair of the bait shop at Jack Wingate’s Lunker Lodge on Lake Seminole. He was over 75 years old, but his step was lively and his eyes were clear, giving a good indication of the quickness of mind within the man. When he was not fishing or hunting or working his garden or training his dog, he was at Wingate’s talking to people in the shop or out on the front porch. And at the first sign of interest, he would tell you about deer hunting, turkey calling, dog training or bass fishing. Then to all of this, he would add his philosophy of life.

There was a group of people standing around Ernest talking. Jack stopped me at the counter and asked me if I knew Ernest.
“No,” I said, “Who is he?”
“Go over and meet him,” Jack said. “We call him the ‘Sage of Seminole.’ ”
So I went over and introduced myself.
“I guess you have lived around here for a long time,” I said by way of breaking the ice.
“Might say I have,” Ernest said, showing me a circle of his thumb and index finger. “When I first came here the moon wasn’t but this big and there wasn’t no stars. (more…)