Clarence “Bud” Rousseau

Current Hometown: Thibodaux

Rousseau grew up in Grand Bayou with his family on the same property as his grandfather and extended family. His grandfather was a moss picker and he traded his land on Bayou Corn for the land on Grand Bayou to be closer to his job at the moss gin.
Mostly fish. There was not a lot of recreation to where we were able to have a baseball or football team so we mostly fished and hunted. We did some swimming, we all learned to swim in Grand Bayou. They had a little pocket where they docked boats, when the oil field was booming. At this time when I was growing up, it was not used for anything else but to train the kids on Grand Bayou to go swimming.
In the back corner of the property we had two sloughs met and there was a big hole in the back, a little bay we used to call it. That was our fishing hole and there was a huge cypress and a live oak that was leaning over, it had been blown over a long time ago. We’d go back there and climb out on that oak and fish right off of it. That cypress was the biggest I had ever seen. I am not sure if it survived. I did not need a boat or anything I could just fish over the water right there.
I miss it being above water, I’d say. The property is no longer useable where you can live on.
I do a lot of fishing and hunting. I just fish different things in different places. In fact I would have been going on a fishing trip tomorrow but with the coronavirus, that had to be cut short.
In the back corner of the property we had two sloughs met and there was a big hole in the back, a little bay we used to call it. That was our fishing hole.