Category Archives: Fishing Ramblings – My Fishing Blog

Random thoughts and musings about fishing

A Fun Trip To Blairsville and Lake Nottely For Fishing Food and More

My trip to Blairsville and Lake Nottely two weeks ago was to go out with guide Will Harkins and get information for my June Georgia Outdoor News Map of the Month article. Although Will is in college he is a great fisherman and knows Nottely and Chatuge well, guiding on both.

I stayed in a nice fifth wheel camping trailer through brooksiderv.com in a retirement camper community.  It was cheaper than area motels and more comfortable and quieter than a motel would have been.  It was only a few miles from Nottely and Blairsville.

About a mile from the camper and Nottely Dam is Papaw’s Bac-yard BBQ where I got some of the best brisket I have ever eaten, delicious and tender enough to cut with a fork. He has a wide variety of sauces and his Brunswick Stew was very good, too.

Next door at the Amish Store some interesting jelly is available. Frog jelly is fig, raspberry, orange and ginger.  Toe Jam is tangerine, orange and elderberry.  Traffic jam is mostly strawberry for some reason. There are also many other things, from furniture to funny signs, for sale too.

The first night I drove into Blairsville and ate at Mike’s Seafood. The scallops were delicious, cooked just right, and the bite of grilled tuna I tried was excellent. I always like walking into a place like Mike’s and see you order at the fresh seafood counter.

I planned on eating there on Saturday night before I left. Although Google Maps said they got less busy after 8:00 PM, an hour before the close, at 8:00 that night the wait to order was 90 minutes!!

Sicily’s Pizza & Subs Pasta was just down the street and there was no wait. The pizza I got was great but it was not the scallops I wanted!

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Two trips to West Point last weekend produced very different results, one amazing and one not too bad.

On Friday I met Payton Caldwell to catch crappie.  In the early 2000s GON did an article on shooting docks at West Point with Peyton’s grandfather, Joel Chambers. https://gon.com/fishing/run-run-and-gun-for-west-points-deep-shade-crappie  He and GON editor Brad Bailey landed an incredible 273 crappie that day, a magazine article record that I think stands until now.

We got into his boat at 7:00 AM. When I had to leave at 2:00 PM we had landed an unbelievable 351 crappie. Paton went back out and fished until dark and his final total for one day was 485 crappie in the boat! All came “shooting” docks, sling-shotting a light jig far back under docks. 

It took me about two hours to re-learn an old skill, I had not fished that way in at least 20 years. But it was fun. Payton said he thought I caught about 100 of the 351 on his clicker but I think it was more like 60 – 70.

Payton’s skill meant he caught way more than I caught. He probably outfished me 20 to one the first two hours when I could not get my jig in the right places.  It was fun either way. Later in the day he was outfishing me “only” four or five to one.

The details of how to find the right docks and what to use will be in the June issue of Georgia Outdoor News.

A Fun Trip To North Georgia Fishing, Eating Good Food and Scenery Bringing Back Great Memories

Want a nice get-away to the mountains for some scenery, cool air and fishing? I just got back from a few days around Blairsville and Lake Nottely. On the trip I ate some good food, looked at scenic views and fished for bass.  And I was constantly having flashback memories of my youth.

All the years I was in elementary school, grades one through eight back then, my family went on summer vacation for a week in the mountains.  We would load up the 54 Bel Air – and later the 1962 Bel Air – and head north from Dearing. All the roads were two lane back then and it was a slow, enjoyable trip.

Each night we would stay in a cheap roadside motel, four of us in one room, and eat at a local diner. Daddy insisted on country food just like we ate at home no matter how much I wanted a hamburger or hotdog.  At lunch we would stop at a picnic table, often right beside the road but sometimes at a scenic overlook, and mama would make sandwiches.

My most vivid memory of lunches is not about the food.  We always had Cokes in small bottles back then. I picked up mine for a swig and didn’t notice the yellow jacket on the mouth of the bottle. It took exception to being pressed against my lip and, after the burning sting eased a bit, I swelled up for two days!

The roadside attractions back then were not politically correct.  At many you could buy a nickel Coke or candy bar and give it to a chained bear cub to drink and eat.  I never wondered what happened to those cubs when they got too big, the owners probably ate them.

I learned about scams on one of those trips. A sign said give the owner a nickel and he would open the lid of a box cage and let you see the baby rattler and copperhead inside.

Sure enough, there was a baby shake rattle toy and a penny inside.

I loved the mountain streams and lakes but we never stayed in one place long enough for me to fish. But the year I was eight we changed our plans and I could not wait for my dream trip.

My family and another family, close friends, rented a cabin at Vogel State Park for a week. It was right beside a small stream that had trout in it, and only a couple hundred yards from the lake.

The other couple had a baby girl and she had colic.  Her loud crying kept me up all night and almost ruined the trip. That is when I decided I never wanted kids of my own!

One morning before daylight I put on my overalls, slipped out of the cabin without waking anyone, picked up my cane pole and can of worms and headed to the lake.  Where the stream entered it several row boats for rent were chained up.  One was half full of water with its back end in the lake.

I sat on the edge of that boat for a couple hours as it got light, catching small bream, yellow perch and trout with live earthworms.  I put my fish in the end of the boat that was full of water and it was supposed to work like a livewell.

Mama came hustling down the path to the cabin calling my name. When they woke and I was not there they panicked and went looking for me. Mama found me after she asked two teenage girls out walking if they had seen a kid.

Apparently they answered that yes, Huckleberry Finn was fishing down by the lake the lake!  I guess that fit me with my bare feet, overalls and straw hat!

Many things have changed, you will not see chained bear cubs or baby rattlers. But a trip is still fun and fishing is good on Nottely and other area lakes. 

My trip was to go out with guide Will Harkins and get information for my June Georgia Outdoor News article. Although Will is in college he is a great fisherman and knows Nottely and Chatuge well.

I stayed in a nice fifth wheel camping trailer through brooksiderv.com in a retirement camper community.  It was cheaper than area motels and more comfortable and quieter than a motel would have been.  It was only a few miles from Nottely and Blairsville.

About a mile from the camper and Nottely Dam is Papaw’s Bac-yard BBQ where I got some of the best brisket I have ever eaten, delicious and tender enough to cut with a fork. He has a wide variety of sauces and his Brunswick Stew was very good, too.

Next door at the Amish Store some interesting jelly is available. Frog jelly is fig, raspberry, orange and ginger.  Toe Jam is tangerine, orange and elderberry.  Traffic jam is mostly strawberry for some reason. There are also many other things, from furniture to funny signs, for sale too.

The first night I drove into Blairsville and ate at Mike’s Seafood. The scallops were delicious, cooked just right, and the bite of grilled tuna I tried was excellent. I always like walking into a place like Mike’s and see you order at the fresh seafood counter.

I planned on eating there on Saturday night before I left. Although Google Maps said they got less busy after 8:00 PM, an hour before the close, at 8:00 that night the wait to order was 90 minutes!!

Sicily’s Pizza & Subs Pasta was just down the street and there was no wait. The pizza I got was great but it was not the scallops I wanted!

Male Bass Guarding Fry and An Irritating Club Tournament

Two years ago 12 members of the Spalding County Sportsman Club fished our April tournament at Clarks Hill.  We fished 16.5 hours in two days to land 102 bass weighing about 180 pounds. There were 17 five bass limits and one fisherman went home early and didn’t weigh in.

My 10 weighing 28.86 pounds won and Niles Murray had ten at 20.60 pound for second.  Glenn Anderson weighed in eight keepers at 17.46 pounds for third and had a 5.20 pounder for big fish.  Raymond English was third with ten weighing 16.71 pounds for fourth.

    I fished Thursday and Friday trying to find a pattern and it seemed fairly easy to catch keeper bass, but they were all males weighing less than two pounds. I am pretty sure they were guarding fry. I saw several balls of tiny bass up in shallow water.  A local fisherman told me for my GON fishing report he thought a great majority of bass at Clarks Hill spawned the week before we fished.

    In the spring when the length of daylight and water temperatures get right, male bass go up in shallow water and fan out a bed.  They use their tails to “fan” the water, pushing silt off hard gravel or sand to make a good place for eggs.

    Females move in and pick the best-looking bed and drop their eggs. They may release eggs in several beds before going back out to deeper water and basically sitting still for several days to recover.

The poor male stays around the bed chasing off bream and other predators that would eat the eggs. They will hit just about any bait that comes near them during this time.

For about a week after the eggs hatch the male stay around the young fry, protection them. But then he will get so hungry he will start eating his own young.  Those males are very easy to catch during this process.

I was lucky enough to find four rocky points where bigger bass were feeding on the shad spawn and caught five weighing 13.56 pounds on Saturday. I was able to rotate around the points all day. When fish stopped hitting on one I would go to the next one.  Although other fishermen pulled up on them and fished a short time, none stayed on them for a long time.

Sunday I was blocked from fishing three of those points, one by a pontoon anchored on it two others by fellow club fishermen that followed me to them that morning. But I was lucky enough to land five weighing 15.30 on the one point I could fish to insure the win.

Inconsiderate Rude Fishermen and Folks In General with Social Media Making Them Worse

    On the inconsiderate, rude fishermen and folks in general thing, social media has also made things worse.  Many “keyboard warriors” out there seem to live to make stupid and or insulting comments. And trolls say things just to try to stir up controversy.  They would never make those kinds of comments in person since they would not want a black eye. 

    When I do my Georgia Outdoor News articles I shoot a short video with the fisherman landing a bass. They then hold it up while telling a little about why and where they are fishing. The videos are about one minute long total. The video goes with my article when it is put online. 

    My editor told me last week a couple of “fishermen” had sent in comments that we were keeping the bass out of the water too long making the video.  I wonder if they would have that problem if I were taking pictures of them? And I would not be surprised if they “boat flip” bass, jerking them out of the water and letting them slam into the bottom of the boat.  But we have to protect bass no matter what, in their opinion. 

I am tempted to tell them “don’t worry, we took the fish home to eat” but that would make me a troll, too. Those folks think it is a deadly sin to kill and eat a bass. But I can be snarky, too!

    I got the following comments online when I went to the Minn Kota users’ group on Facebook asking for help about a trolling motor problem. The pull cable comes through a hole in a cast aluminum block and mine cut a groove in it, which then cut the cable. I asked if there was a fix like a stainless-steel sleeve to go in the hole.   

    Several people said they had the same problem and a couple gave me a link to an aftermarket product that solves it. 

But the following comments range from not responding to the problem to the irrelevant to just plain dumb: 

    “Guys I been working on trolling motors for 28 year’s I’m very aware of everything , if they made the part out of steel then (when ) you run into something it would break every thing instead of the aluminum part, you have to have inexpensive weak spots in everything in lifes gadgets lol.” 

    Later I had this exchange with the same guy: “so if I put a stainless steel grommet made for this problem in the hole it will weaken mine?” his response “Depends on how much you drill out.” No idea where he came up with drilling anything, or about running into things. 

Another guy stated, “its not a piano.” I said “weird response, what do you mean?” but got no response. 

Another suggested I buy a different brand trolling motor for $3500 rather than the less than $25 part to fix mine. And yet a third suggested if I could not keep my equipment repaired I should stop fishing, and go to trowling, whatever that is.  Maybe he thinks I should install stucco.  That from me just asking if anybody had the same problem and a solution for it. 

Although I stated up front the groove had cut my stainless-steel pull cable, I got this genius response: “Maybe they can redesign the parts, so it cuts into the stainless steel cable, and then your cable breaks, and you have something else to bi**h about. Motor looks very well loved. It’s a cheap part and actually if you have any decent repair center around you they will give you one for free and it will take 10 minutes to swap out.”   

I had checked with Minn Kota and they offered to sell me the replacement part, exactly the same as the one that caused the problem, for about $20 

    For the suggestion “You’re supposed to cut the cable short enough so you reach out and pull the cable straight up to release it. That’s straight from Minnkota.” I responded that at my age that ain’t gonna happen.  

I have a hard time just standing on the front of the boat, much less leaning over the trolling motor and front of the boat and pulling a cable straight up.  I guess he did not consider the health and age of some of us, or anything else for that matter. 

Although I did find the part I needed on the Facebook page from a couple of suggestions, I don’t know why I bother. And stuff like this is even more sad when you realize the net and social media are killing print media. 

The Actions of A Few High School Anglers and Boat Captains Turned Me Against Youth Fishing Tournaments

    Fishermen have always been mostly nice, polite considerate folks. There have always been the exceptions, but they were fairly rare and were shunned by most. 

Unfortunately, the huge influx of young tournament fishermen due to the popularity of high school tournaments has produced way too many out there that have no concept of courtesy, rules or safety. And its not just the kids, the adults driving the boats are even worse.

    I always supported youth tournaments, starting a youth tournament club through the Flint River Bass Club  and the Spalding County Sportsman Club. The Flint/Spalding Youth Club was successful, winning the state championship twice. But we emphasized courtesy and safety to them.

    My support changed at a Sportsman Club tournament three years ago at Guntersville. That huge lake is very shallow with thousands of acres of grass beds that have narrow boat channels marked through them. Twice in practice I was run out of those channels by adult “boat captains” driving for high school fishermen.

They did not know or care that the law says boats stay to the right when meeting an oncoming boat, just like in a car. If I had not gone out in the grass to my right they would have hit me.

    More madding but less dangerous, the next day in the tournament I was sitting a short cast off a point with a grassbed on it and had just caught a keeper bass. I was about 50 feet from the edge of the grass and the bank was not far behind the grass. The whole creek was behind me, hundreds of acres of open water. Unfortunately, the boat ramp was down the bank about 300 yards from me.

    I heard a boat out in open water past the point toward the main lake and, due to my experience the day before, looked up.  It was a high school team, two kids in their cute little jerseys, with an adult in the same cute little jersey driving the boat.

    They came off plane about 150 yards from me and I thought they were nice, not making a big wake to hit me while I fished. But then I saw how they were idling, headed right between me and the bank. It would have been even closer for them to go behind me to the ramp, but no, they had to mess up my fishing.

    All three kind of raised their hands in a little wave, but when I took out my phone and started videoing them, they all three looked the other way and would not look back. They kept that pose as they idled through the grass I was fishing.

    That was in a 200 boat Alabama Federation Youth tournament. When I got home I contacted the state tournament director about the courtesy and safety issues. His response was basically they were too big and busy to worry about safety and courtesy. And he said 90 percent of his captains were safe.

    So based on his admission, about 20 boats in his tournament were running around dangerously on a crowded lake.  I am afraid you will read more and more about boating “accidents” that are not really accidents.

    Boat ramps produce good examples of folks not knowing what they are doing and not caring they are blocking the ramp for others.  In my club we can launch 10 boats in less than 15 minutes in the morning and load them up in about 20 minutes in the afternoon.

For years we made fun of those that launched a boat just a few times a year, doing stupid stuff at the ramp. You can watch many videos of that kind of thing online.

    But those that are just stupid or mean that block the ramp for a long time while others are waiting to use it are really the problem. Last month at Lanier I saw a good example of this, and again it was an adult with kids “practicing” for an upcoming tournament.

    The adult pulled in, backed down the ramp then he and three kids got out of the truck. They started getting tackle, coolers, snacks and other stuff out of the truck and putting it in the boat.

    Folks with any sense do that in the parking lot, getting the boat ready then quickly launching it. These folks took about 20 minutes getting their boat ready blocking the ramp before finally getting their boat in the water.

    Even after getting the boat tied up to the dock and parking the truck, the adult walked from the boat to the truck twice getting stuff they forgot before they finally left.

    I wish we could bring back courtesy and sense in many things but none more than fishing.

Tough Day Fishing Until I Found One Sweet Spot

Last Sunday at West Point for me was like the Herman’s Hermits song “Henry the Eighth” “Second verse, same as the first” refrain. I ended up almost dead last in the tournament, but at least I did catch a limit.

    In the Spalding County Sportsman Club February tournament at West Point 15 members and guests fished eight hours, from 7:30 AM – 3:30 PM.  We landed 65 keeper bass, mostly spots longer than the minimum 12-inch limit and a few largemouth longer than the 14 inch limit.  There were 13 five fish limits but two fishermen did not weigh in a fish.

    Lee Hancock repeated his win the week before with five weighing 10.88 pounds and had a 4.48 pound largemouth for big fish.  Doug Acree came in second with five weighing 10.65 pounds, Raymond English was third with five weighing 9.45 pounds and Glenn Anderson came back from a zero last week to place fourth with five at 9.45 pounds.

One of the fishermen that zeroed had boat problems, a live well hose leaked and almost sank his boat so he went home. The other zero said he was fishing behind a “vacuum cleaner,” meaning his partner caught all the fish. Reminded me of me last week, but I was in front of the boat!!

    I started out pretty good, landing a good keeper spot before 8:00 AM then caught short fish and another barely keeper spot. I put the small spots in the other livewell. Since there is no size limit on spots they are legal to keep under 12 inches, but club rules require them to be 12 inches long to weigh in.

    Small spots 10 to 12 inches long are easy to filet and are delicious when fried, baked in mustard/parmesan crust or just baked with a little lemon.  I was able to keep five after the tournament, a couple of them just over 12 inches long, since I didn’t weigh them so there was not penalty for not releasing them alive.

    After catching those three early I tried several places Robert caught fish last week but never had a bite. I don’t know if there were no fish there or they just would not bite for me again. Many of the places I wanted to fish had other fishermen already fishing there. At noon I still had the one decent keeper spot and one barely weigh-in size in the boat.

     A little after noon and stopped on a bank where I have caught fish in the past this time of year.  I saw a small stick just above the water, cast a jig to it and got a bite but missed it. I did feel more brush under the water but it was only five feet deep.

    The next two casts to it resulted in two more missed bites. Then I caught six keeper spots, a keeper largemouth and several short spots in the next 20 minutes!  I had put the spot lock down on my boat and the trolling motor keep the boat in one place while I caught nine or ten fish!  All hit a small jig or shaky head worm.

    That was it, in never got another bite. And my weight of 7.21 was good for only 12th place!

Was It Karma, Bad luck, You weren’t holding your mouth right, Just not your day, Wrong side of the boat That Caused Me To Have A Bad Day?

    “Karma.  Bad luck. You weren’t holding your mouth right. Just not your day. Wrong side of the boat. Different baits.  Different techniques.” Those are just a few of the comments I got about my fishing last Saturday.   

    I had posted “How is it possible to fish 7. 5 hours, get three bites and land one fish while your partner using same baits throwing at rock banks and points catches 12 keepers?????? And caught them on four different baits!!”

    Ignoring the comments that apparently did not see that we were fishing the same way with the same baits, that basically leaves “luck.”  There is some amount of luck when fishing a club tournament.  Although I was obviously around fish all day, they just did not hit my baits, waiting on my partner’s baits, apparently.

    In the Potato Creek Bassmasters February tournament at West Point last Saturday, 21 members fished from 7:30 AM to 3:30 PM to land 73 bass weighing about 143 pounds.  Most of the bass were spots with a 12-inch size limit but there were some largemouth over the 14-inch minimum length. One person did not catch a keeper but eight members landed a five bass limit.   

    Lee Hancock won with five weighing 11.25 pounds and his 4.16 pound largemouth was big fish. My partner Robert Howell, insulting me from the back of my boat, had five weighing 10.66 for second.  Third place was taken by  Russell Prevatt with five at 10.20 pounds and Doug Acree rounded out the top four with five weighing 9.02 pounds.

    I came in 19th out of 21 with one fish weighing 1.55 pounds.  Fishing will definitely keep you humble!

    When Robert caught his first keeper, a small spot that hit an underspin on the first place we stopped, I thought it was a bad start for me. Then an hour or so later we went around a small rock point and he caught his second fish on a shaky head worm. That got me worried.

We went back around that point and I caught my one keeper on a shaky head then Robert got another keeper on his shaky head.  The third pass around that point Robert got his fourth keeper, his biggest at 3.79 pounds, on his shaky head.

Robert and I were fishing the same bait the same way, but he was using lighter line, something I did not think would matter in the stained water, but I dropped back to the same weight line just in case.

On one rocky bank we fished about 150 yards and Robert got his fifth keeper on his shaky head then culled with another keeper. He switched to a wacky rigged Senko and caught three more!  I never had a bite.

A little later Robert caught three more on a Carolina rig, a method and bait I had tried off and on all day. I fished a wacky rigged Senko some, too. He even caught a four pound blue catfish!

It did not seem to matter what I did.  I guess it was just “one of those days” for me, for whatever reason. I just hope it does not stay the same for me in the Sportsman Club tournament at West Point this weekend and I am not making excused for not catching fish!

Is It Legal and Safe To Eat Road Kill?

You may have noticed a lot of dead deer beside the roads lately.  There are two times of year that hitting a deer with your car is more likely.  In November during the rut bucks lose their minds and will chase does out into the road. And the does run without being as carful as usual.

    This time of year making a living in the woods is tough for herbivores.  There is very little green stuff to eat. But if you look, grass often greens up along road right of ways in the winter long before it does in the woods since the road shoulders get a lot of direct sun. That is a meal hungry deer often can’t refuse.

    Be extra careful driving during low light conditions early in the morning and at dusk. And watch out all night long. Don’t disturb a deer’s meal and   don’t disturb your day with a call to your insurance agent.

    But there is an upside to road kills. You can take them home for dinner.

    In 2010 Georgia passed a law allowing us to pick up and keep road kill deer and bears. You must report bears to the state but not deer, as I understand the law.  Some people eat road kill and it is safe and good if you know what you are doing.

    I would be wary of any deer I did not hit or see being hit.  And the way it is hit makes a big difference.  The collision will bruise and damage meat, much like the area around the bullet wound but larger. But even if you have to throw away some of the venison from a road kill, what you get is free and easy!

    How long the deer had been by the road would make a big difference, too, as would time of year. When I shoot a deer I try to field dress it and get it in a cooler as fast as possible.  But if the weather is cold enough, the deer will be ok longer.

Many years ago I shot a doe right at dark. Although I spent two hours looking for it, and got some other club members to help me, we never found it. The blood trail disappeared near a ditch but the deer was not in it. Based on the amount of blood and the sounds I heard after the shot, we did not think the deer had crossed the deep ditch.

The temperature was right at freezing at dark and the low that night was 22 degrees.  I got to the hunting club the next morning just as the sun came up, climbed up into the stand to get a good line on where the deer was when I shot it the night before, and could see it. It was laying on the other side of the ditch, a few feet from where we had searched.

When I field dress the deer it had an “off” smell, not real bad but not quite right. I did not bother keeping the heart and liver like I usually do.  When I carried the deer to the butcher he said it should be ok.

It was, the meat tasted fine when cooked, it had none of the odd taste that I smelled when cleaning it.

Eating road kill is not for everyone but it is legal and safe, if done right.   

Cooking Catfish Stew and Other Fish Recipes

Mama was a great cook as were all my extended family, both blood relatives and in-laws.  I often said Aunt Nancy could cook and old boot and make it taste good. Her husband, Uncle Adron, hunted and fished constantly and she cooked great meals of game and fish.

    One of my favorites was her catfish stew. It really was more like hash, everything was ground up.  Mama would get with her anytime I caught a big catfish and cook up a big pot. I enjoyed many winter meals of it and saltine crackers sitting on my porch at my small trailer at Clarks Hill.

    I tried making it last week with a  big cat I caught in the Sportsman Club tournament at Sinclair.  A few years before she died I asked mama to write some of her recipes down and I have dozens of index cards with her hand written ingredients and instructions.   

Unfortunately, mama’s Alzheimer’s was starting to affect her memory and many of her recipes I have to guess at some steps.  For example, her catfish stew recipe calls for ten strips of fatback but it is never mentioned again in the instructions.

The ten quarts I made are pretty good but not quite right.  I will keep trying.

I love any kind of fish stew or chowder. When I eat out the first thing I check on the menu is the soups and stews.  Fishtales in both Griffin and Zebulon make a good gumbo and a good shrimp chowder.

I make two kinds of fish chowder, one with a red tomato sauce Manhattan style and one with a milk and cream base New England style.  The Manhattan style has a very strong fishy taste and smell, to the point no one would come in my office when I was principal at RESA Academy and took it for lunch.

Both start with bass filets but the Manhattan style I boil what I call backs and wings – the backbones and rib cages left after fileting – and use the strong broth from that process. I pull all the meat off the backbones and “wings” and add the filets to the broth then add other ingredients.

The New England style I just boil diced potatoes, pour off the water and add milk and other ingredients, adding the filets last thing.

I have cooked pretty much everything I have shot my whole life.  BBQed raccoon was  one of the oddest, but Southern Mississippi Beaver was definitely the most unusual, and also the most difficult.  I spent a long time skinning out the hindquarters of the beaver, it was by far the most difficult animal I have ever skinned and gave up on the front legs and shoulders. They were very small anyway.

I have many detailed recipes for game and fish that I make in the Fish Recipes category.

Getting Old and Adapting To New Fishing Realities

If something didn’t hurt when I woke up, I would think I was dead. That is supposed to be joke but it is an all-too-true statement of getting old. 

Our bodies were not designed to last this long. I think my warranty ran out years ago and there are no replacement parts available.  I always said I would rather wear out than rust out, and still believe it, but it gets harder and harder to keep the parts moving and rust free every year.

That is one good thing about fishing, it can be done at any age.  I have had to adjust the way I fish; I can no longer stand with one foot on my trolling motor foot pedal and fish for eight hours in a tournament. Now I slowly get up from the driver’s seat pulling up on a handle on the console, hold on to the windshield and carefully move up sit down on the front seat. But I can still fish!

Backing my boat down the ramp, hopping out and crawling across the truck bed to get to the boat and back it off the trailer is no longer easy.  Without friends in the bass clubs doing it for me I would not be able to fish three tournaments each month.

When I fish by myself I tie a rope to the front of the boat and the other end to the trailer, slowly back the boat off and ease the truck forward, pulling the boat back to the bank with the rope.  That would cause major problems and slow everything down at a tournament.

Another thing I used to love doing makes it  frustrating to not be able to cut, split and stack wood like I did for years. I never really had to do it to heat my house but always enjoyed all parts of it from cutting to burning the wood.

Both my parents died in their mid-70s. When I retired, I hoped, if I was like them, I had about 25 good fishing years left. That was 22 years ago!

Make the most of every day right now before you run out of them!