Category Archives: Fishing Ramblings – My Fishing Blog

Random thoughts and musings about fishing

Tomato Sandwiches and More

Growing up, we always tried to plant our gardens on Good Friday and expected to have fresh tomatoes by July 4. This year that is an unobtainable goal for me. I was unable to till my little garden patch and when I gave up and got someone to do it, all the rain kept me from planting tomatoes and peppers for several more weeks.

Some of my tomatoes are blooming, so there is hope for home grown tomatoes before too long. There is nothing better than a fresh, fully ripe tomato straight from the vine. Store bought tomatoes are bred to stay ripe and firm longer, for the trip to the store and time on the shelf, but they just do not taste as good.

I did get one of my favorite sandwiches this past week. Linda got some fresh tomatoes from a fruit stand. They are almost as good as home grown ones. I peeled and sliced one and put it on bread with mayonnaise. Mom always peeled tomatoes and they just taste better that way to me.

We ate tomato sandwiches like that all summer. But that was it, just tomato, mayo and bread. I was in college before I discovered a BLT. I think I had heard of them but never tried one. I’m not sure where I first had one, I think it was at the University Union Grill.

It was good, but the tomatoes were not home grown, so it lacked something. I eat them often now, sometimes with just bacon and no lettuce.

We often had egg salad and chicken salad sandwiches, too. Since we had 11,000 laying hens on our farm there were always plenty of eggs to eat, every day. Mom mixed up a big bowl of one or the other of the above, or tuna salad, in a big container and kept it in the refrigerator. All three were good on Saltine or Ritz crackers, too.

We also had homemade beef vegetable soup and toasted pimento cheese sandwiches. I loved to dunk the sandwich in the soup and slowly eat the saturated parts. Those not toasted just were not as good. I tried to make them after I left home but it took me a long time to realize I needed to toast the bread then put the pimento cheese on it, not try to toast it all together.

Daddy would not eat cheese. He said he went to town with his family grocery shopping when he was three years old. Riding home in the back of a two-horse wagon, he got into the big chunk of hoop cheese they had bought and ate so much he got sick.

Mom did make us macaroni and cheese, and we often had pimento cheese, but daddy would not eat it. So I never had a toasted cheese sandwich until I got to college. If I remember right, I tried it at the same grill as the BLT.

I tried for years to make a good toasted cheese sandwich but they were never right. Then I watched an online video and found the right way to make one. Lots of butter melted in a fry pan then toast one side of two pieces of bread, put the cheese between the toasted sides and then, after adding more butter, toast the outside of the sandwich on both sides while keeping it covered to melt the cheese. And mine much have Velveeta cheese to taste right.

Sandwiches are a staple of many lunches, and there are just so many choices!

Odd Couple Lives On My Pond

The odd couple lives on my pond. Last spring a pair of Canada geese raised some young there and I enjoyed watching them for several weeks. Then all but one disappeared. I was not sure if it could fly or not since I never saw it fly. It would just swim around on the pond.

A few days later I noticed a female mallard duck had started staying with the goose. They were always side by side swimming around the pond or out of the bank feeding. I found out the goose could fly one day when I scared them, both took off flying across the pond and landing together.

They are still together. If I scare them and they fly off in different directions, the mallard will quack until the goose joins her. They do not stay apart very long. I wonder how long this strange relationship will last.

This pair really look strange since the goose is at least four times as big as the duck. Yet they never leave each other’s side. Next spring when geese return to the pond to nest I wonder how the goose will react. Will it take up with others of its kind or stick with its duck friend? Only time will tell.

Sandwiches I Have Eaten

A post on “fazebook“ about pineapple sandwiches got me hungry for one, and also got me to thinking about sandwiches I ate growing up. Basically, we would put just about anything between two slices of loaf bread and eat it. They were a lunch staple as well as a snack for a growing boy that was always hungry.

My preference for pineapple sandwiches was crushed, sweetened pineapple. Slather one side of a piece of bread with mayonnaise and pile the fruit on the other, making that side nice and soggy. The only time I ate sliced pineapple on bread was at family reunions and church gatherings. Folks brought the less messy ones there, but I did not think they were as good.

Banana sandwiches were eaten often, too. A banana sliced lengthwise and cut to bread length, on bread with lots of mayonnaise, was delicious. Although a piece of banana almost always skidded out due to mayo lubrication, it could be picked up in fingers and stuffed back in.

I discovered spun honey a few years ago and adding it to the banana sandwich makes it sweeter and better. And someone suggested mashing up the banana with a fork and putting it on the bread. Solves the problem of chunks sliding out.

Mayonnaise seems to be a common ingredient in my sandwiches, and if I was in a hurry, nothing but it made a good sandwich. Put on so thick it oozed out of the bread slices with every bite, it was quick and filling. Catsup sandwiches were the same, just squirt plenty on bread, mash them together and enjoy. And I liked them soggy, too.

I really don’t remember many ham or turkey sandwiches, but I am sure we ate them more often than I remember. I put catsup on ham and mayo on turkey or chicken.
`I was an adult when I first had a ham sandwich with cheese and mayo and mustard and I really like it, especially with a dill pickle. The same goes for turkey with lettuce and mayo and the pickle, I eat both now fairly often.

But store-bought meat like bologna, pickleloaf and liverloaf made good sandwiches with catsup added back then. And I put both Vienna sausage and potted meat with catsup on bread for a good sandwich. I still eat them, too.

Do they even make pickleloaf anymore? I don’t remember seeing it in a long time, may have to look for it! I’m sure it is not healthy, but it sure did taste good.

As a young adult I found out the liverloaf I loved growing up but is hard to find now, with its rim of fat on each slice, is the same as braunschweiger or liverwurst available in some grocery stores. And I buy it and make sandwiches with catsup on them, but I miss the rim of fat!

Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, a favorite of many youth, were not a favorite of mine but I ate a few. Mom even came up with the idea of mixing the peanut butter and jelly together in a Tupperware bowl for quick, easy spreading. I see it in stores not premixed for you.

Loaf, or plain white bread, was the only kind we ever ate. All the brown breads, with all kinds of healthy grain in them, are ok, but just don’t taste as good to me.

I ate a lot of sardines and some of my friends said they made sandwiches with them, but I never tried them. I liked them too much with saltine crackers.

I’m hungry, I think I will make a pineapple sandwich. Or banana, or potted meat or Vienna sausage. Or maybe my first sardine sandwich. So many choices!

Camping at Lakepoint State Park on Eufaula

Camping at Lakepoint State Park on Eufaula is a mixed bag. In six days and five nights there last week, I had to fight gnats, mosquitoes and ants constantly. But I was almost the only one in the waterfront campground area, with about four of the 50 sites occupied.

The showers there are great, with some of the highest water pressure in any campground or motel I have used and plenty of hot water. That is a good thing after a hot sweaty day fishing on the lake. The only bad thing is the hard water – it seems impossible to get all the soap film off your skin.

The staff is very friendly and helpful, unlike some Alabama State Parks where I have camped. They seem very happy to have you there and do everything they can to make your stay pleasant and convenient.

As I loaded to leave Monday morning a staff member drove up to my campsite and asked if I had a good time. He asked if there was anything they could do to make my experience better in the future. We talked a long time and he said they wanted to do everything they could to make visitors have a great experience.

The wildlife is amazing. On mornings I did not get on the water early, I sat in my screen room set up over the picnic table drinking coffee and watching a constant parade of animals and birds.

Birds came right to the edge of the screen room looking for their breakfast. Adult Canada geese with their half-grown goslings chipped among themselves as they pecked at the ground. Grackles, blue jays, cardinals, bluebirds, crows and one very pretty red-headed woodpecker, with its white breast and wing tips, red head and black body visited daily.

Blue herons and white cranes glided over the lake and waded the shoreline in front of my campsite, keeping a wary eye out for the alligators that slowly eased by looking for something to eat. Those ugly prehistoric lizards added a mystique unlike most other Georgia lakes. Big signs in the campground warn “Alligators Present Swim At Own Risk.”

Squirrels scampered around, digging for hidden food and fighting with the birds. Bullfrogs serenaded me each morning and evening, and spring peepers kept up their song all night.

Fishing Eufaula is on fire right now, especially for bass. But in my four days on the water I caught a gar, bowfin and chain pickerel as well as some bass. Lots of other fishermen filled their stringers with shellcracker, bluegill an d crappie each day.

Even in the hot summer Lakepoint, about three hours away, is a great destination, if you have and air-conditioned camper, screen room, Sevin dust for ants and plenty of bug spray.

Fishing Wisconsin

For the past few years (in 2004) I spent the first couple of weeks of September fishing in Wisconsin and got home last Thursday from this years trip. The fishing in Wisconsin is quite different than what we have here and the trip is very enjoyable.

In Wisconsin bass are not fished for like they are here. There, walleye are the quarry for food and muskie and northern pike are sought for their fight. In fact, muskie fishermen say all other fish, including bass, are just bait. Since bass don’t get a lot of pressure, the fishing for them is much better in many lakes.

Weather there is very different, too. The host of our group said he had seen everything from 90 degrees to snow on the ground on September 1st, and we had a little of everything while I was there. Most mornings the temperature was in the low 40s and a jacket felt good. It warmed up to 80 a couple of days, but the humidity was low, so even that felt cool.

Water temperatures were in the mid sixties, a good range for bass to be active. Local fisherman told me that was about the normal range all during the summer. The week before I left to go up there the water temperature here at High Falls and Jackson was 87 degrees – 20 degrees warmer. Bass here were deep and not feeding very good.

Most days up there I was able to catch a good many bass by fishing shallow water. My best day I had 8 smallmouth bass up to three pounds and three big pike that all hit while fishing water just a couple of feet deep. My partner caught a 4 pound largemouth that day as well as several smallmouth, and had a 40 inch muskie follow his bait right to the boat. We both got a good look at it.

The reason I go to Wisconsin is for a small tournament set up by a group of fishermen on an internet newsgroup. We talk about fishing all year, posting messages and pictures. Then we get together in the spring in Tennessee and in the fall in Wisconsin. It is a lot of fun meeting folks and fishing with them after talking on the net all year.

We fish Boom Lake in the city of Rhinelander, a 1800 acre group of lakes on the Wisconsin river. This lake does get a good bit of fishing pressure, and bass are harder to catch. The minimum size is 14 inches and it is easy to catch a lot of 12 and 13 inch largemouth and smallmouth, but you can’t keep them.

In the tournament I weighed in 5 keepers at 8.5 pounds and placed second out of 20 people. That made me feel good since two of the fishermen are local guides and two more live in the area. I pulled my boat 1138 miles one way to fish waters I am not familiar with and still placed pretty good.

Smallmouth fight much harder than largemouth and a 13 or 14 inch smallmouth will really give you a good pull. And the waters there are not like what I am used to fishing. Shallows are filled with Lilly pads and other types of water weeds, and stumps fill them, too. A lot of the bass we caught hit topwater baits like the Zoom Horny Toad and pike would give you a thrill when they exploded on it.

Most of my fish hit a Yamamoto Senko cast to shallow cover and allowed to settle to the bottom. I had three smallmouth and two largemouth during the tournament, and three of them came on the Senko. The other two hit a 4 inch Zoom worm. I caught a lot of bass too short to bring to the scales on those baits during the tournament, too.

I am already looking forward to the trip next year.

Mountain Lions in Pike County, Georgia?

Mountain lions in Pike County, Georgia? I received a call from a Pike County resident a few years ago and he said he had seen a mountain lion on his property. Several people have told me they have seen mountain lions in Pike County, including a state patrol officer, so I thought I would follow up with the state DNR.

When I called the DNR office I was told mountain lions are not native to Georgia and they do not follow up on any sightings.

A few years ago Georgia Outdoor News ran an article about mountain lions in Georgia and mapped the sightings. The DNR does not follow up on sightings because there has never been any confirmed evidence of one here. None have ever been hit by cars, no bodies have been recovered and no tracks have been confirmed.

Then one was killed during deer season about 60 miles away in Troop County. It was thought to be an escaped caged one, or a young male from Florida looking for new territory. Either way, it way a confirmed mountain lion in our area.

It is interesting to think there are parts of our area that are still so wild that mountain lions could live here. Since the DNR does not follow up on sightings, maybe that is why there have never been any confirmed tracks. But there have never been any pictures that were valid, and no dead lions have ever been found. So the question is still somewhat open, as far as I am concerned.

If you sight one, try to get a good picture or find tracks – without endangering yourself!

What Is Your Biggest Bass?

What is your biggest bass? Do you have a goal, a hoped-for weight to catch? I have always wanted to catch a 12 pounder, but that hope is fading. I landed a 9-pound, 7-ounce bass in a February club tournament in 1991 at Jackson Lake, but have never broken it.

Part of the problem is where I fish. Big lakes where we have club tournaments seldom produce big bass anymore. A trip shiner fishing in Florida or to a lake full of big bass, like Lake Fork in Texas, does not appeal to me. And catching one out of a farm pond does not really challenge me to try to do it.

Back in 1972, a year after Linda and I got married, we spent the month of August at Clarks Hill. We had a month to do that after I was discharged from the Air Force in June and spending most of July in Maryland with her parents. We left Clarks hill in late August to move to Griffin and start teaching here.

One night at dinner with my parents, I said I was going to catch a 12 pounder before we left. After all, I was fishing all day, every day. Daddy said that if I did, he would have it mounted for me. Linda asked how big a bass she had to catch to have it mounted, and he said eight pounds.

Some mornings Linda got up with me and went out fishing. We trolled from my parents big outdrive ski boat, the only boat we had. I would bring her in mid-morning before it got miserably hot but go back out and troll until late afternoon when she went back out with me.

As fishing luck would have it, late one afternoon we trolled across a shallow point that dropped into the Heart Creek Channel. Suddenly her Mitchell rod bowed and the drag on her Mitchell 300 screamed. I stopped the boat as a huge bass came up trying to throw her Hellbender, one of the few plugs available back then.

That bass jumped three more times, scaring us, just knowing it would throw the bait like so many did. When she fought it to the boat I though my trembling hands and shaking legs would keep me from netting it, but somehow, we landed it.

At Raysville Marina that bass weighed eight pounds, ten ounces. Unlike most bass I caught, it did not get smaller after landing it. True to his word, we took it to a taxidermist in Augusta, the same one that mounted my first deer, and daddy paid. I’m not sure which of the three of us was most proud of that fish.

Although I continued to fish every day until time ran out, I never caught a twelve-pound bass, or even came close.

I have lost a couple of bass that would have weighed twelve pounds or more. One fall afternoon in the 1970s at Jackson Lake I hooked a huge bass on a Wiggle Wart crankbait.

It never jumped like Linda’s eight pounder, but when it rolled on top my heart almost stopped. It was the second biggest bass I had ever seen, much bigger than Linda’s. I could tell it was very old by the way its body looked.

The bass did not fight hard. There were no strong runs, just a heavy, steady pull. I fought it several minutes and got it within 10 feet of the boat when it came to the top and turned on its side, giving up.

The fight was over, and I just knew I would land it, but when I pulled on it to get it to the net, the plug just popped out of the fish’s mouth. It lay there for several seconds before rolling over and disappearing into the depths, never to be seen by me again.

The biggest bass I ever hooked was on a private lake near Madison. In college my fraternity had a party there for the weekend. Linda and I were married, and while most of my brothers partied, we went fishing in one of the canoes.

The lake was well managed, and the bluegill were bedding. We caught dozens of big bream casting Mepps #2 spinners for them. But on one cast, my little spinner just stopped. In the clear water I saw it not moving, just sitting by a dark object in the water, and thought I was hung on a stump.

Then it started moving. It was in the lip of a monster bass. My little Mitchell 300 outfit was no match, but I carefully fought it. We could see the bass moving to our left in the water, acting like it did not even know it was hooked.

Then it turned back to the right. The spinner was on that side and a little pressure pulled the small hooks out. It slowly swam off, seeming to laugh at me.

When I told my tale back at the party the pond owners son told me they had caught an released a 17-pound bass in that pond the year before, and they regularly caught and released bass weighing more than ten pounds. I will always wonder just how big the one I lost really was.

Its nice to have goals, even if you never achieve them. I will continue to hope for a 12 pounder and fish every chance I get. Even if it never joins Linda’s eight pounder, my nine pounder and a pair of bass I caught at Oconee in the 1980s that weighted eight pounds, eleven ounces and nine pounds, five ounces on the wall, I will keep trying to land a twelve pounder!

Do You Have A Bucket List for Fishing?

Do you have a “bucket list,” a list of things you hope to do in your life? I have never had a formal one and, unlike the movie, I think I am too old to start one now. But there are many things I have done in my life I always dreamed of doing.

Catching salmon in Alaska like I read about in outdoor magazine was a dream, and I have been there two times. Both times I carried a collapsible Spiderman Rod I got at Berrys Sporting Goods with a Shimano spinning reel on it.

That outfit, along with a small box of jigs and spinners, fit in my backpack. Every time we went ashore from the cruise ship I caught salmon in any nearby stream. And, although that little rod bent double many times, it lasted until the last day of the last trip.

On the second trip, not only was I standing in a stream catching salmon on a fly rod on my 60th birthday, I fulfilled another dream, catching halibut in the bays there. Although the ones I caught were small, only 20 to 30 pounds, they were fun to catch. I’m not sure I could have reeled in a big one weighing over 100 pounds like in the pictures though.

Catching a barramundi in Australia was another dream, but it will never happen. I have always hated flying, and its kinda hard to get to Australia any other way. The last time I was on an airplane ruined any chance of flying anywhere in the future, so I will never catch a barramundi.

In 2010 we were flying out of Sitka, headed home. As the heavily loaded 737 rolled down the short, wet runway I did my usual, pulling up on the arm rests and thinking “get off the ground.” Just as the plane started getting “light” as it gained speed, there was a huge boom and the plane shook.

The pilot slammed everything in reverse and stopped about 100 yards from the end of the runway where it dropped into the bay. I found out later we were moving at 110 miles per hour and lift off speed was 115. We sucked an eagle into the port engine and destroyed it. If the pilot has hesitated even a second or two, we would have crashed into the bay.

No more flying for me.

Many of my dreams have been in driving distance. On a two-week driving trip out west, I caught cutthroat trout in Yellowstone Park. Linda and I hiked 5.5 miles to the Yellowstone River and I caught 22 of them in less than two hours. And got bites I missed or lost fish on almost every cast.

The hike back almost did me in. The first mile was almost straight up for 1400 feet then 4.5 more miles back to the car. We had not carried enough water and by the time I got back to the car I was so dehydrated I was having chills.

Linda’s job as a cruise travel writer enable me to go to Alaska twice, and other trips took this country
Georgia boy to places I dreamed of, and some I never even imagined visiting.

I have pictures of me squatting on the ice in Antarctica with penguins waddling by within arm’s reach. Visiting many European countries was interesting, especially Russia. Trips to South America, the Caribbean and Virgin Islands, Tahiti and other South Pacific islands was fun, and many of the more backward places really made me appreciate the USA!

On a trip 700 miles up the Amazon River I almost got to fulfill another dream. I have always wanted to catch peacock bass, and I wanted to set up a trip for them at the end of the cruise in Manaus, Brazil, a central place for fishing for them.

The cruise line had a charter jet to take us back to Miami, a five-hour flight, and we had only a few hours after getting off the ship until the flight home. When we looked at staying a few days so I could fish and flying home on our own, it was going to take us 17 hours of travel, with many stops in small airports, for the trip, so I missed that chance.

Peacock bass are now in Florida so maybe one day I will be able to drive there and catch some.

I have snorkeled in beautiful waters from Mexico to Hawaii and enjoyed those trips. Catching Yellowtail in the Sea of Cortes was a great trip, and on it I got to pet a wild gray whale, snorkel with sea lions, get so close to an orca that water from its blow by the boat wet me, and watch a pod of hundreds of dolphins.

Shooting 1000 doves a day in Argentina is another dream that won’t come true due to fear of flying. But I did get to see how much folks in that country love their beef on a trip through Buenos Aries on the way to Antarctica. In the restaurant Linda and I ordered the smallest steak on the menu and it was too much for the two of us.

Closer to home, my dream of being writer got its start thanks to Jim Berry. I have the enviable job of fishing with great bass fishermen, from the top pros to high school team fishermen, and it is wonderful. I go to a lake in Georgia and another in Alabama every month. And I really enjoy writing this column each week.

Not much beats fishing lakes closer to home in club tournaments. Fishing three a month keeps me on the water and having fun when not doing articles.

I will never complain about my life and the dreams come true for me.

I hope everyone gets to fulfill their bucket list and make their dreams come true.

Columbiana Inn Bed and Breakfast

On travels around Georgia and Alabama “researching” information for Georgia and Alabama Outdoor News magazines, I get to fish most bigger lakes in both states with some really good fishermen. And on longer trips, I stay in interesting places and eat at local restaurants. Some are excellent, some not so much.

On a recent trip to Lay Lake with college fisherman Ryan Branch, we caught some good fish and had fun on a beautiful lake. I spent two nights at the charming Columbiana Inn Bed and Breakfast six miles from the Beeswax Boat Ramp. I did not have my boat, but the owners said fishermen with boats often stay there and there is good off-street parking.

I missed breakfast the first morning since I had to be on the lake before sunrise, but the next morning I was served the best omelet I have ever eaten. It was served with a fruit bowl and delicious pound cake.

The town of Columbiana is a pretty antebellum town with nice people, at least all I met were, and interesting history. There is plenty to do other than fish. DeSoto Springs are not far away and there is a covered bridge park, as well as lots to see in town.

One night I ate dinner at Paradise Point Marina restaurant and had a good, but expensive, shrimp po-boy sandwich. The view of the lake and marina was great.

I had to visit Davis Drug Store while there to get a seat cushion, mine blew out of the boat, and the lady that helped me was extremely nice. And I was told the owner was a bass fisherman!

I would recommend a trip there for fishing or sightseeing, or just a great place to relax for a few days. I was there during the week and the only guest for two nights, but there were at least six rooms reserved for the weekend, so make reservations well in advance!

Fish Kills In Ponds

I got my heart broke a few years ago. I feed the bream in a one-acre pond on my property and have been catching bluegill from 10 to 14 ounces there. The water has been a nice fertile green color all summer, and the fish have been fat and active.

Last Saturday when I threw out fish food the bream churned the water like a school of piranha feeding on fresh meat. They quickly ate the three pounds of food I threw out and probably would have eaten more if I had given them any more. That was the usual activity level.

On Sunday afternoon when I threw out a can of food, there was almost no activity. It was very hot and the sun was bright, and I hoped that was the problem. The pond had dropped about 4 inches in the past few weeks since there had been no rain, but there was still a good flow of water coming into the pond.

Monday afternoon as I drove down to the pond several buzzards flew off. I got a sick feeling in my stomach, and it was confirmed when I caught sight of dead fish floating around the edge of the pond. I walked around the pond and counted 107 dead fish – mostly big bluegill.

Tuesday morning I called the DNR fisheries biologist that covers Spalding County and he told me I was the third call that morning about a fish kill in local ponds. The hot, dry weather had left many ponds with low oxygen content, and based on what I told him, lack of oxygen was probably what killed my fish.

Fertile ponds have a lot of algae in them, that is what gives the water the green color. Algae is good – it produces food for the fish at the lower end of the food chain and during the day it adds oxygen to the water.

Unfortunately, at night the algae actually uses oxygen, and if it dies the decay process also uses up oxygen. If a green pond suddenly turns brown, it probably means the algae has died and the fish will be in trouble.

The water in my pond cleared up a lot Monday, but that was probably from the heavy rain Sunday night. That could also have been part of the problem The biologist I talked with said the fish could have been stressed because of low oxygen levels, and the influx of fresh, cooler water was too much for them to handle. That could be what pushed them over the edge.

By Thursday the remaining fish were feeding again. Unfortunately, most of them were smaller, 8 inches long or smaller. That goes along with what the biologist told me, the bigger, older fish were the ones that would die first.

If you have a pond and see the fish swimming near the surface during the day, they may be there because the oxygen level is low. About the only way to solve the problem is to put in an aerator. That is an expensive way to go, but it may be the only way to save the fish. I am checking on getting one for my pond now.

I really hated to lose all those big bream that I have had so much fun catching. But the biologist had some good news. The fish left will probably grow very fast now since there are fewer in the pond. Maybe I have something to look forward to!