Category Archives: Fishing Ramblings – My Fishing Blog

Random thoughts and musings about fishing

Trying To Fish So Much I Wear Out and Don’t Rust Out

I always said I would rather wear out than rust out, but sometimes I overdo it. In the past three weeks I have camped at and fished club tournaments on Lanier, Oconee and Bartletts Ferry and spent a day on Seminole for a Georgia Outdoor News article. Sixteen days camping and on the lake out of the first 21 this month was almost too much!

On November 1 I went to Don Carter State Park, one of my favorite campgrounds in Georgia, and set up my slide in pickup camper. The next day I met James “Lanier Jim” Harmin and he fine-tuned my Humminbird depth finders and showed me how to use them to find deep fish. He installs Humminbird electronics and is an expert on them as well as catching Lanier spotted bass.

Friday I looked around some of my old fishing spots but did not find anything that looked good. Saturday I got up and drove to Bolling Mill ramp, it was closed to my surprise, then on the way to another ramp my brake caliper tore up a rim and two tires. It took the rest of that day getting back on the road and back to camp.

Sunday seven Flint River Bass Club members showed up to fish our tournament, but two had trolling motor problems and went home. After seven hours of casting two more went home early. I caught two keeper fish the last hour of the tournament to win with 3.86 pounds and my 2.62-pound spot was big fish. Don Gober had two at 3.05 for second. That was it!

After getting a lot of help from Oakwood Tire finding a rim and getting a tire mounted so I would have a spare on my trailer, I came back to Griffin, dropped my camper and boat off and took off to Big Jim’s Fish Camp on Seminole. I had a nice cabin there and a great fried shrimp dinner that night and Tuesday night.

Tuesday morning I met guide Chris Taylor and got the information and pictures I needed for my article. After a good nights sleep, I came home Wednesday, got up Thursday morning and wrote the article, then loaded camper and boat and headed to Oconee.

I camped Thursday through Sunday at a great Georgia Power Campground, Lawrence Shoals, and went out for a few hours on a miserable day Friday. Saturday in the tournament 18 members of the Potato Creek Bassmasters fished for eight hours to land 48 keeper bass weighing about 96 pounds. There were six five bass limits and four people didn’t have a keeper.

Mike Cox won with five weighing 12.40 pounds and Kwong Yu had five at 10.21 pounds for second. I came in a close third with five weighing 10.14 pounds, Doug Acree came in fourth with five at 9.66 pounds and Tom Tanner had big fish with a 5.36 pounder.

I rested at home Sunday through Thursday morning then went to Bartletts Ferry to stay in another Georgia Power campground, Blanton Creek, where they do not allow boats in the camping area. It was miserable cold so I fished very little Friday and Saturday.

Saturday practice messed me up, though. I didn’t go out until 11:00 and went exploring in a creek I seldom fish. In a little over an hour I caught four bass on a jig on the two bluff banks I fished in that creek. One weighed close to four pounds.

At 3:00 I went to a local tournament weigh-in and the winner had just over ten pounds with five bass. He told me he caught them off bluff banks in the creek I had caught mine.

I had a plan for the Sportsman Club tournament the next day – fish bluff banks in that creek all day rather than fish the usual places there.

In the tournament eight members landed 28 bass weighing about 36 pounds in seven hours of casting. There were three limits and no one zeroed.

Kwong Yu won with five weighing 6.87 pounds, Zane Fleck was second with five at 6.50 pounds and Raymond English came in third with four weighing 5.62 pounds. Jay Gerson was fourth with five at 5.59 pounds and Wayne Teal had a 2.33 pounder for big fish.

I fished buff banks hard for more than four hours and caught one small keeper spot. I finally went to some of my old places the last two hours and landed three keepers. My four weighed 5.12 pounds and I came in fifth!

So much for figuring out something in practice!

No more tournaments until the first weekend in December when all three clubs finish up our years tournaments. I will be “Thankful” this week for some rest. But maybe I will go to Jackson and practice a few days!

What Is the Most Important Improvement In Bass Fishing?

Unlike my picture taken in 1994 that accompanies my Griffin Daily News article, I have aged a lot in the past 30 years. I have also seen many changes in fishing, especially bass fishing, during my life. Some I like, some others like but I don’t appreciate. To each his own, I guess.

I think the most important change in bass fishing is the development of the electric trolling motor. I will never forget the fun I had sculling an old wooden jon boat for my uncles. Back then one person sat up front and fished while the other in the back used a paddle to move and position the boat for casting.

That back seat job often went to us kids. We learned a lot watching and listening, but it was frustrating, too. Sometimes we got to make a few casts, with the adult taking over the paddling, but usually it was expected our turn fishing would come when we were adults. We were not spoiled like kids nowadays.

Sometimes we tried fishing by ourselves and sculling from the front. It worked pretty well, but it meant positioning the boat, putting the paddle down, picking up your rod and reel and trying to get a cast in before the wind or waves moved the boat out of position.

Now with the touch of a button and rock of the foot you keep the boat in position perfectly, freeing your hands to cast at all times. Newer trolling motors even allow you to push a button and the trolling motor will hold you in one place, allowing you to move around the boat to fish or sit and tie on a new lure without worrying about where the boat will go.

My first ‘depthfinder” was a heavy cord with a used spark plug on the end. Knots were tied every foot, and every yard a double knot marked it. I even used freezer tape to put a numbered tag every yard to keep up with how much string was out.

My newest “depthfinder,” a Garmin Panoptix Livescope, shows everything in front of the boat out to 100 feet in detail, even showing fish as they move in the water. With a little practice I have learned to identify the kind of fish I am seeing and make a pretty good guess if they will bite. Most of the time.

The Panoptix cost a bit more than a ball of cord and spark plug weight. A paddle is a little cheaper than a spot-lock 36 volt trolling motor.

Fishing line is another huge improvement. I will never forget Edgar Reeves, Mr. John Harry’s son who was 15 years older than me, taking me with him to Clarks Hill in May. I mostly skulled his boat while he cast a Devil’s Horse topwater plug to flooded button bushes and sweet gum trees.

He told me I could cast some but when I picked up my Mitchell 300 spinning reel loaded with monofilament line, he said it would not work with topwater. The new-fangled line was not any good compared to his braided line.

He was right in a way. Monofilament has improved a lot over the past 60 years since my trip with Edgar. It is much thinner, stronger and limper than the old stuff. But I use much more fluorocarbon line when fishing since it is not visible underwater and does not stretch as much.

Unlike monofilament, fluorocarbon sinks so it is not suitable for topwater baits. But I seldom use mono for topwater, new kinds of braid, very similar to what Edgar used, are now the best line for topwater most of the time. What goes around comes around!

Spinning reels were introduced to eliminate the problems with bait casters. The first bait caster I tried to use had no free spool, the handle revolved backwards when you cast. It was called a “knucklebuster” for a very good reason.

And there was no level wind, you had to move the line with your reel holding hand thumb across the reel spool as you reeled in to keep it even. And there was no drag system.

Spinning reels had problems of their own, from loops forming when you cast that made a mess on the next cast to line slipping under the spool and jamming. But they were much easier to use.

Then spincast reels, also called closed face reels, were developed to make casting even easier but the first ones jammed way too often, and dirt and debris collected inside the closed face. New ones are much better.

I fell in love with bass tournament fishing the first time Jim Berry took me to a Sportsman Club tournament in 1974. I still fish three club tournaments each month. But the intensity of many young fishermen, “grinding” it out and not having fun but turning it into work while fishing, worries me. There are hundreds of other great developments in fishing. I hope I am around to witness a few more!

When Bass Fishing Does the Big One Always Get Away

The big one always gets away.

An article in “Bassin Times” about a pro’s memories of fish he lost that really hurt him in tournaments made me think about losing fish. Few tournament weigh-ins go by without someone telling about losing a big fish or a key fish.

All this makes me remember some of the big ones I have lost or been in the boat with a partner that lost a big one. They range from fishing with Linda to Top Six tournaments fishing with future pro fishermen. Too many of the loses were at the end of my line!

Back in the 1970s big largemouth were common at Jackson Lake. I landed my first eight pounder there in a tournament in 1976 and my second in another January tournament in 1979. But one I lost in practice around 1980 stands out in my mind.

The fish hit a crankbait on a rocky point on a November trip. I fought it for several minutes, seeing it flash in the water and knowing it was much bigger than my eight pounders. When it came to the surface about ten feet from the boat and turned on its side, I just knew I had the bass we estimated to be at least 12 pound.

I pulled a little too hard trying to drag it to the net and the lure popped out of its mouth. It slowly swam out of sight taking my heart with it.

Linda hooked a bass at Clarks Hill on a big seven-inch-long plug fishing a rocky bank in the early 1980s. It too came to the top and turned on its side, with the plug sideways across its mouth. It did not go all the way across! Then it turned and swam off. Linda did nothing wrong, and we never figured out how those treble hooks came loose.

Future pro Tony Couch was giving me a lesson on fishing spinnerbaits in a Top Six at Eufaula in 1980. We stopped at a small pocket and he said there was a big bass spawning by a stump in it. When he ran his spinnerbait by the stump his bait stopped. When he set the hook an eight-pound bass, worth several hundred dollars in the big fish pot, jumped completely out of the water and threw his bait back at us.

In a 1980s tournament Jim Berry was fishing with me at Sinclair and we had not caught much. Late in the day he cast a Countdown Rapala between two docks and hooked a big bass. When it cleared the water on its first jump, giving us a good look at its eight pounds, it threw the plug!

More recently, at a club tournament at Oconee three or four years ago I was having a bad day. With 30 minutes to fish I caught a keeper bass on a small point and felt a little better. Then if fished some docks past the point.

A bass hit my worm by one of the docks and immediately ran around a post. Somehow my 14-pound Sunline held and I pulled it back to open water. As it got it near the boat it surged back toward the dock twice but I stopped it. It was close enough to see it was an eight pound plus bass.

The third surge toward the dock was its charm, the hook pulled loose and it went back under the dock!

I have had many fish I never saw break me off in brush under the water. Since I never saw them I have no idea how big they might have been, but some pulled like huge one. I have landed flathead catfish up to 35 pounds on my worm rod so I have an idea how big fish pull.

One winter at Clarks Hill I did see what hit. I was jigging a spoon for hybrids on a channel edge when a striper lazily came to the surface chasing bait. It was about 20 yards from the boat and I saw it plainly, guessing it to be over 40 pounds. I quickly reeled in and cast my spoon in the direction it was headed.

A hard thump was following by a line screaming run, with the fish running near the surface straight away from the boat. As my line peeled from the spool I hit the trolling motor button and followed it. After about 100 yards I started to gain a little line back, then felt sick. The fish was headed straight toward one of the three underwater trees I knew about in that creek.

As feared I felt my line start to rub on the tree for a few seconds, then break. That was the biggest freshwater fish I ever hooked.

I have lost many other big fish over the years but have landed some of them, including the big flathead, a 35-pound big head carp and common carp up to 30 pounds. I have also landed seven bass weighing more than nine pounds each.

But it seems harder and harder to hook a big bass each year, so it becomes more important to try to land them!

Opening Day Does Not Mean What It Used To Mean To Me

“Opening Day!”

Those words ranked right up there with “Christmas Holidays” and “Schools Out” when I was a kid. Back then it applied to squirrel or dove season but now everyone gets excited about gun season for deer.

Deer were so uncommon even when I was in high school in the mid-1960s that seeing one crossing a road was the talk of the boys at school for days. We had the whole month of November to try to shoot two, and there were two or three “doe” days at Thanksgiving.

I got to hunt with a bow a little starting in 1964 and got a lever action Marlin 30-30 for my birthday in 1966. I was buzzing with excitement waiting for opening day in November that year, shooting my rifle every few day to make sure I could hit a deer with the iron sights.

As my young luck would have it, I had to take the SAT on the Saturday deer season opened that year. I wanted to skip it but was afraid to, my parents would have probably taken my gun away from me for a year. So I sat in an auditorium in Augusta while my friend AT took my rifle on its first hunt – and killed a deer with it!

For over 40 years I never missed standing in a tree opening day. From going home for the weekend while in college, even missing football games at UGA to hunt, to being out there in pouring rain, I was there.

Deer season has a longer and more storied past up north. Deer populations in states like Michigan and Maine never got decimated to the point they did in the south, so kids grew up hunting them. And season in some of those states lasts only one week, so it is more intense. Some rural schools even close for the week because all the kids would skip school to go hunting.

When I moved to Griffin in 1972 I had some trouble finding a place to hunt so I often went back home and hunted my old areas around Clarks Hill where I killed my first two deer in 1968. I killed a couple more bucks and does there. Then Jim Goss took me with him to the places he hunted for a few years, and Bob Pierce took me as his guest to his hunting club some.

In 1982 I joined Bob’s “Big Horn” hunting club, a club formed by a group of doctors back in the 1950s. It was a great club for me, only 30 minutes from my house and I loved the traditions.

Every year we had “camp” the first week of November, starting on Friday night with a big steak dinner that often had 100 invited guests eating in the woods. Then we camped in the woods to the next Wednesday, hunting, eating delicious food and sitting around the big fire that never went out snacking on boiled peanuts.

I saw many kids of members grow from young’uns too small to sit in a tree to adults bringing their own kids to camp. It is a fantastic way to learn about life.

I hope all kids have the opportunity to go hunting, maybe in a deer camp, and continue the traditions.

Till next time – Gone fishing!

Thanks To Ducks, Unlimited I Have Heard Loons and Geese On Clarks Hill

Reading outdoor magazines like Outdoor Life, Field and Stream and Sports Afield when growing up in the 1950s and 60s made me wish to do things I never really expected to do. I have accomplished an amazing number of them, from fishing for Cutthroat Trout in the Yellowstone River to catching salmon on a fly rod in Alaska.

Many of the simple things also intrigued me. I wanted to hear the haunting call of a loon at daybreak on a lake. I thought the sound of wild geese flying and calling at night would be amazing.

Loons and Canada geese were not present where I fished and lived in Georgia. But through management and conservation, both are now common on area lakes.

One morning at Clarks Hill as the eastern sky lightened, I heard a loon call. I had never heard one but there was no doubt in my mind what it was. The call has been called “eerie – wild – aching” in both poetry and outdoor articles and it fit those descriptions perfectly.

Canada goose calls can be somewhat jarring, but the first one I heard while fishing at night, with a full moon over my shoulder, fit this poem perfectly:

“One wild-goose call —

and even brighter shines

the midnight moon.”

Geese and to as lesser extent loons have made a comeback thanks to the work of Ducks, Unlimited and state and federal conservation agencies. Protecting wetlands, a major goal of Ducks, Unlimited, has benefited multiple species of wildlife, from loons and geese to mallards and songbirds.

Ducks, Unlimited has conserved more than 15 million acres since 1937. They raise money through local banquets and other fund raisers and work with state and federal wildlife agencies to conserve wetlands and other projects to benefit waterfowl and other wildlife.

Many projects are far from us but affect our wildlife, especially waterfowl, in many ways. Protecting loons north of us allowed them to spread to the south, increasing their range.

Some geese migrated to Georgia, most of them to the coastal areas, for years. But projects in Georgia to increase habitat for them, for example the big waterfowl sanctuary on Lake Walter F. George, brings more to our state.

And back in the 1980s the Georgia DNR worked to establish a resident flock of Canada geese here. They made big pens on lakes like Clarks Hill and clipped the wings of adult geese so they could not migrate north in the spring. That forced them to nest here and raise goslings that were never taught to fly north in the spring.

Geese calling at night from that flock started on Clarks Hill made me feel wild and free, and intensified the joy of a perfect night on the lake for me. It is no wonder to me poetry has been written about that sound and the feelings it brings.

Since 1985, money from Ducks, Unlimited has helped conserve more than 22,000 acres of wetlands right here in Georgia. The Ducks, Unlimited Georgia affiliate organization has more than 20,000 members and 1400 volunteers. The national Ducks, Unlimited organization has about 700,000 members working for conservation.

Currently, Ducks, Unlimited has delivered more than 20,000 conservation projects all across North America. Right here in our state there are 24 projects involving Ducks, Unlimited helping waterfowl and wildlife.

Many people like me do not hunt waterfowl but are members due to the good work the organization does in our state and nationally. Dues are reasonable and go to a good cause.

Banquets are fun events for attendees and raise money for the cause. Upcoming events near us are October 20th in Conyers/Rockdale County, Covington/Newton County on November 3rd and Fayette County in Tyrone on November 3^rd. Attend one for fun and a good cause.

You can find more information on Ducks, Unlimited and the work they do, as well as events, at https://www.ducks.org/

Growing Up Wild In Georgia

My youth was a perfect mixture of strict discipline and growing up wild in Georgia. It prepared me for having a balanced life where I worked hard and did the best I could at my job, but my free time was mine. I could concentrate fully on my job during the workday but forget it and do what I wanted the rest of the time. It has served me well in retirement, too.

From about six years old I had responsibilities on the farm that went along with my age. I helped gather eggs from our 11,000 laying hens, cleaned out watering troughs that ran the length of the chicken houses by running a broom down them from one end to the other, and putting graded eggs in cartons.

Those jobs increased in complexity and effort as I got older. But not all were hard work. I loved taking my semiautomatic rifle with the high-capacity magazine that I got for Christmas when I was eight years old that was loaded with .22 rat shot to the chicken houses each morning. Four of the houses had big open feed bins and during the night wharf rats would get trapped in them. I would climb up to the top, shoot any rats inside, then grab them by the tail and take them to the dead chicken dump hole.

That same .22 rifle or my trusty .410 single shot shotgun accompanied me on my morning and afternoon pre and post school and weekend trips to the woods during the fall and winter. Most anything was fair game, squirrels and rabbits during season and birds the rest of the time.

It was not unusual for me to leave the house on Saturday morning at daylight and return home at dark, exhausted, dirty, hungry and happy. I took some snacks like potted meat, Vienna sausage or sardines with some Saltines or Ritz crackers but that was never enough, although I supplemented it with roasted birds and a pocket full of pecans when they were falling.

Spring and summer were fishing times. Rather than my .22, I would carry my Zebco 33 rod and reel or later my Mitchell 300 outfit and small tackle box with me and walk or ride my bicycle to local farm ponds and fish all day. Or I would go down to Dearing branch with some fishing line and a small fly in my pocket.

I made the flies with chicken feathers and some of mama’s sewing thread, and they looked awful. I would dangle them from the end of my rod, a stick that I had cut in the woods. And the tiny bream and horny heads in the branch thought they were food often enough to make fishing for them productive.

Summer also brought the wondrous time of having many full days to spend wild. My friends and I would camp out, starting near the house in the back yard at eight years old them moving deeper into the woods each summer. Cooking food over a campfire was always an experience, and it never was cooked right, but there was never a crumb left!

We built tree houses, forts, “cabins” in the woods that kept out neither rain nor wind, and traps for non-existent animals. We dammed Dearing Branch, sometime making a pool deep enough to come up waist high on a 13-year-old skinny dipper.

We chased toad frogs and fireflies at night until bedtime. The adults often sat around on the porch after dinner and we kids, not tired enough from a full day of activities, would run around in the dark, chasing toads, fireflies and each other.

I hate that those days seem to be gone. I can not imagine someone 100 years from now sitting at a computer writing about a video game they played as a kid!

Why I Fish

A Yamaha Outboards ad on the Elite Series online coverage over the weekend got me thinking about why I fish. Then an article in Wired2fish online magazine added to my thoughts.

The Yamaha ad has a bunch of professional fishermen saying something along the lines of “if you want to relax don’t fish with me.” And the article gave reasons why so many tournament anglers “burn out” after a short time.

I have been tournament fishing since my first one with the Spalding County Sportsman Club in April 1974 – more than 48 years. For most of them I fished at least two tournaments a month, and for the past six I have fished at least three club tournaments a month.

Until a few years ago I fished many more days for fun and relaxation than I did tournaments. A few years ago I fished 443 days in a row without missing one, fulfilling a childhood dream of fishing every day for a year.

Many hours were spent sitting on my pond dock catching bluegill and bullheads. I would sit on the docks at Raysville Boat Club catching small bluegill for bait to run on jugs and trotlines that night. And I spent hours dabbling jigs around button bushes for crappie.

Maybe that is why I never burned out, all fishing was fun. Although I took trying to win every tournament very seriously, I did not “have” to win to pay my next entry fee or tournament expenses. Tournament fishing was fun even if not really relaxing.

For the past few years I pretty much go fishing only to practice for a tournament or fish one. And most of my practice is riding around watching my electronics, trying to find school of fish and hidden structure and cover.

I can still make a lot of casts and work hard to catch a fish in tournaments. Sometimes it gets frustrating that my old body won’t let me fish as hard as I want to. But I try not to think of it as a “grind” as many tournament anglers, especially young ones, complain about nowadays.

I will keep fishing as long as my body will let me. But I will never let it become a “grind” trying to catch a fish. If it is not fun it is not worth the effort.

Would You Rather Be Lucky Than Good When Fishing?

“I’d rather be lucky that good.” Kenneth Hattaway, one of my mentors in the bass clubs back in the 1970s and 80s, used to say that a lot. He was one of the best club fishermen in the area back then and did well in bigger tournaments, too. In many ways he was both good and lucky.

Over the years I have come to believe what he meant was you can be good consistently, but when you are lucky you do even better. Anyone can win a tournament with the right luck, but it won’ be consistent over time.

All the pro fishermen on the Bassmaster Elite Series are good. I have fished with more than a dozen of them and they have all the details and mechanics of fishing down pat. They can skip a jig under a dock into places most of us never reach. They can read electronics like a printed report. And they keep all their equipment in top condition.

But to win an Elite tournament when competing against 87 other fishermen just as good as you are takes some added luck.

Boyd Duckett sitting on the porch of his cabin after the first day of a tournament, seeing fish schooling and going there the next day and winning is mostly luck.

Leaving your bait in the water while eating a sandwich for lunch, and your boat drifting over an unknown rockpile and getting a bite, then winning the tournament on those rocks is a lot of luck. My partner in a BASS Regional in Kentucky did that.

When I do well it is a lot of luck. To do well one day of a two-day tournament is luck, to do well each day takes some skill. There have been multiple times I have done well one of two of the days in our state top six, but I have done well both days only five times, making the state team each time.

Sunday I got lucky enough to stop first thing on a bank with a little current moving, and caught six bass in the first two hours. The next six hours produced only two more fish. Stopping on that particular bank was as more luck than skill, and the current died before 8:00 AM.

In the Flint River Bass Club tournament Sunday at Sinclair, eight of us fished from 6:00 AM to 2:00 PM to land 18 12-inch keeper bass weighing about 28 pounds. There were two five-bass limits and three people did not have a bass.

My five weighing 10.42 pounds was first. Niles Murray had three at 6.45 pounds for second and his 3.34 pound largemouth was big fish. Doug Acree had five weighing 6.22 pounds for third and Lee Hancock came in fourth with three at 2.83 pounds.

My first stop was on a deep bank with docks and grassbeds and I started casting a buzzbait. When I came to a shallow seawall a cast with a weightless Trick worm produced my first keeper, one that was very skinny and barely 12 inches long.

A few minutes later I skipped a wacky rigged Senko under a dock and landed my biggest bass, a 2.94 pounder. Then another good keeper hit my buzzbait between docks. Another dock produced my fourth keeper on the Senko at 7:00. I was pleased with the fast start.

A few docks later I caught another good keeper, filling my limit, then, right at 8:00 caught my sixth keeper, culling the small bass. I was happy with my catch and started trying to find something else that would work.

At noon I had not had another bite, then I caught my seventh keeper on the Senko on a dock and my eighth, my second biggest of the day, on the Senko on a shady seawall.

Other than hooking a 20-pound blue cat on a shaky head near a dock at 1:00 PM, I did not get another bite until weigh-in.

I wish I could be that lucky every trip.

February Is A Good Time for Small Game Hunting, and A January Club Tournament

I hope everyone had a good deer season and got to shoot what they wanted, either a trophy for the wall or a freezer full of meat. Or both!! But now that it is over, it is time to turn to small game. Many of us older folks grew up hunting squirrels, rabbits and game birds, and there is about six weeks left to hunt them.

Learning to hunt squirrels and rabbits is great training for hunting big game. You learn to read signs, be patient, acquire shooting skills and identify food sources that will help when hunting deer, turkey or anything else.

This time of year is both a challenge and a blessing. With leaves off the trees, you can spot a tree rat a long way off as it scurries from limb to limb. But they can see you just as far away and hide before you get near. And if you jump a rabbit you can get a decent shot.

There is no food in the trees, either. So you won’t be able to sneak up on a trembling limb where a squirrel is busy cutting pine cones or acorns and not paying enough attention for predators like you. When they are feeding in the trees you can often get in close for an easy shot. Not with bare trees!

Squirrels feed on the ground this time of year. When they see movement, they will run up a tree to a hidey hole and you may never see them again. But sometimes they just flatten against the tree on the opposite side, so you can throw a stick to that side and make them move around for a shot.

When food sources like oak trees dropping acorns are available, you can set up near one and let the squirrels come to you. Not gonna happen after Christmas. Now you have to still hunt, easing through the woods alert to seeing or hearing a squirrel before is hears or sees you.

That kind of hunting will help you still hunt for deer but multiply the squirrels ability to spot you before you spot them by about a thousand times for a deer. But it is fun, keeps you warmer than sitting still, and can be very productive.

My good friend AT had a pack of rabbit beagles, and we ran rabbits almost every Saturday after deer season when I was in high school. Deer season was limited to the month of November and one week at Christmas back then, so we stated letting the dogs out in early December.

I loved listening to the dogs run and figuring out where the bunny would circle back ahead of them so I could be in position for a shot. Rabbit hunting with dogs is easy compared to without them.

I killed my first rabbit while squirrel hunting with my .410. As I eased along a field line looking for activity in the trees, I jumped a cottontail and hit it as it bounced away. I think daddy and mama were as proud as I was that day!

Once after a light snow AT didn’t want to let his dogs out, so we hunted without them. We went to a farm where the owner had cut timber a year before, so there were brush piles all over the place between his fields. We would go up to a pile and one of us would get in position while the other climbed into the brush, shaking the pile to spook the rabbit.

That’s what my friend and fellow writer Daryl Gay calls “Rabbit Stomping,” the name of one of his humorous books.

Dove season was over by Christmas, but we still hunted quail some. Most of our quail hunting was earlier in the year, though. Daddy often said he did not like to put too much pressure on the coveys we hunted, they had a tough time just surviving in the winter without being pushed, scattered and harassed by us.

I miss those hunting days but nowadays I prefer spending time in my bass boat in the winter!

——

Last Sunday eight members of the Flint River Bass

Club fished our January tournament at Jackson Lake. After casting from 7:00 AM to 3:00 PM, we brought 23 keeper bass weighing about 26 pounds to the scales. There were three five-bass limits and one fisherman did not have a keeper.

Alex Gober won it all with five weighing 7.35 pounds and had a 1.80 pounder for big fish. Niles Murray came in second with five at 5.52 pounds and
Doug Acree was third with five weighing 4.34. Lee Hancock came in fourth with two weighing 2.50 pounds, beating my two at 2.48 pounds by .02 pounds!

It was a tough day. Niles said he caught his five in about an hour. This time of year there is often a “bite window,” a short time when if you are in the right place at the right time you can catch fish.

New member Will McLean fished with me and we fished hard. But at 2:46 with five minutes left to fish I had gotten only one bite, a four-inch crappie that hit a spoon. I found fish in many places, some of them set up under baitfish and looked like perfect places to catch one. But it did not happen for either of us.

As time ran out Will and I were working around a rocky point. I told him I would make a couple of casts across the downstream side of the point then we had to go in, even without anything to weigh.

On three casts I landed two keepers and lost one at the boat on a DT 10 crankbait. On my Panoptix I could see baitfish all over the end of the point with fish moving around under them, like in a few other places, but thew were feeding better.

I wish I could have made a few more casts but we pulled up at the ramp two minutes before being late!

Unusually Warm Weather and Joining A Bass Club

i wish this 60 degree weather had been here Sunday. Many folks are claiming this weather is unusual for January. But fouri years ago I wrote about how wram it was and said: “I even heard one talking head using the most over used word in our vocabulary right now – “unprecedented.”

On Sunday. January 21, 1967, my senior year in high school, Harold and I talked at church about how warm it was and that we needed to go water skiing. We wanted to be the first ones to go skiing that year. As soon as church was over, we went home, changed clothes and grabbed some extra jeans and shirts.

On the way to the lake WBBQ radio station in Augusta said it was 71 degrees and it was sunny. We got to Raysville Boat Club where my family’s ski boat was tied under a boat shed. As we pulled up to the lake, we saw one of our friends that had skipped church that day out of the water skiing.

Harold and I both skied, but we were not the first that year.

There have been many other very warm Januarys over the years, and many very cold ones. And there will be many more as the weather changes year to year.

This is a great time to join a bass club. The Flint River Bass Club meets the first Tuesday of the month and fishes our tournament the following Sunday. Potato Creek Bassmasters meets the Monday following the first Tuesday and fishes that Saturday. Spalding County Sportsman Club meets the third Tuesday each month and fishes the following Sunday. All three clubs have some two-day tournaments, too.

Annual dues are $25 in Flint River and $50 in the other two. Monthly tournament entry fees are $25 to $30 with a variety of pots, like daily big fish at $5, that are voluntary.

We have a lot of fun at the meetings discussing fishing and telling some true stories about it. Tournaments are fun competition, mostly for bragging rights since entry fees are low and there is not enough money involved to really get serious about it.

There are many of us in each of the three clubs that often fish alone, so there is always room for new members without a boat. If interested in joining one of the clubs call me at 770-789-6168 or email [email protected]. —

Last Sunday ten members of the Flint River Bass Club fished our first tournament of the year at Jackson. The weather was great for this time of year, but the muddy 52-degree water seemed to turn off the bass.

In eight hours of casting, we brought 15 12-inch keeper bass weighing about 22 pounds to the scales. Ten of them were spots. There was one limit and five members zeroed.

Doug Acree won with five weighing 8.09 pounds and said he caught a bunch of bass, culling in the first hour of the tournament, while the rest of us struggled to catch a keeper. Don Gober had three at 4.12 pounds for second, Niles Murray placed third with two at 4.04 pounds and his 3.21 pound largemouth was big fish. My three weighing 3.72 pounds was good for fourth and Alex Gober had two at 2.19 for fifth.

Niles fished with me since his new boat has not arrived. We tried a little bit of everything that morning. Niles hooked a nice two-pound bass on a spinnerbait that came off right at the net first thing.

I missed a fish that hit a jig head worm because of my stupidity. I had switched reels around and forget to check the drag. When I tried to set the hook, the spool just spun around, and I did not hook the fish.

I did land a keeper spot on a crankbait off a boat ramp and another one on a spinnerbait in a blowdown.
Then about 11:00 I slowed down and caught my third keeper on a shaky head worm on a rocky point.

I made the mistake of picking at Niles a little since he didn’t have a fish in the livewell and I had three. Then he caught the three pounder on a jig on a rocky point and caught up with me with one fish. He added his second keeper with about an hour left to fish. It hit the jig on a point.

We both missed a lot of bites. I caught two 11-inch spots and a couple of times, when I set the hook on the shaky head, I brought in half a worm, a good sign it was a little fish.

It was a fun day overall. I am looking forward to the rest of the club tournaments this year.