Category Archives: Fishing Ramblings – My Fishing Blog

Random thoughts and musings about fishing

Getting On the Water When Its Too Cold To Go Fishing

Someone jokingly said “lets go fishing” last Saturday. With a low of 8 degrees and a high well below freezing at my house, not nearly enough degrees out there, I declined. But I have been out there fishing in weather about that bad.

In a January Sportsman Club tournament more than 20 years ago I drove by First National bank at 5:30 AM on the way to Sinclair. The bank thermometer read 11 degrees. About a dozen of us showed up at Little River landing just before sunrise but the lake was so low we could not use that ramp.

Rather than giving up we all headed to Sinclair Marina where the ramp is much steeper and goes out into deeper water. The first boat was launched with no problem, but when the trailer was pulled out the water running off it froze on the ramp.

The next person backing down the ramp warned it felt slippery and when he pulled out he had to spin his tires to get up the ramp.

By the time I backed down the ramp I started sliding before my trailer tires hit the water. Luckily I slide straight, and as soon as my van tires hit the water I stopped. The ice ended at water’s edge. Then I had to “burn rubber” all the way up the ramp, melting through the thin layer of ice all the way to the top. Everyone after the first two had the same experience.

It was miserably cold but I ran the few miles to the Highway 441 Bridge where I felt I had my best chance of getting a bite. Every cast I had to dip my rod in the water to melt the ice out of the guides. The water temperature was in the upper 30s, as low as I had ever seen it.

Since I knew the bass would be very sluggish I tried casting to the pilings and reeling my crankbait very slowly by it. I had to slow down to a crawl, just barely keeping the bait moving, but I caught seven keeper bass, enough to win the tournament!

Luckily the sun on the ramp melted the ice so we had no trouble pulling out. But when I went by the bank on the way home at 5:00 PM it showed the high for the day, 17 degrees!

A February Flint River tournament at Jackson gave me a thrill but not from catching fish. When we took off I headed up the lake on plane, running about 40 MPH just before sunrise.

Suddenly there was a horrible grinding sound. I stopped the boat, just knowing I had blown a power head. But then I saw the sheet of ice running from bank to bank. It was only a half inch thick, but when the boat hit it the sound was awful. That is one of the few times my bass boat was an ice breaker!

For some reason on my Christmas trips to Clarks Hill, every year the weather seemed to get much worse after Christmas Day. On year back in the 1990s I woke to howling wind and sleet. It was not comfortable, and everywhere I tried to fish the wind made it impossible.

I finally pulled in behind an island where a rock pile was protected from the wind and caught an 8.2-pound bass on a crankbait. It was the only bite I had in the four hours I forced myself to fish.

One year I took Linda to the Augusta Airport the day after Christmas to fly to Salisbury MD to visit her folks. My dog Merlin and I went back to the lake. We were staying in my small camping trailer and the only heat was a small electric heater.

During the night Merlin jumped up in bed with me. She always slept on the floor by the bed so that was strange. But when I got up the next morning I saw why, her water bowl on the floor was frozen solid.

The little heater kept it tolerable about three feet above the floor at bed level, but the uninsulated floor was below freezing.

That got me worried. Back then I heated my house on Rebecca Circle with a wood burning insert. There was no heat in the house while I was gone. I called my neighbor and ask her to check to see if she heard water running. She called back and said she did not hear water but my well pump was running steadily.

I knew what that meant and headed home. I learned how to solder copper pipe the next day, there were 11 split pipes under the house. The well pump had pumped the well dry and that is why it was still running.

I have been ice fishing one time in my life. One January a hard freeze got my upper pond hard on top. I went out to the end of my dock, knocked a small hole in the inch thick ice with a pipe, and dropped a piece of fish food on a small hook into the water.

After a few minutes a small bluegill hit it and I landed it through the ice. That remains and probably will always remain the only ice fishing fish I have caught.

I think I will hook the boat up and head to the lake!!

Memories Of Christmas Past Are Melancholic

Memories of Christmas past are melancholic for me this time of year. Almost all my memories have hunting and fishing involved and most include family time, too. But those times are only memories now.

Most memories when I was in elementary school involve decoration with homemade, nature sourced items. We sprayed pinecones and sweetgum balls different colors and used them in a variety of ways, from making small “trees” by piling them into round pyramids to making wreaths for the door.

We collected “smilax,” also known as greenbrier, to outline out front door. We built manger scenes with pine bark and green pine limbs. And we made toothpick and ice cream stick decorations.

One of my jobs from ten years old on, after I was allowed to take my .22 out into the woods by myself, was to shoot down mistletoe. Many of the big oaks in the woods on Dearing Branch had clumps of it, mostly way up in the top. I prided myself on bring down a twig with every shot.

Through middle and high school I did all that and included hunting trips after a big family lunch. Daddy often took me out quail hunting when we had pointers. After we stopped trying to find quail, even back then wild coveys were getting harder to find, I would go rabbit hunting with my friend with his pack of beagles or squirrel hunting by myself.

After I went off to college a trip home usually included all the above. Then after Linda and I got married we would visit my folks in Dearing then drive to Salisbury Md where her folks lived.

We bought our first bass boat in 1974 and that year I found out bass would bite in late December, addicting me. Most every year after that I would go to out place at Clarks Hill the day school got out and stay by myself until Christmas day.

By then Linda had a job in a doctor’s office and had just one day off, so I would meet her at my parents house for Christmas dinner then head back to the lake when she headed back to Griffin. I would stay at the lake until I had to come back to Griffin the day before school opened back up.

Those days were my favorites. For about ten days each Christmas it was just me and my dog Merlin at the lake. I seldom saw anyone else. I ate when hungry, slept when sleepy and fished or built brush piles the rest of the time.

The lake was so uncrowded that, after reading the regulations carefully, I kept my 30-30 in the boat. As long as the boat was not moving from motor power and the deer was not in the water it was legal to shoot one from the boat. If I read the regulations right.

I killed five over a six year period. They were so unused to seeing a boat in the winter that they would just stand and stare at me. All were young does, but that is what I wanted to shoot for the meat.

One year I went back to the lake after dinner on Christmas Day and did not see another person for five days. I would not have seen anyone the sixth day but I had to go into town for gas for the boat!

I caught many bass and learned a lot fishing the lake when it was completely peaceful and the water was down from five to seven feet, exposing rocks and stumps for me to fish later when the water came back up.

The first brush I put out really fired me up. There was a bare bank with two stumps on it and nothing else for 100 feet. I seldom caught anything on that bank. Up in the edge of the woods, someone had cut a big cedar tree and cut the trunk out for a post. The remaining top was about 15 feet tall.

I dragged it to the edge of the water and tied the base to a stump right on the edge of the lake. After flipping it over, the top was out in seven or eight feet of water.

The next morning, I went to that bank and ran a crankbait by the tip of the tree and caught a two-pound bass. That fired me up to put out many more brush piles that year and the next few.

In 1975 I found with my first depthfinder what turned out to be an old underwater roadbed running across a ridge. I took two big cedar trees out there and dropped them on the edge of it, anchoring them in 15 feet of water and 50 feet apart with five-gallon buckets of cement.

Those trees are still there. They never rot since they are never exposed to air. And I still catch bass out of them on many trips to the lake!

I have great memories of staying at the lake during Christmas but, unfortunately, after my parents died in 2000, I have a hard time going to the lake and staying by myself. I get way too melancholy remembering all the spring and summer trips with them there.

I guess the ghosts of the boat club and all the memories get to me when I am all alone.

Reading About Fishing Can Give You Tips To Help Catch Fish

Sometimes ideas that help catch fish come from reading about others’ fishing trips. That is why I try to give some details of where what and how when I am lucky enough to catch a bass.

Years ago on a Saturday afternoon before a Sportsman Club night tournament at Jackson I was reading a fishing report from a Texas lake to post on my website. It said a jig and pig was working well for bass at night.

I did not have one tied on for the tournament but went out and rigged a rod and jig for fishing. That night, with less than two hours left to fish, I had one small keeper in my livewell and was not very happy.

I decided to try the jig and pig, I had not thrown it all night. But in the next hour I caught five keepers, culling the one in the livewell and winning the tournament.

That jig and pig worked well during night tournaments for the next four years helping me win or place second. Then the club decided they would rather fish during the day when it is hot, there is lots of boat traffic on the lake and the fish didn’t bite. So we stopped fishing at night when it is cool, there is little boat traffic and the fish do bite.

Reading about other fishing trips almost got me into serious trouble when I was 19 years old and a sophomore at UGA. An article in Outdoor Life magazine talked about the good trout fishing downstream of the Hartwell dam on the Savannah River.

I skipped classes one Monday and drove over there early that morning. When I got near the river I stopped at a small store/bait shop to ask for information.

The owner showed me an ice chest full of rainbow trout and said his two sons caught them that morning before school. He said the hatchery truck dumped fresh trout in the river at the old steel bridge and told me to turn at the next right and it would take me to the bridge and I could fish there.

I bought a can of kernel corn since he said that is what they were hitting, they were used to eating pellet food in the hatchery. When I got to the bridge about 10:00 AM I found a place to park and crawled down the steep bank to the edge of the river. It was almost a half mile wide there and there were streams and rivulets running over an expanse of flat rocks all the way across, with scattered bigger pools of water.

I tied on a #2 Mepps spinner and put a kernel of corn on one of the hooks. I waded upstream of the bridge casting to small streams and pools in the rocks, and caught a limit of ten rainbow trout before lunch.

After going back to the truck, putting my fish on ice and eating a sandwich I started fishing downstream below the bridge to look at new places. After about an hour I had caught two trout and had them on a stringer attached to a belt loop. I was right in the middle of the expanse of rocks, maybe 200 yards from the bank and that far downstream of the bridge.

A car went over the bridge and the driver blew the horn. I turned and waved and turned back to fish, but something was not right. Looking back upstream there was a fog bank rolling down the river almost to the bridge.

I realized the Corps of Engineers had released water at the Hartwell dam about four miles upstream. The ice cold water rolling down the river caused the fog.

I grabbed my fish and took off running across the slippery rocks as fast as I could. When I got to the bank I was standing in water about ankle deep. By the time I put my rod and can of corn on the steep bank and hooked my stringer to a bush, the water was up to my waist and I had to hold on to a bush to fight the current!

Looking back to where I had been a few seconds before, a torrent of ice cold water several feet deep rushed across the rocks. If it had caught me there is no way I would have survived. Whoever blew that car horn saved my life.

I stopped at the store and the owner told me someone had drowned there the week before after being caught by the current. I told him I thought the Corps blew a siren at the dam to warn folks when they released water and he said they used to but locals complained about the noise.

I “thanked” him for warning me and left, glad to be alive.

Read fishing tips and try them but be careful!

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.