Category Archives: Fishing Ramblings – My Fishing Blog

Random thoughts and musings about 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 3rd. 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 ronnie@fishing-about.com.  —

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.

Till next time – Gone fishing!

Watching Birds While Fishing

 The laughing, haunting sound of a loon floating across the water at dusk was a sound I read about but did not think I would ever hear.  Then, years ago at Christmas, I heard something I had never heard before while fishing at Clarks Hill and guessed it was a loon.

    I tracked the sound down to a gray and black bird swimming low in the water. I watched as it dived, looking for dinner.  I could not believe how long it could stay down and how far it would go on one dive.

    Loons are common on area lakes in the winter now. As their populations increased, they migrated farther south looking for ice free water where they could feed. I still love hearing them while fishing, and often use them to locate schools of baitfish and bass.

    Gulls and terns are also common on our lakes in the winter and can help find schools of fish.  I have caught many bass, stripers and hybrids by running to an area where gulls and terns were diving from the air, feeding on injured herring and shad from fish feeding under the water.

    Gulls and terns come to our lakes to escape rough weather on the coast.  There are many more of them during the winter.  Gulls are bigger and watching them is more consistent for finding fish since they usually don’t soar along watching for bait near the surface like terns will do. 

    I call terns “Judas terns” since following them is often frustrating.  Unless they circle and concentrate on one spot, you can follow them a long way without finding any fish.  But a circling group of either of the white and gray terns and gulls is a good sign to go fish there.

    A few years ago in a January tournament at Oconee I saw a couple of big white birds diving to the water surface. I was surprised and had to get closer to confirm they were pelicans.  I had never seen those birds on a lake. I guess they came inland to escape a storm. I have seen many pelicans, from one up close on a dock at Islamorada, Florida to watching them dive on schools of baitfish in the Sea of Cortez. 

    Travel has exposed me to many birds this country Georgia boy never expected to see.  I have pictures of me squatting on the ice in Antarctica with penguins waddling by close enough to touch and have watched wild parrots in trees along the Amazon River in the rain forest. Watching an albatross soar behind a ship without flapping its wings for many minutes is amazing.

    But local birds are my favorites.  One year while driving home from Jekyll Island I saw a bird soaring over the surrounding pines that made me stop and pull to the side of the road. I watched it for several minutes, trying to figure out what it was. 

I got out my bird book and found out it was a scissor tail swallow.  Its long, forked tail feathers were very distinctive.  They are native to the Southeast but rare. Their contrasting black and white markings on the bird makes them stand out, and they are a little bigger than a crow. They soar low over trees looking for food in the branches.

Canada geese don’t really migrate through Georgia and I had never seen wild ones here until the Georgia DNR started a stocking program.  They brought in adult Canadas and clipped their wings so they could not fly. 
Some big wire enclosures were built on coves on Clarks Hill and they were kept there.

As they raised young and increased in numbers, they were allowed to leave the pens.  Nests were built on stilts to protect eggs from predators and numbers increased a lot.    Since the young had not been taught to migrate, they stayed here year-round.

One night sitting on my deck at Clarks Hill on a moonlit night I heard the haunting honking of geese as they flew by.  It gave me chill bumps since I associated that sound with northern wilderness areas.  I had heard domestic geese honk but this was very different, hearing it out on the lake at night.

Geese have become so common now it is unusual when you don’t hear and see them. I now call them “pigs with wings” since their droppings leave a mess where they feed and I have seen some docks where they roost at night so covered with droppings you could not step on it without stepping in it.

Kildeers fascinated me when I was growing up.  They were common in our big field but I could never get close enough to them to get a good look at them. Then one day I was able to sneak up on one and shoot it as it flew off the ground.

It was a beautiful bird with brown and white markings with gold highlights.  I satisfied my curiosity and never tried to shoot another one.

Birds are amazing, especially when you learn amore about them.    I used to carry several bird identification guides with me everywhere I went, but not all that information is available with a few taps on your phone!

Clarks Hill Fising Memories at Christmas

Back at Clarks Hill Saturday morning, I got my first cup of coffee and went out on the deck at my mobile home at Raysville Boat Club and looked at the lake.

Christmas is a time for reminiscing and sitting there took me back over many years of spending Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays at Clarks Hill.  Memories flashed across my mind like the lights of a fireworks display on the Fourth of July.

Saturday morning was the kind of day I love, not a ripple disturbed the reflecting pool of the lake surface.  The only sound was an occasional craw of a crow or the bark of a squirrel, disturbed in his search for breakfast. I was at peace with the world.

Weather always played an important of my trips. One of the best, about 30 years ago, an unusually warm winter found me fishing in jeans with no shirt or shoes.  The water was 61 degrees and big fish were active.  I caught six largemouth weighing more than five pounds each and five hybrids weighing six pounds each in three days on Shadraps.

The other extreme was one winter when my dog Merlin woke me at midnight jumping in bed with me in my small camper.  That was unusual, she always slept on the floor. The next morning I found out why. Her water bowl on the floor was frozen solid. The small electric heater kept the air tolerable from a couple feet off the floor to the ceiling but could not keep up with the 5-degree low that night.

I called my neighbor back in Griffin and asked her to check to see if she heard water running under my house from burst pipes.  She said she did not but the well pump was running. I came home fast and found the well had run dry from pumping water out of 11 holes in pipes.  I learned to solder copper pipe that afternoon.

Another winter on Christmas Eve the wind was howling and it was sleeting. I tried to fish but it was bad, so I went behind an island to get out of the wind. I caught an eight- and one-half pound bass on a jig from a rockpile there. After landing it I figured I had had enough and went in to show it off.

Some foggy mornings I unhooked my boat battery charger, pushed off from the bank, put the trolling motor in the water and started fishing.  As soon as I got a few feet from the bank everything disappeared in a white haze. Outlines of trees were the only indication anything was near.

I could image I was the only person in the world.  The fog dampened even the sounds of crows and squirrels, and the only disturbance was the whirr of my reel and splash of the lure as I cast.  Sometimes the sound of a jumping bass, barely seen in the fog, added to the excitement.

I loved being up there by myself. Back then nobody fished during the winter.  I had the lake and boat club to myself.  One year I went to the boat club Christmas afternoon after dinner in town with my family.  For a week I slept when I was sleepy, ate when I was hungry and all the rest of the time I either fished or built brush piles.

That year I did not see another person for five days.  The only reason I saw people the sixth day was a trip to town for boat gas.

I had never built brush piles but had heard how effective they can be for fishing.  A bank I like to fish near my trailer was bare clay except for two stumps about 50 feet apart.  I could usually get a bite by the stumps if they were in the water, but that year the lake was down seven feet and the water just touched the outside edge.

Up on the bank someone had cut down some big cedar trees, cut the trunk out for posts and left the big bushy tops.  One afternoon I drug two to the edge of the water, tied the base of the trunk to the stump and flipped the top out into four or five feet of water.

The next morning I cast a crankbait to the tip of the trees and caught two pound largemouth from each.

An old roadbed crosses the creek, rising on a hump out in the middle.  There are three-foot drops, from 12 to 15 feet deep, on each side of it where it was cut into the former hill. I pulled two of the cedar tops out there and finally got them to sink by tying 5-gallon buckets of cement to them.  I put them right on the edge of the drops about 100 feet apart.

I caught fish out of them for years, including an eight and one quarter pound bass one winter.  Three years ago, I won a club tournament fishing those same two trees, they are still there.  Cedar does not rot when completely submerged under water.

I have many more fishing and hunting memories from this time of year at the lake, but those are for another time.

Deer Camp Memories

     As I threw another log on the fire, my mind wandered over the past 40 years of deer camp here.  When I first joined, the “old” men mostly stayed in camp and didn’t hunt much.  For several years “Captain” was the old man in charge of the fire.  Now it is my “old man” job and I don’t leave camp much.

    After spending almost half my life in the club, memories are plentiful. Hundreds of nights sitting around the fire, eating parched or boiled peanuts and sharing stores, some of them mostly true, revive past experiences. And the same ones are told over and over, drawing amazed reactions from young members and smiles from us older ones.

    And we celebrate and morn lost members. Many of the young members fathers I watched grow up and become men over the years.  They pass on their traditions to their children, just as their fathers passed them on to them. The never-ending cycle of outdoor and hunting life.

    Many of the stories are funny and draw laughs every year.  Tales of cut shirt tails, stories of first blood, memories of members walking to their stand in a circle in the dark and ending back up at camp, all bring chuckles.

    One of mine is finding the perfect place for my climbing stand, easing up the tree in the dark then staring another club member in the eyes in a tree only 30 feet away.  Or the time I helped build a permanent stand with a friend, only to have him not be able to hunt it opening day. He doesn’t laugh much when I mention the big nine point I killed from that stand on opening day, but everybody else does.

    Four wheelers stuck in the creek are both funny and scary.  Turning a four-wheeler upside down on top of you in a creek is not funny until after you are safe.  It is funny now to remember the work of the six of us laboring for hours to get it out, but at the time it was only exhausting.

    Some of the scariest stories are the one or two about stands breaking and tumbling members to the ground. Fortunately, none ended up with serious injuries, just injured pride.

    Many of my memories revolve around a stand I have hunted for more than 30 years.  It is a simple stand, 2x4s nailed between two sweetgum trees about 24 inches apart 20 feet off the ground with a 16-inch piece of plywood nailed on top of them.  Spikes driven into the trees 30 years ago are sticking out barely enough for a boot hold now.

    The stand has been sweetened over the years. A small shelf is placed in the perfect position to hold my coffee cup.  Sticks cross the area above my head, placed just right for a black plastic bag to stretch over and protect me from rain.  And a nail holds my hanging rifle in position to raise it without excess movement.

    I found the place for the stand by accident.  I found a creek hillside that seemed to be perfect for a stand, near the very end of one of our roads.  I loaded materials to build it in the truck then headed to the end of the road.

    Before toting everything through the woods, I remembered hunting too close to the other club member so I walked around a little. Sure enough, there was another stand, hidden in an oak tree, looking over the same hillside.

    I went back to the truck disappointed and started driving slowly back out, watching the ground on either side of the road carefully.  When I spotted a trail crossing it, I stopped and followed the trail though some pines to where they stopped at the edge of hardwoods.  There was a slight opening along the edge from an old logging road.

    Careful inspection proved there were no other stands for at least 200 yards in any direction.  I built the stand with help from a fellow club member.  The first morning I hunted it I was shocked how close it was to Highway 18.  The bends in the road fooled me.  I could glimpse 18 wheelers traveling along the road, and their tire noise often make it hard to hear.

    Even with the noise problem I have killed more than 40 deer from that stand.

    Some of those kills I was very proud of, some not so much.  One day I glimpsed a deer facing me about 50 yards away at the very end of the old logging road.  Young pines hid part of it but I could clearly see its head and chest since it was facing me. I shot it with my 30-30 in the chest and it dropped.

    When I got to it, I was shocked how small it was.  Although it was doe day and I was hunting meat, I wanted a bigger deer since the limit was two a year back then. I was able to pick up the 40-pound yearling by its back legs and carry it over my shoulder, not drag it out.

    I quickly gutted and skinned it and took it home, since I did not want to take it back to camp and get kidded about its size. I quartered that deer, cut its backbone in half and froze it.  Each piece fit in a big crockpot!  But it was some of the most tender venison I have ever eaten!

    I was very proud of a big ten point I shot from that stand, but I really didn’t put any effort into finding it, it just happened to wander by me.  It fell near the camp road and I drove to it. As I drug it to the truck and started loading it, another member stopped on his way out of the woods and helped load it.

    He gave me a sour look and said “I have been hunting that deer all week!”

    Don’t miss a chance to make memories in a deer camp.

Till next time – Gone fishing!

Winter On the Farm – Too Cold To Do Anything But Go Fishing

“Baby its cold outside!”  For some reason that song keeps going through my mind.  Temperatures in the low 20s are not usual here, thank goodness! But when they hit, unusual problems pop up.

    The pressure switch on my well will freeze if the temperature stays in the low 20s overnight.  A heat lamp on it solves the problem, if I remember to turn it on!  Outside faucets will freeze.  I have “freeze proof” faucets on the outside of my house, but I found out a couple of years ago they will freeze if you leave a hose attached!

    Many houses are like mine, with heat pumps to warm them.  But a heat pump can’t get enough heat out of air in the low 20s, so they switch to either gas or electric strip to produce heat.  Problem is, the relay that tells it to switch over can go out, and you won’t know it is bad until it doesn’t work on a cold night!

    Farmers have an especially tough time in bad weather like Texas had this week.  Taking care of livestock and other farm animals is miserable for the farmer but can be deadly for the animals if not done.

    Every winter when I was growing up seemed to produce a few days when the temperatures didn’t get above freezing.  Our 11,000 laying hens didn’t stop eating, drinking or laying eggs. 

    We had seven chicken houses.  The older four were wide, open structures with shavings on the floor.  Nests were attached to the inside of the walls and filled with shavings.  Food troughs had to be filled with five-gallon buckets of food brought from the big bin twice a day 

A trough ran the length of each house.  Water ran very slowly into one end. At the other a drain kept it from overflowing. The pipe nipple had to be pulled from the drain and the trough flushed out every day, chickens don’t know not to poop where they drink!

That water trough would sometimes freeze overnight so we would have to break the ice out by hand so fresh water would be available to the birds.  I hated that wet, messy job.

The other three houses were modern, with cages along the inside walls of narrow houses.  A small trough for water ran the length of the house, and it had to be cleaned, too.  A bigger trough was filled with a motorized cart that augured it into the trough, much easier than carrying buckets!

On very cold days and nights, we had to gather the eggs every hour to keep them from freezing.  The caged chickens’ eggs rolled out onto a wire shelf, so they froze fast. Even the ones in the old houses nests would freeze since the chickens didn’t stay on them after laying them.

With that many chickens, gathering the eggs hourly was never-ending. By the time we made a circuit of all the houses, it was time to start over!

Now, the only time I have to go out in miserable weather is to go fishing. But for some reason, eight hours in a boat is not unbearable, no matter how bad it gets!