Category Archives: Fishing Ramblings – My Fishing Blog

Random thoughts and musings about fishing

Who Should Control Hunting and Fishing Limits and Seasons

 Hunters and fishermen always know better than game and fish biologists what needs to be done to keep our game and fish populations healthy.  Any time they don’t catch or kill enough, they want things changed, and they know just how to do it.

    This year the folks that earned college degrees and spend their careers working with game and fish recommended delaying the opening of turkey season for two weeks. Based on some turkey hunters complaints, you would think the world is ending. Oddly enough, many of those complaints come from the same folks whining that they aren’t seeing as many turkeys as in the past.

    Many if not all the biologists at the Georgia Department of Natural Resources Game and Fish Division are hunters and fishermen themselves. They can make mistakes but they do not go out of their way to inconvenience hunters and fishermen.  That would be a self-inflicted injury.  

    Unfortunately, many of the administrators of the different Departments are politicians more than biologists and they do make political rather than scientific decisions.

    In an article in Georgia Outdoor News a professor at the University of Georgia who is also a hunter was quoted: “Agencies want to open seasons so hunters like me can go and enjoy the gobbling activity, but what that results in is birds often being harvested early in the breeding season, which researchers have known for decades may be problematic if harvest rates (percent of males harvested) are high,” said Mike Chamberlain, the Terrell Distinguished Professor of Wildlife Ecology and Management at the University of Georgia Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources.

    In that same article this statement raises questions: “There may still be a host of other factors affecting the decline of wild turkey populations —habitat loss, fragmentation of the landscape and poor management practices are chief among them,” said Chamberlain. “But being more mindful of when the birds are breeding is one way to help the population while also securing better hunting trips in the future.”

    Some of those other factors may also include increased numbers of predators like coyotes, raccoons, hogs, possums and foxes. Not only can some of them  kill adult turkey, they easily kill poults and also eat the eggs. And even fire ants can kill young birds in the nest.

Growing up we shot every hawk we saw; it was not illegal back then and we knew they killed quail, rabbits, squirrels and doves, game we wanted to kill and eat. It was rare to see a bird of prey back then.  Now I see them pretty much every day, and they kill and eat turkey polts.

    Chris Plott is a turkey hunter and owns Plott
Hide and Fur Company here in Griffin.  He has seen the decline in numbers of turkey everywhere he hunts, from Lamar County to South Georgia to Mexico.  He is not sure why turkey populations are in decline, but he thinks numbers of predators may be a big part of it.

    “We have not bought any predator furs locally since the 1990’s Chris said.  Before then predators were trapped regularly, and their populations were kept down.  That does not happen now.

    Chris said he knows land management and the proliferation of big pine plantations has hurt. There is a reason huge forest of nothing but pine trees are called “pine barrens,” there is little for wildlife to eat in them.

    Diseases may play a part, but I found no mention of evidence of diseases found by biologists.  I know we had to guard against many kinds of fowl diseases when we had our chicken layer farm and there may be some out there that kill turkey in the wild.

Weather definitely plays a part short term.  An extremely rainy or dry spring can hurt nesting success, but that usually lasts only one or two years before having a normal year, so long term it balances out.

    I never saw coyotes or heard them “sing” when growing up in the 60s and 70s. Now I seldom go 24 hours without seeing one on my trail cameras and often hear them calling at dusk when I am camping.  No doubt they eat eggs, poults and adult turkey.

    Biologists admit they do not have all the answers. When they identify a possible cause they do what they can to adjust and stop it, things like delaying season opening.

    We need to support them in their efforts while watching to make sure those decisions are based on biology, not politics.

Mississippi Kites and Swallow Tail Kites

At the Sportsman Club meeting last Tuesday Raymond English said he thought I was talking about a Mississippi Kite when I wrote about seeing a Swallow-tailed Kite.  He told me he saw the Mississippi Kite one time and he had to get more information about it.  So I did too!

    I am not sure I have ever seen one, but maybe. Griffin is right on the edge of their territory and they are rare here. They look similar to sparrowhawks that are common here and I may have confused them. Sparrowhawks are actually American Kestrels, a type of falcon rather than a hawk.

The Mississippi Kite is a little bigger, with body length about 14 inches and wingspan of about 30 compared to a sparrowhawk with body 12 inches and wingspan about 24 inches. Sparrowhawks have more brown while Mississippi Kites are more gray, but young kites have more brown with bars so they look very much like sparrowhawks.

    Mississippi kites do not have a forked tail that makes the Swallow-tailed kite stand out. But one interesting fact – Mississippi Kites often build their nests near wasps nest – maybe wasps help protect the young birds!

Right now males of all species are in full mating colors so they really stand out. Male bluebirds in my back yard are very colorful but will fade some in the coming weeks as they mate and nest.

I will be on the lookout for them and other interesting birds this spring, while fishing and other times. It is much easier to look up new bird sightings now we have the internet.  It is fast and easy compared to the old book field guides I used for years.

Growing Up On A Farm and Growing A Garden

 I have vague memories of a big barn and animal pens beside the house where I lived from 1950 to 1962.  I have no idea how old the farmhouse was when daddy bought it and the fifteen acres it was on after graduation from college in 1948 for his new family.

When we tore it down in 1962 to build a modern split level brick house on the same site we found hand-hewn timbers supporting it. The ax marks were plainly visible.

The barn was torn down when I was three or four, I think. Most of my memories of it are piles of rubble and finding boards with nails in them with my bare feet.  Then we got it all cleaned up and used the 100×300 foot area for a garden. The soil was extremely rich from years of animal waste and rotting hay debris.

Mama And daddy grew up during the depression and did everything they could to be self-sufficient.  Although daddy taught school and later became principal of Dearing Elementary, he worked long hours on the farm, developing a thriving egg business, eventually including 11,000 laying hens.

Mama worked the farm but also made cakes to sell, using milk from our cows and eggs from our chickens. She also canned, pickled and froze everything possible to have delicious food year-round.

Our summer garden included tomatoes, potatoes, corn, string beans, field peas, butter beans, okra, cucumbers, squash, peppers (bell and hot) and onions.  Our early spring garden had radishes, lettuce, cabbage, turnips and broccoli. Some of them were replanted in the fall.  Daddy also had a small asparagus bed he kept active.  

Even as a young kid I “got” to help.  I didn’t have the patience to drop two or three butterbean or pea seeds per hill in the trench daddy dug with an old push plow, so I followed mama as she dropped them spaced just right.  My job was to cover them, using my bare feet like plows to push the dirt on top of the seeds then step on top to compress the soil. Mama would look back regularly and and also check the first row as we worked back up the next one, checking to make sure I had not gotten distracted.

We planted tomato plants after raising them from seeds inside.  I hated that process. Mama or daddy would put the small plant into the ground and I had to haul water in small bucket from the house and pour a little beside each plant, being careful to not wash dirt from the roots.  The biggest bucket I could carry was still small so it meant dozens of trip!

We always planted on Good Friday since that was usually a safe timing to avoid a late frost. Is your garden plot ready?  If not you have less than two weeks!

I have many more gardening and canning memories. I wish I could still do things like that. Now I limit myself to about eight tomato and six bell pepper plants each year.

Four Fishing Etiquette Tips Desperately Needed By High School Fishermen and Captains and Too Many Other Fishermen

FOUR FISHING ETIQUETTE TIPS

One of the biggest pet peeves for many freshwater anglers is when they are having a good day fishing from a boat in a quiet spot on the lake or river and another angler comes along, pulls up right beside them and starts casting in the same area without asking first.

“It happens pretty much on a daily basis,” said Mercury Pro Team member Michael Neal.

If it’s a public body water, everyone is welcome to use the resource, of course. In most places, there are no written rules about how far you need to stay away from other boats and anglers. It’s within your rights to fish next to someone, as long as you aren’t harassing them (intentional angler harassment is against the law in many states). It’s up to each individual angler to decide what’s responsible behavior in terms of how much distance to put between your boat and theirs. Practicing good fishing etiquette means treating other anglers and boaters on the water with respect and giving them their space.

Neal, who fishes the Major League Fishing Bass Pro Tour and Pro Circuit, said it all comes down to following the Golden Rule. “Treat others the way you want to be treated,” he said.

“Communication is key. It’s the number one thing that makes your day on the water go smoothly,” added Mercury Pro Team member and Bassmaster Elite Series angler John Crews.

Here are four fishing etiquette tips from these two pros to help keep it friendly and fun for everyone on the water. What’s outlined here are unwritten rules that guide tournament anglers and serious recreational anglers.

  1. A “bent pole pattern,” indicating that an angler has a fish on the line, is not an invitation to take your boat to that angler’s position and start fishing right next to them. It’s probably better to go somewhere else, but if it’s a spot you had already hoped to fish, just wait it out. “My advice is to wait until they leave to go over to that spot,” said Neal.
  2. When another angler is fishing in a spot near where you would like to fish, stop your boat within hailing distance and let the person know your wishes. For example, if an angler is fishing partway back in a creek, and you want to fish all the way in the back, ask first if he or she intends to head deeper into the creek before you go there yourself. “If I go into an area where someone else is fishing, I ask them if they are going to continue, and if it’s OK for me to fish there. If they are having a bad day and they want to be rude about it, you don’t want to be fishing around them anyway,” Crews said. On crowded lakes, you’re likely to wind up fishing near someone. In that case, keep a respectful distance. “We usually have a mutual understanding: ‘Don’t get any closer to me, and I won’t get any closer to you,’” Neal said, referring to his fellow tournament anglers.
  3. Don’t pass too close to another angler’s boat. “Stay away from the side where their rods are; pass on the other side if you can,” Crews said, adding that it’s important to give other boats with active anglers a wide berth when you pass, if there’s room. “Two hundred to 300 feet is ideal; 100 feet at a minimum. Pass at speed and make a minimal wake rather than slowing down and pulling a big wake. However, if there isn’t room to pass far enough away, come off plane well before you get near the other boat and idle past.”
  4. Never, ever cross lines with another angler. “The number one no-no is to cast across somebody else’s line. I’ve had it happen to me personally. I decided to leave the spot to him. I figured, if it’s important enough for him to do that, he can have it,” Neal said.

Use common courtesy, and there should be enough space for everyone to fish in harmony. When in doubt, err on the side of being as respectful as possible.

“Most anglers are super cool, and as long as you can communicate with them, you can make it work,” Crews concluded.

Cutting Firewood For Fun and Warmth

    When I moved to Pike County in 1981 the house I bought had a functional wood burning insert in the fireplace.  I was young and dumb enough to decide to heat the house exclusively by wood that first winter.

    The house was two stories but the master bedroom and all the other rooms we used were on the ground floor.  I tacked sheets over the stairwell to keep the warm air from going up them, helping keep the lower level warm.

    Although I had never cut wood with a chain saw, I felt like I could do it.  I went to Sears and bought a mid-size saw and learned how it worked, always fearing it a little, especially after reading and hearing about accidents folks had with them.

    There was and old tree house in the edge of the woods and I tore it down and built a wood shed with the tin and plywood.  Then I started cutting down some of the trees behind the house.

    The four-acre lot my house was on was covered with trees with just a small front and back yard. I wanted a garden, so I started by cutting an area behind the house, trying to open it up enough. 

I cut about 16 big oak and hickory trees and a few sweetgum and popular, cutting each piece about 18 inches long to fit my insert, and splitting the trunks by hand with a maul and stacking the wood.

    I was much younger then!

    But I really enjoyed using the saw and splitting the wood. Those trees more than filled up my small woodshed so I expanded it some and had enough wood for the whole winter, keeping a fire going all the time.

    I learned a lot about wood that year.  The few sweetgum and popular trees I cut taught me popular splits very easily and has pretty colors inside, but burns fast and does “pop” while burning.  I had to keep the insert doors closed!  Sweetgum burned fast, too, and its twisted grains made it almost impossible to split. 

But I never wasted any wood, I burned the sweetgum and popular as well as any fast-burning pine I got during the day. At night I wanted slow burning oak and hickory.

    My favorite wood to split was red oak, its straight grains made it easy to split up into chunks just right for my fireplace.  Hickory was next since it split easily and burned very slowly. Whiteoak was fairly easy to split and also lasted a long time.  With any of them I could fill my insert at bedtime, shut the air vents and still have heat the next morning.

    For five years I heated exclusively with wood, even turning the pilot light off on my furnace.  Linda learned to bring in the wood and start a good fire with the kindling I kept in a big box, and she did a good job when I was gone on fishing trips.

    Then one spring I went to a Top Six tournament for five days. It was April and the weather should have been stable but a cold front dropped the nighttime lows below freezing and highs were only in the 40s.

The day I left there was a good supply of wood in the house and plenty in the woodshed.  But the day after I left Linda got sick and developed pneumonia, making it impossible for her to bring in wood and keep a fire going.

We lit the pilot light when I got home.

I continued to burn wood but never shut off the furnace again.  It was great supplemental heat and saved propane. But cancer three years ago weakened me to the point I have not tried to cut wood since then. I miss it and am going to get out my saw and try to use it.  I desperately need the exercise, and maybe I will do something I enjoy!

My Job Allowed Me To Fish Weiss Lake, the Mobile Delta and Lake Allatoona In One Week

  I love my job!  The past week gave me a chance to fish Weiss Lake, the Mobile Delta and Lake Allatoona.  Its tough work, but I’m glad I get to do it.

    Last Friday I drove up to Weiss and met Cal Culpepper and his dad Saturday morning to get information for a Map of the Month article that will be in the November of both Georgia and Alabama Outdoor News.  Cal is a high school senior and on the Harris County High School fishing team, and a very good fisherman.  Weiss is on the state’s borders and if popular with bass fishermen in both states.

    We had a good day, catching largemouth and spotted bass.  The best five we landed weighed about 13 pounds.  All were in shallow water around grass, docks and wood cover and hit chatterbaits, topwater and shaky head worms.

    On Sunday I drove to Mobile to meet Captain Dan Kolenich, a guide there on the bay, to get information for a saltwater fishing article.  I don’t fish saltwater much so I was looking forward to the trip, hoping to catch my first redfish. I knew I would eat some great seafood and I definitely accomplished that goal.

    Unfortunately, Monday morning the wind was strong and it was raining.  I talked with Captain Dan and we decided to try to go out Tuesday morning when the weather guessers said conditions would be better.

    Since I had the rest of the day with nothing to do I went to Battleship Park.  This military park has a variety of exhibits, including aircraft, a World War 2 submarine you can tour, and the battleship Alabama docked so you can tour it, too. I spent almost six hours there.

    Walking through the submarine I could not imagine being on a crew. The tiny, cramped work and eating areas were bad enough but the racks, or bunks, hung along the walls one over the other, would never have allowed me to get a good night’s sleep.  And I could just imagine the smell during missions.

    The aircraft fascinated me since I always wanted to fly a fighter for the Air Force.  One especially interesting display showed one of the fighters the “Tuskeegee Airmen” flew in World War 2 and a video had very good special effects.  It took me several minutes to realize I was not watching actual videos of the dog fights.

    Tuesday morning was clear but still very windy. We tried to fish but the wind made it very difficult so I did not catch a redfish.  Maybe next time.

    On Thursday Wyatt Robinson and his dad met me at my house and we drove through the horrible traffic to Lake Allatoona so I could show them what little I know about that lake.  Wyatt is A senior at CrossPointe Christian Academy and on the fishing team.  He is a very good young fisherman.

    I had a lot of fun and we caught several keeper bass and even more short ones under the 12-inch limit, on topwater plugs and shaky head worms.  But the catch of the day was a four-pound channel cat that thought my jig head worm was lunch. Turned out he became dinner. Although that trip was not really part of my job it was fun, except for the traffic going and coming back, and I was impressed, as I often am, with a young fisherman’s ability and knowledge.  It is kinda scary that high school fishermen often know more than I do about bass fishing.

Fishing Cold and Hot Weather in January

The Flint River Bass Club tournament scheduled for Sunday, January 15, 2017 was canceled.  Who knew it got cold in January!  I decided to go anyway and had what I consider a good winter day fishing.

    It was cold so I delayed going until later in the morning.  When I put the boat in the water there was a little ice on the ramp from a boat that was launched earlier but I had no problem launching. The only trouble I had was no water was coming out of the tattletale on my motor when I cranked it. 

    Usually a small stream of water comes out of the motor showing the water pump is working. My boat has a water pressure gauge and it showed the right pressure, so I knew the opening for the tattletale was frozen up. That does not really cause a problem but I idled to a nearby rocky point to start fishing rather than making a run.  Sure enough, after fishing for a few minutes I cranked up and the stream of water flowed like it should. The warm sun and motor heat melted the ice.

    Within a dozen cast with a crawfish DT 6 crankbait I hooked and landed a three-pound spotted bass.  The water temperature was 51 degrees so the fish were about as active as I could expect this time of year. By the time I quit fishing four hours later I had also landed a two pound largemouth, a keeper spot, three short fish and had two more pull off without seeing them.

    I never really got cold.  My hands were cold when I got out in the wind and tried to fish, but back in coves, out of the wind, I had to open my jacket because I was too warm with the sun beaming down. When I was running on plane I wore gloves so even my hands were comfortable.

    As I write this it is 74 degrees outside.  Potato Creek Bassmasters has a tournament scheduled for Saturday. I hope it is not canceled because it is too hot for January!

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Stupid Names Fishermen Use for Bass and Fishing

For some reason folks seem to want to make up weird words and names for things they do, especially in sports.  Nowhere do I see more of these stupid words than in bass fishing.  Some of them amaze me, others are just so disgusting I ignore them to the point I will not even “like” a post on Facebook containing one of them.

    I could understand using a more succinct name to save words, but when the new dumb name is as long or longer than simply saying “big bass” what is the sense?  I guess folks are just trying to be cute or trying to be different just like everybody else.

    Most of us do not catch big bass very often, so some think they need to show off by naming them something odd.  Growing up I might hear a big bass called a “hog,” which morphed into “Hawg” over the years, but there were few others.

One name used for years was catching “Ole Nellie” for a landing a big bass, but more often it was “I lost Ole Nellie” today, meaning anything from hooking a stump to feeling a tap on your bait, setting the hook and missing the bite, never seeing the fish.  But “Ole Nellie” was so common a Georgia tackle company used it for their name.

    Nicknames like “bucketmouth” have been around for a while, but somehow largemouth are often named “largeheads” now. Why? Seems stupid to me.  A largemouth head is no bigger than a spot or smallmouth, but it is used to delineate between the species.  Will those folks now call smallmouth “smallheads?”  What will they use for spotted bass? “Spothead” or “Medium Head” maybe since it seems to relate head to mouth size?

    The first time someone said they caught a “Slobber Knocker”” I thought they had taken a picture of a couple of ten-year-old boys fighting.  That image of a kid being hit in the nose and snot flying still comes to my mind rather than an image of a big bass.

    A similar silly name is “Swamp Donkey,” a term that seems to be favored by college fishermen.  My mind brings up someone putting out traps for a Sasquatch.  Folks using that term are almost always fishing on a lake, and donkey and bass just do not jive in my mind.

“Chunk” or “Toad” or “Tank” makes some sense to me since those words describe a big fat bass pretty good, as do “Sow” or “Lunker.”  I start getting lost when it goes to “Porker” or “Butterball” though.

I understand the term “green trout” for bass since bass were often called “trout” by some of my uncles.  But how did the made-up word “Slaunch” get associated with fishing.  I have heard “Slaunch Donkey,” 
(there’s that four-legged mammal again) or just a “Slaunce.”  If someone on the street said “Slaunce” in a conservation, would it make you want to call the mental hospital?

“Gorilla” makes a little sense but it makes me think of a zoo, not fishing.  But if you say “Hydrilla Gorilla” like one weigh-in guy on TV tournament shows, it rhymes a little, and makes some sense but is still silly. But how do you get “beefers” or “bulls” for a big bass?

Where in the world did “ditch pickle” come from?  I often hear it from Lake Lanier fishermen this time of year, and fishing ditches in the winter there is a good pattern, but a “pickle?”  I guess bass are green.

I try to have some respect for the game I kill and the fish I catch, and these names are just the opposite of respect.  It’s weird – some fanatical bass fishermen that go crazy if a bass they caught dies will say they want to “Rip Some Lips.”  That sounds like an effort to kill the bass. There is even on guide service called “Lipripper” and that name makes me ignore everything they say.

Fishing is supposed to be fun, even on those tough days when fish just do not bite. But I constantly hear fishermen say “It was a grind,’ or worse “I grinded it out to catch some.” Sounds like a miserable day at work to me. If it is that hard, why do it?  Go grind where you get a salary, not trying to win a bet on catching fish.

    The first time I saw a post that said “I got the dub on my home pond with this slaunch,” I ask the site to convert it to English, but it didn’t change.  I knew if had something to do with bass fishing since the picture was a four-pound bass.  I checked and it was posted by a college fisherman.

    I guess he was trying to be cute, or different like every other fisherman his age, by using “hip” words.  What he meant to say was “I got the win on Lake Logan
Martin with this nice bass.” 

I’ve already given my take on using “slaunch” for a bass. I don’t know if he was ashamed he was on Lake Logan Martin, trying to hid it or just being cute by calling it his “home pond.”  Without research no one knows where his “home” is and calling a 17,000-acre lake a “pond” is just odd.

It took me a minute to figure somehow new-speak turned “Win” into “W” then “Dub.’  Really strange, I wonder what he is going to do with the millisecond he saved by using “Dub” rather than “Win.”  Oh, wait, they are both three letters.

    I have lots of pet peeves. Growing up I thought beatnik slang was stupid, in college hippy talk was cool but now every new thing that comes along just seems dumb.  I guess my age is showing!

Traveling Two Thousand Miles In A Week To Fish Lake Seminole and Lake Erie

Two thousand miles later, I know largemouth are biting at Lake Seminole and smallmouth are biting at Lake Erie!

   On a Thursday in Novmeber, 2016 I made the 200 mile trip to Wingates Lunker Lodge to meet Clint and Bowynn Brown to get information for the Georgia and Alabama Outdoor News December issues.  Clint and his son Bowynn live across the street from Wingates and Clint guides on the lake. Both fish tournaments there. Bowynn is a member of the Bainbridge Bass Cats High and Middle schools fishing teams.

    When I got there that afternoon they had been out fishing and had about ten bass in the live well. When they started pulling them out for pictures each held two up. Those four went from almost six pounds to about five pounds. And there was another five pounder still in the live well!

    We went out for a few hours looking at the ten spots to put on the map and talked about how to fish them.  Then I made the 200 mile return trip to Griffin, getting home about 11:00 PM.

    On Saturday Bowynn won his school tournament with three bass weighing seven pounds and Clint won a tournament with five weighing 18 pounds. Bass are feeding heavily at Seminole and it would be a great trip anytime until the water gets real cold around Christmas.

    Friday I left my house at 11:00 AM headed north. I thought leaving at that time would get me through Atlanta when traffic was not too bad. WRONG.  The traffic warning sign near I-20 on I-75 said there was a wreck at 17th street and all lanes were blocked.

    I started to try to go around it on surface streets downtown but I don’t really know my way around and was afraid I would get lost.  Sure enough I came to a stop near 10th Street.  It took me 30 minutes to get past the wreck on 17th Street. And apparently it had caused other wrecks, the police were working four wrecks between 14th and 17th Streets!

    The rest of the 400 mile drive to near Lexington, KY was uneventful and I spent the night at a Red Roof Inn. The next morning I drove to Lake Erie just south of Detroit, another 400 miles, and spent the night. I was within a mile of I-75, I took it all the way.

    Sunday morning when I got up just before daylight the windshield on my van was iced over. Not frost, solid ice. The air was at 36 degrees according to my phone weather report.  At 9:00 I met Bass Elite Pro Chad Pipkins and got my Cabella’s Guidewear, my heaviest winter suit, on.

    Chad said it was a nice day even if cold, and the wind was not bad. We put in at the boat ramp in a cove and rounded the point, and I said “I don’t think I’m in Georgia anymore.” There was nothing ahead of us but water as far as I could see.

    The waves seemed pretty big to me but Chad said it was not a bad day.  We stopped on a rock pile in 15 feet of water and he got on the front of the boat.  Every tenth wave or so broke over the front of the boat, soaking his feet and putting several gallons of water in the boat.

    He said on a bad day every wave would do that!

    We fished for about an hour and each of us caught a smallmouth on drop shot rigs. We then went back into the ramp cove and he showed me all the bells and whistles on the boat.  Pros at that level have an amazing array of extras on their boats. This one had four top end Hummingbird depthfinders on it!

    We took the boat our and I headed home. The boat followed me!  I hope Linda will let me keep it and give it a good home!

    I called and made reservations at the same motel in Kentucky where I had stayed two nights before.  When I got to Cincinnati I came to a stop about two miles from where I-75 splits and goes over the river.  Nobody was going the other way into town. Four miles and 90 minutes later traffic sped up to about 50 miles per hour and thinned. I never saw a wreck or any other reason for the traffic jam.

    Pulling a new boat through all that mess worried me a little but everything went fine until I came into Atlanta. As usual traffic was jammed up where I-75 and I-85 join, even at 1:00 on a Monday afternoon. One lane would stop while the one next to it moved, then that lane would stop while the other one moved.

    Even though the boat trailer has surge brakes I tried to leave several car lengths ahead of me, you do not stop immediately when pulling a boat. At one point the lane to my left was stopped and I was moving at about 20 miles an hour.  Some crazy woman in a tiny red car decided to pull into my lane just about the time my front bumper was even with her back bumper. I managed to slam on brakes and miss her.  If I had hit her with my big van it would have crushed her little car.

    She went about 50 feet to where the lane we were in was stopped, then jumped back into the left lane between two cars as it started to move, almost hitting them, too.  I saw her change lanes like that four more times in the next half mile or so.  She was about ten car lengths ahead of where she was when she first pulled out in front of me.

    Strangely enough, the most expensive gas on the whole trip was right here in Griffin, Georgia! I wonder why.  Long trip, 400 miles each of five days in a row, 800 of them pulling a boat, and I am glad to be home!

When Fall Is In the Air It Brings Back Many Memories and Plans

 Fall is in the air.  For the first time in months I was happy to fish in the sun in the Sportsman Club tournament a week ago last Sunday.  It got hot later, but at daylight it was a bit cool on the water fishing in the shade.

    A sure sign its fall is the preparation for the annual three club tournament at Lake Martin. We look forward to this tournament we hold the second weekend of October each year.  We usually catch a lot of bass, mostly pound size spots, but it is a lot of fun getting lots of bites.

    Last year 24 of the 29 fishermen had limits both days, two more had a limit one day and four keepers on the other day, and no one weighed in less than five keepers. And many of those fish were caught on topwater baits including the 3.74-pound spot I caught on Saturday.  That one gave me a thrill!

    Members of the Spalding County Sportsman Club also get ready for our Club Classic, held the first weekend in October.  To qualify to fish it, members must fish at least eight of the 12 tournaments during the year or finish in the top eight in the club for the year.

Some of the entry fees from monthly club tournaments are reserved for payout at the Classic. The top five get a check as well as the big fish winner.  There is a good bit of money paid out, much more than in regular tournaments.

The Potato Creek Bassmasters also has a Club Classic with similar rules and pay-out. It is held the last weekend in March.  It is much anticipated, too, and adds to the special spring feelings.

    Last week I smelled burning leaves for the first time this year.  I love that smell. Often when fishing on a very cold day a whiff of burning leaves can seem to warm you up a little. 

It takes me back to raking pecan leaves in the yard, piling them in the ditch and burning them. My favorite part was going back out there when there were just embers left, usually a cool late afternoon, and scratching around for missed pecans.

They usually seemed to be roasted just right. I think since they settled to the bottom of the pile against the ground, most of the heat went up and did not burn them.

We roasted pecans in the oven most of the year, too. Daddy also ordered 50-pound bags of peanuts every year and the bag was always available to get a pan out and put in the oven. Most nights the family sat around the den watching TV after dinner eating roasted nuts or a bowl of ice cream before bed.

Now the whine of leaf blowers replaces the rhythmic scraping of a rake and disturbs the peace. Blowers may be a lot faster, but I hate fishing on a nice peaceful morning only to hear someone crank up a leaf blower and make a lot of noise for hours on end. On a lake with lots of houses it is a constant sound all day.

I heard a DJ on the radio today say there was a sure sign fall is here.  The dollar stores are putting out Valentine stuff.  Seriously, Christmas stuff is already showing up in some area stores a month before Halloween.  Seems a big early to me.

Are we in too big a hurry nowadays?  We can’t wait to a holiday in a couple of months to the point of missing the excitement of the ones coming up. And it seems the same for hunters and fishermen. Bass boats scream around the lake, trying to find that perfect spot. Hunters can’t sit still in deer stands, they have to ride their four wheelers in the woods scaring the deer for everyone else.

My favorite season is a toss up between spring and fall. I love the warming weather in spring, the new growth of plants and animals and the fantastic fishing. Planting gardens is always a great anticipation of coming delicious vegetables.

But fall starts hunting seasons and great fishing again.  And the bounty of the garden is ending but still producing delicious fresh meals, with digging potatoes one of my favorites.  And fall crops of broccoli, cabbage and other cool weather veggies are another anticipation.

One of the best things about fall, the opposite of spring, is the disappearance of bugs.  Cooler nights seem to lessen them and the first frost makes most mosquitos, ticks, flies and other irritating bugs disappear.

Many people travel to the mountains to see the colorful leaves each year. I much prefer seeing them from a deer stand. Mountain and valley vistas are nice but sitting in a tree on a ridge over a creek valley is even better to me, since the anticipation of seeing a deer is there.

Deer camp the first week of November is something we look forward to every year, too. Every club has different camps, but all involve fires, good food, great companionship and an escape from the reality of modern life.  It takes most of us back to simpler times when the world was not quite so crazy.

Roughing it at deer camp can also make me appreciate the conveniences of modern life. Going four or five days without a hot shower is not something I enjoy, but fortunately, my camp is close enough to drive home every other day for a shower.

Cooking on an open fire is fun – a couple of times.  But having to do it every day makes me appreciate the ease of cooking a variety of things an open fire just can not produce.  Biscuits, pies and cakes are some of the things you really need an oven to cook!

Enjoy fall – winter will be here soon enough.