The Bartow Depth Finder

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My hunting and fishing buddies enjoy putting snakes in sleeping bags, hiding the toilet paper and making you fishing bait sandwiches when you get seasick. Rotten bait sardines slapped between slices of plain white bread are good or longer baits, like ballyhoo or mullet, which extend out past the bread. It’s a rough crowd.

The words “Mark Twain” referred to two fathoms, or twelve feet of water under the keel of a Mississippi riverboat. Traditionally, a “leadsman” would drop a weighted line with a knot every six feet, and holler the depth to the captain in the pilothouse. 

Fishing experts today use all sorts of fancy depth-finding equipment, but a Bartow, Florida, redneck out for a day of bream fishing pokes a stick overboard until it touches the ground to see how deep the water is, the stick being his or her fishing pole. It’s basic and foolproof, like the lead line.  Well, almost foolproof.

One day I was fly fishing at Lake Istokpoga in central Florida with three Florida Cracker friends.  Sam Crutchfield, one of Florida’s best fishermen and a lifetime friend, was running the boat, acting as our guide. We were searching for Bluegill beds, washtub-sized circles of sand on the dark lake bottom that indicate where the fish lay their eggs.  Bluegills are small fish—a pound’s a good-sized one—but they aggressively attack anything that comes close to their bed.  That day we were using four-weight fly rods, light by Florida standards, and tossing white #8 homemade foam poppers with rubber legs. As the poppers hit the water, a Bluegill would strike, and the fight was on.  They smash the bug imitations like much bigger fish.  

We’d get overboard and fish an area dotted with beds, and then get back in the boat and search for new territory. It was fun fishing, with lots of kidding going on.  You could see all the other guys casting and catching, or getting their flies caught in the bushes.  We released all the fish, and by noon we’d each caught fifty.  

Each time we’d search and find a new bunch of beds, Sam would lean over the side and touch bottom with the tip of his fly rod to check the water depth. Then he’d hold out his rod to show us how deep it was.  Once we were anchored he’d slide over the side and stand up, taking first shot at the fish. We all became accustomed to seeing the water depth on his measuring stick—the fly rod.  And, we became a little aggravated at having always to be second in line behind him.  Finally, someone said something about him hogging the best-looking spots at every stop.  Words were exchanged, mostly friendly.

One more time we motored to a new bed, and Sam measured the depth as he’d been doing. He held up the fly rod to indicate that the water was about thigh to waist deep, perfect.  Sam then casually said to my friend in the bow, “You can go first this time.  Get goin’!”

The man eagerly swung his legs over the side and sat on the gunwale with his fly rod in hand for a few seconds.  He let go and jumped, expecting thigh deep water as Sam’s measurement had indicated it was. Instead he went down and out of sight until his ball cap floated.  

I was as surprised as he was, though I laughed harder and longer.  I could have been the sucker!