And Don't Forget…

Fishing Advice

I heard that U.S. fishing magazines, starting January 1, will no longer accept photographs for publication that show female anglers wearing skimpy bathing suits when holding up their fish. It’s about time, right?

And, it’s time to stop trying to pull your flies loose once they’re caught in the Vee of a big lily pad.  As Florida Crackers say, “It will not come aloose.”  Break your line or make your way to the fly, cut it free, retie and move on.  Ditto for hanging lures in nylon dock lines or stuck in wooden pilings.  Time for a change.  I lost a $7 Mirrolure one night this past summer when the dock owner, who was sitting quietly enjoying a drink and a cigar, watched me hang my nine-hook plug in the 3/4” nylon line attached to his megafoot yacht.  He said, very firmly, “Leave it!  I’ll get it in the morning.” 

Getting mad at yourself and cussing and stomping around because you forgot to bring an important item, like, say, your tackle box, is childish, isn’t it?  Stop it!  Every third guy at the ramp has left something behind, and you’ll do it again, I promise you.  It’s as much part of fishing as catching small fish... or none.  Personally, I make up a list the night before a trip, then leave myself a note reminding me to locate the list and go over it before I leave home.  This method is foolproof.  Well, almost.  You can read the list, see that you’ve left something out, then forget to get it in your haste to depart.  After nearly sixty years outdoors in Florida I left the plug out of my skiff and backed it in the water just two weeks ago, and a while back my wife and I arrived at a beautiful mountain lake an hour from home in Colorado and took our kayak off the truck and put it by the lake.  You guessed it.  I’d left the paddles at home.  It’s never happened to you?...yet.  I hollered and jumped around like an Arkansas clogger.  How does that old Christmas ditty go, “makin’ a list and checking it twice”?

Last summer at a Lake Okeechobee boat ramp I spent fifteen minutes trying to start my 15 Hp hand-crank outboard, to the general amusement of two redneck fishermen nearby, funny guys.  They asked me was that the way we do it in Sandusky, jes‘ keep pullin’?  I was nearly exhausted when I discovered the problem:  the emergency stop clip had come loose, making it impossible to start the motor.  Once I connected it the motor started right up and we all had a laugh.  “Been there, done that,” one of the men said.

Those country boys at the ramp had fun teasing me about the flyrods I put in the boat, asking what I was going to do with ‘em, catch me a walleye?  They had a passel of cane poles, and were heading to the same one-acre spot I was, planning to catch bedding shell crackers with worms.  The fish were thick and my pal and I caught over a hundred apiece in a few hours on hand-tied flies, fishing a few hundred feet from the wormers.  We waded, they sat in their jonboat.  The wormers did well too, but they had to stop and hook on another wiggler every time they caught a fish, and they noticed that we were catching ‘em faster than they were.  We had our barbs mashed down for quick release, and kept only a few for supper.  

As I cranked the motor to leave--it started on the first pull-- they very respectfully hollered to us, “Whatchall usin’?”  We motored over and handed them a few flies, which they promptly tied on their cane poles, then got overboard and started wading, slinging the fly out as far as they could, imitating our fly casting.  As we pulled away they started catching fish.  I’d bet that they bought a couple of cheap fly rods when they got back.  They’ll instinctively want those extra feet of distance a fly rod provides. 

It’s never too late to change your ways and try new methods to catch fish, even if the techniques come from a Sandusky Yankee.  

I was just teasing about no more bikini-clad girls holding up fish.  It was the reason I had a magazine subscription in the seventh grade.