FISH CATCHING TRAVEL

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The Musings of an Old Man.

It was some time in the mid 70’s, I was doing crop production surveys for the Department of Agriculture, flunking out of junior college, and there was over a foot of snow on the ground.  It was the middle of February and 15 degrees in northern Illinois.  That day I got the new Outdoor Life and in it was an article on the 10 Best Bass Lakes in the country.  Bull Shoals Lake in the Ozarks was the closest, so I called my buddy Max and my brother and both were good to go.  So I loaded up the Gremlin (Remember them?)  and off we went.  Class, I did not need no stinkin’ class.

We camped below Bull Shoals dam, rented a aluminum boat with a 10hp at a boat dock on the lake, and off we went for 3 days of fishing.  Now do not think we had a clue, we had way less than a clue.  Not only of what to do, but where to do it.  Bull Shoals is a monster to a kid from the Midwest used to fishing ponds.  I did not know they made them that big.  And not only did we not catch a fish, we did not have a stinkin’ bite all 3 days.  So the obvious logical conclusion – Quit your job, do not even bother to drop out of college, just load the Gremlin with a tent and $125 and move to Arkansas to be a fishing guide.  Of course not knowing anyone or anything never stopped me.  In fact, I did not even know Mtn. Home was there.  I just knew there were some fish in there somewhere.  Talk about clueless, I was truly a Rebel without a Clue!

So what brought all this on?  What really brought back these memories was scanning a few pictures in from the days of real photography.  The pictures below are 30 – 40 years old from the store or the boat dock.  They are a snapshot of a 10 year period, not like today with digital photography where I shoot hundreds a year.  These pictures document the period in my life where I went from a carp catching, pond fishing, perch jerker to hard core fisherman.

Living in a crappy trailer, I bought a small tackle and bait shop close to the lake.  That turned out to be a great decision.   These pictures are the road map to my fishing life.  Whether fishing guide, paramedic, or attorney, the one constant in my life has been the fishing.

The weekly article I wrote for the daily paper.    My little bro and a couple of stripers.  (Can you say polaroids?  Why I am scanning them in before they are gone.)

For the next two years we were open 12 hours a day, 364 days a year.  It was long hours and we were poor, but I met everyone in town, started fishing the bass club, and after 2 years sold the store and had my first guide customer.   Then good fortune struck and I was able to move to Panther Bay Boat Dock, work for John, and live in the little house in the woods overlooking the lake.  And the real fishing began.  It was 10 years at the dock and my life was nothing but the great outdoors.

One of my customer (I think she was a cop from Toledo.) with one over 30lbs.  Me with a couple of 20’s.

During the early years several folks took me under their wing and taught me a bunch.  I worked for a lure company for a while, then  full time at the boat dock.  Working at the dock for John was great, if I needed to fish I did, which was almost daily, and when I needed to work, I did.  Taking care of the docks and customers, and then hopping in my boat sitting in the stall at the main dock to fish the evening bite, all in less than 1 minute from my house.  During many period I never left the property.  Our bass club was the toughest in the state, winning the state Bass Federation Club championship 6 out of 7 years.  One of the early members was Rayo Brekenridge, the second Bassmaster Champion.  Another member was John Storey, who started Champion Boats and Viper Boats.

Those guys were some serious hard core bass fisherman and I remember how serious and competitive it was.  As an example we had a 4 fish tournament series, the Winter Bass-A-Thon, which took place Nov, Dec, Jan, and Feb, no matter what the weather.  It was first come first serve to leave, and we would line up well over an hour in advance, in the middle of freakin’ winter at 5 in the morning, just to beat a couple of other guys out.  Crazy.   During that period I wrote the weekly fishing article for the local paper.  It was serious hard core fishing all the time.

My old buddy Larry and I.   Me and some guide customers with a few.

Then during the early 80’s the state’s long term striper stocking program took off and the fishing went insane.  Big fish on top at night, you could hear them in the dark smashing bait on any flat bank from the dam to the center of the lake.  Trolling in the summer, when they hit that downrigger you knew you had a bite, which was a great way to let your customers do all the catching.  And then spooning in the winter, it was big fish after big fish, 10 – 20lbers did not raise an eyebrow.  We literally laid the smack down on them.  After fishing half the night, and almost dosing, a 20lber would blast that spook with 5 feet of line out scaring the crap out of you.  Guiding was so fine then, put folks on a couple of these and they were thrilled.  One of those periods when I was lucky enough to be right in the middle of it.  I have always called it The Time of the Stripers.

A morning limit.  John and I trolling in my Champion.  (The 4th made.)

Of course it wasn’t all stripers, that is just they way these pictures were in the book.  The bass fishing was still the order of the day, and I kept guiding and tournament fishing for almost 10 years before I got a real job.  The guiding continued for almost 20 years, and I loved it.  I fished with lots of great folks and had some good times.  It wasn’t always a limit, but it was always fun.  I will always remember my $800 gas bill one April when I guided everyday but one that month.  That Black Max reminded me of the drunk sitting at the end of the bar during happy hour drinking beer like there was no tomorrow.  $800 for a month of gas was a lot of $$$$ in the early 80’s.

Time for a Mercury Black Max story.  Remember that the Mtn Home area was bass boat central.  Ranger, Champion, and Bass Cat were all there.  One year Mercury brought the new Black Max 150hp to Bull Shoals to shoot some promos with Ranger Boats.  They went to Oakland Boat Dock which was owned by my friend Lenny.  His beard and a full head of black hair led them to take a few pictures of him driving the boat and his face became the face of the Mercury logo.  So when you see the swoosh on the Mercs, that is the logo that has morphed from his face and time as the Black Max.

But whether with friends or guiding, we fished hard.  My rule when guiding, we fish until you want to quit, and there were many days we hit it dawn to dusk.  Winter, summer, day, night, crap weather, it did not matter, we fished.  One morning in the Bass-A-Thon we took off like a bat out of hell, went screaming around the corner, and up on the ice we wen at 60,mph.  The lake froze farther down that night.  That really felt weird now that I think about it.

This guy wanted a 4 hour evening trip, we fished all night!  My buds and me with a few.

During the late 70’s into the 80’s we had something happen that still makes my heart pound thinking about it.  One of the guys at the dock, Buddy Meador from Jonesboro, when confronted with a high water year and lots of brush, wanted his topwater minnow to suspend right in front of the brush.  So he filled the bathtub and used fine solder around the hooks to make it suspend just right, and the suspending jerk bait was born.  They flat loved it and that period was one of real change in bait manufacturing.   From Thanksgiving until late spring those fish would absolutely kill that thing. Then Rebel put a long bill on their minnow and for about 3 years we had big fish trying to jerk the rod out of our hands.  It was a thing of beauty.  But whatever they liked about that we sure weeded it out of them and after about 5 years they would not touch it.  A result of fishing super, super clear water.  And the Wiggle Wart, what can I say about that?  When that first appeared they could not resist, and we spent days paralleling the banks and smacking them.  Those were the days.

My first one over 7.  (The wall of my store, maybe 1976.)  And here is a few from a winter day.

And the white bass, oh man.  We caught them in the spring up river, in the summer schooling mid-lake on top, but my favorite was vertical jigging them from November into January.  If you were a white bass it was ugly.  The boat dock of course was slow, and the big bite was from daylight until around 10 every morning.  You could find us, and another dozen boats or so, out there hammering them every morning.  From 20 – 50 foot deep, we would find them on the locator and absolutely knock the crap out of them.   A good average size was 1 1/2lbs but we caught lots over the years in the 4lb range, they were some big ones.  For 20 years I lived in Mtn Home that was a solid pattern and we exploited it every chance we got.  When I say it was thousands that is not an exaggeration, at times we flat jacked them up.  It was nothing but a 20 year meat haul.  The only downside, cleaning them.

Family (My dad and brother in the middle) and friends with 125+.  Clyde and I with a couple.

That time was so all about the fishing.  I did not have a pot to piss in, but I had a boat.  There was no such thing as too tired, don’t feel like going, or wussing out early, we fished any time, no matter the weather, for anything that swam.

Thousands over the side.   And always the crappie.  (Look at the one on the left.)

Crappie were of course a big guide customer request.  One winter we built tons of piles.  I ended up with a milk run of 27 brush piles and they rarely let me down.  Using 4lb line and super small tubes we hammered them, and lots ended up on my supper table.  It was awesome to have a deep pile, cast that super small jig and then count it down, sometimes as much as a 50 count, then turning the handle and feeling that thump.   The crappie “Thump” is still one of my favorite bites.

Made several trips in the early 70’s to the Boundary Waters.  And what in the hell is up with that hat?

We fished the White River, the North Fork, Buffalo River, tons of lakes big and small, and even made a few trips to the north country.  I was never a “fish snob”, if it bites I was all about it.  Wading, drifting, floating, trolling, casting, it did not matter, it was an obsession.

I even did a little trapping and deer hunting. 

Living at the dock I had tons of freedom.  John was a great boss and when the guiding was over I still had to make some money, we had little but did not know the difference, and coons and fox provided me with the money to survive the winter.  And venison was the main meat half the year.  It was another day and time.  No cares, no plan beyond tomorrow, the only question, what is biting or in season.  My rent free, my car was $2000 new, and you could get a nice used Champion for $3500.  Hell that won’t even put electronics on a boat now.

The pontoon before it was flipped back over, and here is what it looked like.

One summer day in August it was doing that rain/mist/clouds/clear thing, but not really raining.  As I was about to leave the dock for the day I saw a boat out in the middle of the lake and it looked like they were having trouble.  I got out the binocs and he was in the water by the engine.  So I decided to go check them out.  Instead of taking the Champ I just jumped in a pontoon and went out to get them.  They were broke down so they tied to the pontoon but said they would stay in their boat, which probably saved their life.  To make a long story short we got hit by a tornado and this boat ended up on my head and I almost drowned when I was trapped below the deck.  It really would have sucked if I had drowned, since I had 2 life jackets on.  A scary moment.  If I learned anything from it it was that we all have a strong will to live, and mine saved me that day.

And living in Arkansas during that time period was a real period of growth in the fishing business.  Boats went from the old cigars with stick steering where a 5o was a big motor, to pad boats, then the v hulls.  With the Black Max 150 the real horsepower race was on.  It was common to see boats with motors way over the boat’s hp rating.  In fact BASS finally limited engine size to 150, which slowed the race for a few years, but the growth in the size of bass boats finally demanded the bigger engines to push them.  The insane bass boat race was in full swing.  Ranger led the way with Champion and Bass Cat fighting for their share of the market.

I started out with the old flasher locator, which actually did the job as long as you could interpret it.  Then came the graphs, and when the Lowrance X15 paper graph came out I had to have one.  It went from interpreting what you saw on the locator to seeing what was down there.  And those of you who fish know where all that has led.  Everything in fishing was changing fast.

And baits, what to say about that.  The first plastic worm I bought was out of a pickle jar mixed in with every color, size, and style.  It said .05 each for a “rubber worm“.  Hard baits went from clunky to fancy with cool paint jobs.  One little hitch in the git-along was when they first came out with photo realistic baits.  They actually did not work as well as the others, a little to real.  And coming from that area, where the original hair bass jig was invented by Sam Welch on Bull Shoals, we were riding the wave.  We  would put a #11 pork frog on the back and go to night fishing.  As a side note, Uncle Josh just announced recently that they are ending the pork frog line.

So what can I take away from that time.  It really was the good old days, but that term applies to my life style and that period in fishing history.  Fishing in most areas is now better than it was then, thanks to limits.  I would be embarrassed to even come to the dock with some of the bass from that period.  Hell I won a tournament with a 10 fish limit, it weighed a paltry 9 1/2lbs!   And that was with a 12” limit.  When I started guiding there was no length limit.  I was guiding 4 guys who worked with the Indy 500 with Tad from the lure company when we stopped for a shore lunch.  Tad pulled me aside and said they were not happy I was throwing some of the small ones back, and they meant any bass.  Boy it was a different time.

I guess that is why I do this blog.  Fishing has been an integral part of my life.  And being able to fish now while I am still “young” has been a blessing.  Some days I am tired and or just not feeling it.  And now some days it is just to cold, or to wet.  So maybe I don’t go like I used to, but I still think about it, talk about it, and write about it.  And that is why I do this blog.  So please keep stopping in, hell you just might be saving my life.

Good Luck and Tight Lines