More Than Me

For those who know me or who have at least read through my blog entries, it is well known that I have long battled with an overpowering tendency to allow fishing to be a completely self indulgent addiction.  I've found it difficult from time to time to not let it take precedence over relationships, responsiblities, and sometimes even my own safety.  I'm happy to be able to say that I've finally made some gains as far as all of that goes.  I wouldn't say that I've turned the corner, but I'm at least taking a peak around it.

I started out the flathead season in full psycho mode.  I fished as much as I could and stayed on the river until the next morning way too often.  I even got stranded out there twice with motor problems.  Fortunately, with all of this taking place, I found myself getting fed up with how it was affecting the quality of the rest of my life.  The second time the motor broke down, I had my nephew and son with me.  We ended up stuck out there in the cold and fog all night long.  Those poor kids fell asleep in the bottom of the boat, but I could tell that they were miserable.  They stirred frequently, and both shot straight up each time that I gave the pull chord another dozen tries.  Of course, they reported that they loved every minute of it, but I came away thinking that something would have to change.

The first thing that changed is that I put the starter back on the motor and rebuilt the carburetor.  The old girl runs like she's brand new again.  But if that's all I did, I think I would have fallen far short of what God has been trying to teach me.  My changes were simple, but collosal for someone with an addiction.  Step one was to go less.  I actually got down to one trip a week for a good part of the summer.  I never thought that I'd be able to do that without developing some sort of nervous tick.  I do twitch now and then, but I'll be alright.  The second step was to quit staying out there until a new day and the requirement to be at work finally forced me to reluctantly trailer the boat.  The third step was the biggest.  The chronic loner finally started to invite people to come out and enjoy my little piece of heaven with me.

Who would have thought that I'd actually enjoy myself more?!  I was able to take one of my kids and a staff member from work out to the bayous for the spring channel cat run.  The 3 of us had the time of our lives.  It was so fun for me to see their absolute amazement at the numbers and size of fish that you catch out there.  Who doesn't like to be a hero?  I got to be a hero that day.  They both caught the biggest fish of their lives.  The client's was a 14 pounder.  He bragged and showed off the picture for weeks.  The kid was enjoying himself so much out there that we could barely talk him into going home.  He couldn't sit still in his seat because he had to pee so bad, but he just kept asking to cast out the half a creek chub head that was left on his hook for one more chance.

I've also been able to take some friends from work and their families out for flatties.  Some were already experienced at fishing, some had barely been before.  The results were always the same.  People just seem to fall in love with being out on the river.  That combination of catching bait and then moving on to the big uglies makes a great one-two punch.  Catching the gills in the middle of God's great creation is perfect relaxation, perfect peace.  Then the gear shift.  When I set the hook on the first flathead and hand the rod over, I get pure joy from the pure joy that I witness.  When people fight their first flathead, the amazement of it makes them laugh.  I love that.  Some continued to giggle for minutes after.  That was even better.  One friend was enjoying himself well enough as we caught bait and then settled in for the cats, but I caught him yawning a few times.  When we got into the flatties, the adrenaline hit him and he was gung ho to try every spot that I suggested.  The flathead gods rewarded him by topping off an already solid night with a 27-pounder.  When he posted it on facebook, someone asked him, "Where are you, Africa?".

My most loyal fishing buddy is my nephew, Elijah.  He comes with me whenever we can work it out.  That kid stays focused on fishing from the minute we get out there to the minute we hit dry land again.  Well, except for his power naps.  On our first trip for flatties this year, we spent quite a bit of daylight hours fishing for bait.  As soon as it started to get dark, the boy completely knocked out in the bottom of the boat.  I was disappointed for him that he would miss the cats.  I was just texting my sister, Keri, to tell her that he fell asleep when all of a sudden he popped straight up and said in a clear, loud voice,"Okay!  Did we catch any catfish yet?!"  Made Luke and me laugh.  He was good to go for the rest of the night.  Fortunately, I've been able to put him on a couple of big fish this year.  The pictures earned him a lot of cool points with the neighborhood kids, I hear.

I still go alone, and love going alone.  It's nice to be able to drop back into the little system that I developed, to be able to move more frequently and easily, and to not do all of the dancing that is required in our little boat when you get a couple of extra people in there.  But the fact of the matter is, I like hearing the laughter and I don't get that out there when I'm alone.  If I ever do hear laughing when I'm alone out there, I'll probably pee myself, get out of there as fast as I can, and never go back because I can't think of anything scarier!  Especially if it was like little kid laughter and I kept hearing it coming from different places all around me.  Ew!  Yikes!!  Just gave me the shivers.  I think I'll just work on keeping the boat full so I can hand that rod over, and then sit back and enjoy the show.

For Mama

It's a bit overwhelming to think about how I'm going to summarize 6 months and several hundred hours on the water in one post.  I was at my parents' recently and my mom said that she missed reading new entries on my fishing blog, so I need to figure it out quick.  I haven't been writing because the hamster wheel has just been spinning too fast lately.  I won't get into it too much, but home is busier and work is busier.  By day I run a residential program with 12 at risk teenage boys, and by night I run a home with 3 wild savages and the worst dog since that tourist rescued a chihauhua from Mexico only to find out it was really a giant rat.  Jamming in late night fishing trips every chance I get pretty much pushed me over the edge.  It has been a monumental summer for me, but I can't help but savor the much needed rest I've been getting lately.  I actually made it to bed before 9:00 the other night and, of course, the first thought that went through my head was that on an average night on the river I'm not even settling into my first flathead spot for another hour.

The big spring channel cat run slowed down noticably on the bayous sometime in late May.  I made a couple of flathead trips out there because I wanted a chance at some of those big flatties that don't get blocked by the dam.  There isn't a lot of structure out there, so it was tough to find them.  They probably don't even bother to hang around those waters for too long.  I caught a few here and there.  In the mean time, a fishing buddy of mine was hitting a launch that is just 15 minutes from my house.  It's down river from the 6th Street Dam, so it still fit the big flathead bill.  He was catching some nice fish, so it didn't take much to convince me to trade in my hour long drive for one that barely gets the engine warm.

I don't remember why, but I got out late my first night on this new stretch.  It was dark when I hit the water, so I didn't venture too far from the launch.  I found a deep run and tossed out my bullheads.  They were getting smashed left and right.  Holy smokes!!  It was looking good.  No big fish, but I caught 7 flatheads that night.  I had never done anything close to that in my "home water."  I left that night feeling like good things were going to be happening.

I spent most of my spare time in the early summer catching bait.  I stocked up on bullheads, chubs, and any panfish that I could find.  My next time out, I met my friend at the launch and followed him close to  2 miles down river to his honey hole.  The river was really low for much of the summer, and particularly so at that time.  You have to pass 3 islands to get to the hot spot and they presented the biggest challenge.  The river gets really narrow and shallow around them.  If you don't know the river and stray just a little too far one way or the other in some of these spots, you will find yourself bow beached with your prop grinding gravel.  Following him up river at the end of our first night felt pretty surreal.  I chased his wake in the pitch dark as he zig-zagged around all of the hazards.  I was just waiting for the whack that would put a hole in the boat and send me headfirst into the tar black water.  Luckily it never came.  Because I've been out there somewhere between 50 and 100 times since, I now know that 2 mile stretch with the intimacy of a lover.  Man that sounds gross, but it's about right.

At this point, specific nights would be pretty tough to recap.  I'll have to just run through the important stuff.  First of all, we discovered that huge schools of blue gills were stacked around and especially just behind almost every snag in that part of the river.  We caught quick limits of huge gills either with a worm under a bobber or a micro plastic on a small jig.  We also found that the crappies would start hitting just before dark and also late into the night in case you were running short on bait.  This was perfect because the flatties seemed to be keyed on the panfish.  We fished them live, cut, and most frequently alive with their tails cut off.  This seemed to provoke the quickest bite on most nights.  I'll let my pictures speak for my success this year, but I will say that it was just awesome for a Michigan river. We caught between 5 and 10 flatheads most nights and usually a good number of them were around or over 20 pounds.  I caught a handful over 25 pounds, with my biggest and new PB weighing in at 28.

We had one particular snag that we liked to start on.  It was in the deepest hole for miles and just before dark the fish would start moving out of it like they had an alarm clock set.  Waiting for the bite to get hot and then knowing that it was starting always induced a fun kind of anxiety.  Those poles would start getting smacked all around me and if I wasn't ready or I wasn't sharp, there was a good chance that I could blow it.  Some nights I did.  I whiffed on some fish, I waited too long to set the hook on others, and I let some heavy fish bully me into the junk where they tangled up and broke off.  I also had some brilliant moments when I did everything right and worked a monster off of a heavy snag, I hooked and caught 2 fish at a time more than once, and I even had 3 going at the same time on one occasion.  I only landed 2, but it was pretty sweet.

During the peek of the summer, I was catching around 10 flatheads a night.  Sometimes just under, sometimes just over.  The only bad part about that was that I found it all but impossible to make myself go home.  On a handful of nights, I told myself you only live once and stayed out until I finally had to leave to just make it to work on time.  The rest of my life suffered some because of it.  It can be kind of subtle, but when you're sleep deprived for months on end, you don't think as clearly, you don't relate to others as well, and you just plain don't get as much stuff done.  I was feeling like a fully imprisoned addict.  I loved every single minute that I spent out there this summer and found myself always craving my next fix.  I loved the somewhat relaxed ritual of catching a livewell full of hand sized gills and then the rush of the flathead chase that would ensue as the sane people were seeking the refuge of their beds to recuperate from their long days.  I thought about fishing constantly and once it got in my head that I might be able to make it out, I was driven to make it happen.

This hunger led me to continue chasing flatheads long after I ever have before in years past.  Most of the threads on the catfish forum talked about catching big fall flatheads during the day.  I followed their advice and gave it several tries.  I ran into insane wind and a maddening, endless carpet of leaves in the water.  The wind would spin by boat in complete circles if I didn't have two anchors down and the leaves would pile up on the line just about as soon as I got my bait wet.  I did manage a few midday lunkers, including a 26 pounder.  I still can't say that it was worth all of the effort, cost, and hassle.  Not that I'd be able to pass it up if the opportunity suddenly presented itself again.

One day, the gills just completely disappeared.  Hundreds on one trip, not one the very next time out.  I think they headed into a nearby gravel pit or maybe they migrate down river to Spring Lake.  I'm not sure, but wherever they go, they went.  That all but shut down my flathead chase.  I managed a few suckers out of the river after that and I have a place near my house where I can catch carp.  I caught a channel here and there on the cutbait and managed a few more small flatheads, but mostly by this time of year that bait was just getting hammered by unhookable gar pike.

I had mentioned several times by this point that I thought I was ready to get the boat put up for the winter.  Then I got the bug for catching pike and walleye.  The big ones are supposed to get really active as the water cools.  I spent one unproductive day on the bayous and then had some success back in the hot stretch.  I caught some nice pike and walleye, along with a few big smallies.  I even had a huge steelhead on one morning.  I saw it hit my lure and I watched the whole fight.  It was over before I knew it.  Without any big thrash or run, it popped my line and I watched it swim away with my $10 lure stuck to its face.

The end finally truly came a couple of Sundays ago.  It was a really warm, but windy November day.  The boys and I headed out with a few hours left of daylight.  They had their movies and snacks to keep them busy.  After landing only one smallmouth and with it getting dark, I started up the motor ready to head closer to the launch.  When I put it in forward, we just continued to drift down river with the current.  We ended up drifting into a snag that had caught a bloated deer carcass.  I scrambled to get clear of the snag and then quickly dropped anchor.  I checked the motor.  Sure enough, the prop wasn't turning in forward or reverse.  Then the rains came.  What to do?  I got the boys under the old comforter that I usually bring for them, turned off all lights and electronics, and put the trolling motor to work.  I had very little faith that it would make it the mile that we had to cover up river and directly into the wind.  An hour and a half later with rain coming down in buckets and the boys, more or less dry, sleeping in the bottom of the boat, we inched our way into the launch.  The motor is now in pieces in my basement and I am awaiting parts so I can put it back together and get the boat stored.  Probably just in time for good ice to allow me onto the lakes.

Now I can't call this entry "For Mama" and only include the boring stuff that's actually about fishing.  There's only one thing that she really wants to hear about and that is her grandkids.

Hayden didn't leave me too much to tell as she announced early this summer that fishing isn't for her.  She did have one cute moment when I came home from work one night.  As I got out of my Jeep I saw her busily getting her fishing pole baited up.  She looked very serious.  I asked her what was going on and she said that she saw a creek chub coming in and out from under the bank and she wanted to catch it for a pet.  Sure enough, she took me to the spot and within a minute we saw it pop out for a second and then quickly dart back under the bank.  She dropped a worm down by where it had come out and it shot out and took a quick swipe at it.  She yanked up, but only managed to get the bare hook caught in the tree above our heads.  I asked her if I could try.  She gave up the purple rod and reel and the crafty old sea dog had the chub swinging helplessly from the hook in a matter of 5 seconds.  Hayden put the fish in a bucket and scolded me about using it for bait.  I promised that I wouldn't.  Unfortunately, her fleeting interest left me to find that poor fish split belly up with its entrails dangling in stagnant 90 degree water 2 days later.  I should have snuck it into my bait bucket.

The boys took countless trips with me this summer.  Most of their time involved snacks, the iPod, and sleeping.  Those boys knocked out in that fresh air.  Sometimes at night they'd go quiet long enough for me to forget they were there and then one of them would let out a snore that would perfectly mimick the sound a bear would make if it were creeping up behind me ready to swipe and chomp.  Hearing sounds on the river at night is fine, but when you're lost in fishing focus and a lapse has you thinking you're alone, a low growl coming from inside the boat can just about send you swimming.  The other heart stoppers out there are the beavers that apparently don't like your boat sitting in the middle of their territory.  They swim in quietly and then smack their tails with the force of a boulder dropped off of a cliff.  When that water suddenly explodes close enough to get you wet, you have to work pretty hard to override the fight or flight instinct.  You spend the next hour wired like Kramer. 


Anyway, the boys.  Luke has built quite a lure collection, mostly by guilting me out of some of my best plugs.  It's a source of great pride for him though, and he is forever looking through it and rearranging it.  He even made his own lure this year.  How do you tell an enthusiastic 6 year old that a toy alien impaled through the gut with a 7/0 octopus hook wouldn't catch a fish in a million tries?  You don't.  You let him beat the water with it and curse the fish for being so stupid.

Luke is every bit my little clone, and he shows the most interest in fishing, so he and I have had plenty of great moments this summer.  Some of the standouts were his new love for bass fishing and then his fascination with gar pike when one happened to get its teeth caught in our braided line and actually made it all the way back into the boat.  Most of the bass came when we were throwing small jigs and plastics for panfish.  If I hooked one, I would turn the rod over to him and he would have no problem claiming it as his own.  He always wanted a picture with his monster 12 inch smallmouth.  I turned one of my smaller spinning rigs over to him this summer and he continues to get the hang of it.  Though the lure doesn't usually make it too far from the boat, he did manage to hook and land some of his own fish.

Perhaps best of all in my book is the complete awe he had for my constantly bleeding and scarred up hands from lipping and reaching into the mouths of thrashing flatheads.  In Luke's little world, this defined tough.  No band aids.  Ignore it and let it drip.  Maybe soak it into a dirty rag if you've got the time.  Maybe swish it around in the river.  When we settled in to wait for our next hit, he'd take my hand in both of his and inspect the damage.  He kept an inventory.  The next time he'd see me after a solo run, he'd take a look and say, "You got a couple new ones, right Dad?"  By the end of the summer, he was asking to handle every flathead we caught in hopes that he too would get some sweet scars.  After each release, he'd turn on his headlamp and carefully study his hands.  He announced to me during one drive to the river that all the kids in his class think he's the toughest kid in school because of his scars.  Don't worry.  I've gone over those hands and they remain perfect.  I haven't allowed my boy to be mamed and disfigured at such an innocent age.

Old Linc is a piece of work.  Most of the time, I don't think he remembers that he's fishing or even in a boat.  I could be fighting 3 fish and trying to get a 4th off of the hook and he'd be sticking a Gatorade in my gut asking me to get the cap off.  I don't know how many times I said, "A little busy here, Linc."  Another favorite of his was sneaking in and sitting in my seat when I stood up to fight a fish or make some adjustments.  I must have sat on him 50 times this summer.  We're working on his awareness.

His need to take a pooh at the absolute worst moment became legendary.  I think his record was 5 times in one night.  My responses in order were as follows, "Really?  Okay, just give me a minute."  "Geez boy, what did you eat today?"  "What?!  You're kidding, right?"  "Lincoln!!  What is going on?!" and "You know where the bucket is.  Mom said she wants you to keep her company next time."  His responses in order were, "Dad, wite now!" "Peanut buttoo and jewwee . . . and fwoot."  "No, Dad.  I'm seewious."  "Nothing's going on, I just have to poop." and "Good, I love Mama.  Wayws the bucket?  I need you to  hode it fo' me."

The boy is actually really good at fishing.  He's got a knack for it.  When the line isn't wrapped around the end of the pole, he zips it out there nice.  My best memory of him was probably when I set up a line with a hook and sinker for both of the boys with no pole.  We sat the boat over an absolute cloud of gills in about 3 feet of water.  That kid was loving life at that moment.  We called it "Hillbilly Handline Fishing," and he had it down.  I could barely fish I was so busy taking his fish off the hook for him.  He was mesmerized.  Not too many kids have a giggle cuter than Lincoln's, and it was just rolling out of him that day.  I made him out to be a fishing god and the pride was just dripping off of him.  Great moment.

He wasn't awake for my second favorite moment.  I took these pictures and a few more on an impulse so that I could show them to him the next day.  I pulled the pictures up on the computer and called him into my room the first chance I got.  Before I could say anything, he let out a huge gasp and yelled, "No you did not put that catfish on me!"  Then he fell down laughing.  I told him that it had cuddled with him and told him bedtime stories all night.  The picture of it whispering in his ear just about convinced him, but he knows my game by now.  Man, that made me laugh!  Both in the boat when I was looking through the pictures and saw the one where it looks like the fish is talking to him, and then the next day when I got to see his reaction.  Lincoln is a notorious mama's boy, but I think he has fun screwing around with me.  He's pretty good at giving it back to me.  I hope he's having fun.  Otherwise, there will be therapy.

This new stretch of river is my new heaven and my new drug of choice.  I'm probably struggling more than ever with that fine line between enjoying a blessing and allowing myself to be controlled by my passion.  I actually scare myself at times.  I'm a different me out there.  I'm fully engaged, fully at peace, and fully natural.  Does that not sound like a meth head talking about getting high?  I guess all I can do right now is thank God for broken outboards and start organizing my ice fishing gear.