This past Sunday, for the first time in months, I was able to get away for a few hours and get some fishing in. Didn't catch a thing (it's just too hot here in Georgia), but that wasn't really the point. I wanted to check out a new spot for future fishing adventures, and didn't care if I caught anything or not. I just wanted to check things out.
I went to one of Georgia's wildlife management areas (WMA) that's about 40 minutes from my house. Named the Joe Kurz WMA, it's mainly a hunting location, with managed fields and habitat for deer, turkey, doves and quail. It does offer a small fishing lake/pond, and boat ramp access to the Flint River.
I was particularly interested in the primitive camping area and nearby lake. I didn't know what to expect, so I tossed some spinning gear into the back of the truck and took off. There were a few other folks fishing when I got there, but nobody was catching anything. I tossed out a beetle spin (my go-to lure for bluegill and small bass), and I saw some small bass following it, but nothing was biting. I put it down to the heat - it was pushing 90 degrees that day. As I walked the bank of the pond with my spinning gear I noted that it's also a good location for fly fishing. Clear banks, plenty of area for back-casts.
So this observation introduces our topic for today - don't be a tackle snob.
I've been fishing since I was about four or five, starting when I fell off the boat dock at our vacation cabin on Lime Lake, south of Buffalo, NY. I was pissed at the sunfish for not taking my bait (small pieces of bread), and was leaning over to yell at them when I slipped and fell in. I still think my older brother Pat pushed me, but he denies it to this day. I remember the fishing outfit I had - an inexpensive little panfish outfit with a blue plastic handle. Just one step up from a bamboo pole. Honestly, I probably would have had better luck with the bamboo pole. But dang it, I was fishing!
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| 1960-ish. Lime Lake in western New York. My earlier spill from this dock, in search of willing sunfish, triggered a mandatory life jacket policy |
Since that fateful day I've fished all across the US - from the ponds and small streams of South Jersey, to the lakes, rivers and ocean beaches of Georgia, Ohio, Michigan, New York, North Carolina, Virginia, Texas, Washington State and the Panama Canal Zone. Many of my favorite memories involve fishing.
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| Fishing the Maumee River in NW Ohio, renowned for it's white bass and walleye runs. Mid-1970s |
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| Early 1980's. Somewhere on the North Carolina coast. Me on the left. A good friend and Army buddy John Laughter is on the right. Can't remember the guy in the middle - another officer from our battalion on Fort Bragg. We were cleaning fish until midnight |
Life often gets in the way, and so it did with fishing. Raising kids, being sent hither and yon by Uncle Sam, other interests (some, like shooting, are discussed on this blog). I found myself wetting a line less and less. Then in 2007 I went to work at Hartsfield International Airport in Atlanta, and developed a close friendship with one of the airport planners, a fellow retired Army officer, New Jersey expat and dedicated fisherman named Bill. Bill absolutely loves fishing. Fly fishing, that is. I had only fly fished once or twice in my life, using borrowed gear, and didn't have much luck. Bill became not just a close friend, but my fly fishing coach and mentor. Under his tutelage, I got good at it. Not great, but good.
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| Bill, working the bank of a local stream. Thinking of trout, but willing to settle for a nice bass. |
Along the way I discovered one of the unspoken secrets of fly fishing - it's OK to not give a damn about catching trout. Trout down here in the deep south are just dumb hatchery raised pellet-fed hogs. The real fun is taking a 2 or 3 weight rod and go looking for beds of aggressive bluegill, some crappie, or largemouth bass. In fact, I'll take a largemouth bass over a trout any day of the week. More fight, more fun. But expressing that feeling at a Trout Unlimited meeting (which I did) is the equivalent of pissing on the cake at your cousin's wedding. Kinda' kills the mood. Sorry (not really), but I find the pretentiousness of fly fishing, as practiced by the Orvis crowd, to be tiresome. Love the activity, hate the snobbery shown by a large number of the practitioners. And no, Bill is not one of those.
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| Me (on the left) and my son-in-law Shawn, getting ready to float fish on one of the stocked ponds at Callaway Gardens in southwest Georgia. The trout were not cooperating, so I just puttered along the edges of the pond, tagging some really impressive bluegill. |
Years ago Bill and I made a trip to fish a tailwater up on the Toccoa River in north Georgia. I was standing about five yards out, casting into the foam but not having any luck. I'm also hearing an occasional splash behind me. I turn around to look, and I'm surprised to see trout rising to grab insects falling from a tree on the bank. One of the insects floats by me, and it looks like a small spider. There must have been some sort of spider hatch going on in that tree, and the trout were having a field day. I spin around, grab my fly box and pull out the smallest spider-y looking thing I had, and tie it on. On the third cast... bam! On the fifth cast... bam! and so it went for about 15 minutes. As I'm standing there a guide boat floats by, and one of the dude fishermen on board calls out, "How's it going?" I yell back, "Pretty good, about four in the last 10 minutes." Then comes the inevitable question, "What are you using?" I shout back that I've tied on a small foam spider. He shouts back, "You'll have better luck with a hopper and a dropper combo!" Really? He's giving me advice as I'm landing my fifth trout in 15 minutes... right in front of him? He and his buddy looked like they just stepped from the pages of the Orvis catalog. I'm standing there in waders from Cabela's, with a Bass Pro fly rod, some cheap 4 weight line I picked up at Dick's Sporting Goods, and a few crappy flies I tied up myself. I had fish, while these guys didn't seem to be having any luck. But they looked snappy as they bobbed on by, smug in their knowledge that the yokel in the river would do better if he just followed their advice.
Fly fishing dominated my fishing life for at least a decade. I love it. But there were certain situations where it was clear fly tackle was not the best solution. Windy days, times I knew I needed to get deep with the fly to get to where the fish were holding, heavy weeds, no space for back-casts, things like that. I didn't want to give up on the 'purity' of casting a fly. so I just didn't fish those situations.
About seven years ago, our young granddaughter Helen was staying with us for a few days. My wife said, "Why don't you take her fishing." A great idea! Helen was excited at the prospect, too. But it struck me - I didn't have any tackle she could use. No way was this kid going to be able to use fly fishing gear. Off we go to WalMart, and while I'm sure she really wanted the Disney character spincast outfit, I upgraded her to something a little better. We grabbed some split shot, #18 hooks, bobbers and a loaf of Wonder bread, and headed to the lake. The bluegill were hanging around the dock pilings, just waiting. I tied on a hook, added a split shot, snapped on a bobber, and baited the hook with a small piece of bread kneaded to a dough-like consistency. Helen was fascinated - bread for bait? We talked a bit about all the things you can catch fish with - pieces of hot dog, cookie dough, bologna, pepperoni, just about anything that smells good to a fish. She dropped her bread-baited hook into the water and was watching the smaller bluegill peck at it when a large female charged out of the depths and grabbed the hook. This was Helen's first real fish, and it was stripping line off the reel faster than she could crank it back in. We got things under control and she landed a nice fat momma bluegill. She was excited, but concerned that we get momma back in the lake as soon as possible. We dropped the big 'gill back in the water and she hung near the surface for a few moments getting her bearings, then darted back to the deeper water. Helen watched it all and just kept saying "Wow, that's neat!" To this day she swears that Wonder Bread is the best-est bait for bluegill in the whole wide world.
That got me thinking. Am I missing something by turning my nose up at spinning gear and other conventional tackle? Helen didn't care what she was using. She was just excited to catch a fish. Am I as snobbish as those dudes on the Toccoa River? I remembered something written by Lefty Kreh, the late dean of American fly fishing. It goes like this - don't be so snobbish about tackle that you miss good fishing opportunities. He recommended taking spinning tackle along on trips for precisely the reasons I list above - windy conditions, the need to get deep in the water column, heavy bank brush, etc. You go fishing to catch fish, not to show off your latest rod purchase from Orvis.
It was about this time I lost my father. Dad was an avid fisherman who loved to fish from the beaches of the Jersey shore, or along the banks of the Maumee River in Ohio, or out on Lake Erie from his sailboat. My siblings had no interest in his old tackle, so I inherited it all. I got it all back to Georgia and started to go through it. Dad was very Type A, and kept everything 'just so'; When I opened up his collection of spinning reels I was surprised to find the insides spotlessly clean and freshly lubed with grease - ready for the next fishing adventure that never came.
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| Dad, on his sailboat on Lake Erie with one of his late 1960's vintage Penn Spinfisher reels. |
It's as though Dad was telling me... get back out there and start fishing with whatever you've got.
I went into my garage and dug out my old ultralight spinning setup. Nothing fancy, just something I had purchased at the Fort Bragg PX oh-so many years ago. The combo had served me well when wet-wading the Little River in North Carolina, looking for largemouth bass and chain pickerel hiding in the snags and overhangs. Some new monofilament line and a package of beetle spins, and I was back out on a nearby lake, enticing a surprising number of crappie out of the deeper pools. I didn't intend to step away from fly fishing, I just needed to convince myself that spin fishing was still fun and productive. It was, and is.
About a year later Roberta and I were camping down at West Point Lake on the Georgia/Alabama line. Our spot offered easy walk down access to the lake. One lazy afternoon, while Roberta was napping in the hammock, I grabbed my spinning gear, walked into the lake about knee deep and started tossing out a little Mepps spinner. Almost every other cast earned me a nice bluegill or small bass. It was an amazing experience. I was a kid again, standing on the bank of a small tannin-stained creek in South Jersey, tossing a spinner into the dark water and hoping to hook a bass or sunfish.
Since then, I've changed my outlook. I no longer try to make the fishing situation match my fishing gear; I make my fishing gear match the fishing situation. Today I take it all out with me. My gear load-out normally includes both fly fishing gear and spinning tackle, even for short trips to local lakes.
As Lefty Kreh (and my Dad) said, don't be a tackle snob. The goal of fishing is to catch fish, right?
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| Not mighty, but mighty fun! |
Stay sharp!
