It's called fishing.... (A story)

It’s called fishing…
By Bob Zettler
July18, 2010

There were patches of lite fog in the air as we made our way to meet Brian Cleland in Findlay to go fishing at Lake Shelbyville this early Saturday morning. Fog had always held a special place in my heart for I was usually successful hunting on mornings where there was fog. Waterfowl, deer, pheasant, it didn’t matter what species it just seemed to be a special time to “get lucky” afield and now it would be tested on the water.

Let me backup a little. I had met Brian last year through Crappie.com and he helped a co-worker and me get on the Crappie one morning at the lake. Here we had never met and had only exchanged PM’s but when we were both on the lake that spring morning last year he called me to see how we had done around 10:30. When he heard we hadn’t done so well and he was already done, he motored up to us and offered to escort us south to put us on some fish. After a short trip we arrived and he marked the fish with buoys and it was game on.

Now this was my first time fishing with my co-worker and I had never even met Brian but he extended a hand and did everything for a couple of strangers but bait their hooks and we caught Crappie! Now, here it is nearly a year later and I was helping a guy out from another forum whom I had never met in person and had only chatted with a couple of times to go fishing with someone who knows the lake. Tom Jay is from Lemont and would love to get his brother out for a good fishing trip as he is poor health and this was like a pre-fishing experience. Speaking of which, Brian had found the Crappie Monday afternoon and they were all 12” to 13” and I was pumped to get into them myself! In fact, he had called me from the boat that day to “pump me up” which I in-turn did to Tom based upon Brian’s pre-fishing excursion.

So, here I am setting up an outing with a guy I had fished with once, depended on for counsel (and Sand Blasters the week before) and have come to call a friend. And in turn, I was helping out someone I had never even met achieve a desire to get out on the water! Folks, I have done this many times in the past hunting and now I am doing it on the water; a place I have limited experience. What if they didn’t get along? Heck, what if I didn’t get along! But those concerns quickly faded as we drove through the fog towards the lake…but I digress as usual.

During the drive I learned a lot about Tom. First off, here was a guy that had as many or more stories than I do and could talk more than me! I also heard about his brother who has suffered through diabetes since he was 12, and now that he is in his 50’s, the disease has taken its toll. And here I complain about my misfortunes and health issues (read that being overweight) and I am sitting next to a guy who has had hips replaced, bypass surgery, arthritis, and the like but he is still getting out there – in the field and on the waters. Actually, I kind of felt pretty good about myself as I am two years younger and look like Lance Armstrong compared to Tom…well, maybe Louie Armstrong.

Anyway, I was a little nervous about how the two would bond so to say but I would take my usual tack in that I would let them do the talking and I would simply hang in the background for the most part unless things got stressed. Amazingly, with Tom driving we made it to the One-Stop in Findlay before Brian and when he arrived we bought 10 dozen minnows in the anticipation that limits of Crappie and White Bass would take its toll. In addition, I had already prepared a cooler with refreshments and food – enough for the three of us to last the entire weekend not just Saturday – and Tom prepared a cooler with ice for the fish we were going to catch for our ride home. I mean I had even prepared an itinerary and game plan proposal for Tom to review and approve days before and we were (so far) holding to it.

It didn’t take long to get to the Eagle Creek boat ramp and get ready. Brian was providing everything, from the boat, to tackle, poles and experience while we brought along two casting poles, the ice chest restaurant full of beverages and sandwiches, and one of Tom’s tackle bags…just in case. It seemed like Brian knew most everybody as he waved or chatted with the others putting in or on the water already. Not that there was a crowd but to me it spoke to the essence of his nature and that was “he is a good guy.” Now here it was just before 6 AM and the White Bass were already busting just off the ramp so I took out my casting pole with the #4 Vibramax and when I was parking the truck and trailer, Tom caught one on the second cast. Not a biggie but it boded well for the day in my opinion!

The waters were like glass and as we motored to the spot where Brian had caught all his Crappie earlier in the week, I couldn’t help but recognize the difference between my 14’ Jon Boat and his Nitro. Not only was he going just over 40 MPH with all of us aboard (Tom and I border on Cartman-sized) but it was like sliding on a slip-n-slide. God, life is great some days! It didn’t take long to get to the submerged structure and Brian began to see fish. The game plan was to setup a spider rig up front consisting of three poles and then each of us have our own pole with a single minnow on while the Spider rigs each held two. This way we could cover more water, and more importantly, different depths.

Now Brian has two sonar units and the rear one is side-imaging but when he moves up front to the trolling motor the rear one shuts off for some reason – I had taken up station in the rear of the boat to watch it with Tom comfy in the middle and Brian up front trying to find the hidden structure and the fish. Poles were distributed and Brian began to put out the spider-rigs baited with two minnows and set at different depths – 10’, 12’ and 14’. Now Tom and I had the poles with just one minnow on it and this allowed us to vary the depths according to where Brian felt there was Crappie. And while he could see plenty of fish, the ones that displayed orange were the ones we were after as they were the bigger ones.

However, as Brian began to crisscross over the structure below in maybe 24’ of water, the oranges were outnumbered by the blue/black fish readings. Yet, I was the one who caught the first fish but it wasn’t a keeper. This went on with all of us getting strikes and losing minnows – either to the fish or us setting the hooks – for some time and I could tell Brian was getting slightly stressed that is until he set the hook on something big from one of the Spider Rig poles at the same time having set the hook on his other pole. Since Tom was right there, he handed the one off to him and the battle was on. Now Brian had set these rigs up with 10-pound test Vicious Fluorocarbon line with a Mister Crappie red #2 hook at the ends and we worried that either the line or the hook might break! When I hooked my 20.25-pound Carp the weekend before, I had that fish to the surface dozen-plus times in the first 15 minutes but whatever was on this line this time wasn’t coming up. In fact, it was maybe 20 minutes before we got the first indication of just what it was as we saw bubbles on the surface as Tom fought the unseen denizen of the deep. A catfish was believed to be on the other end but it was another five or so minutes before a flash of him made it clear that we needed a bigger net! Finally, maybe 25 minutes in Brian was able to get the catfish’s head into the net and scoop it over the side before the hook gave way and Tom had himself a 10+ pound Channel Catfish caught on a Crappie pole - WOW!

Now that was quite the experience and Tom and I agreed that made the trip worth it as we had only caught a couple of Crappie keepers so far and it was nearing 9 AM. But since we had established a game plan for Tom and I to sit up front and I had been at the rear of the boat, Brian decided to setup the dual seats upfront and since Tom was more comfortable where he was at, I joined Brain at the bow so I could now see the fish-finder and be closer to the additional action of the spider-rigged poles. It wasn’t long before the closest pole to me took a severe dip and the pole was handed to me and my battle was on like Donkey Kong!

It was a replay of what Tom had just gone through and was now recuperating from as I maintained a constant pressure on the line careful not to give the fish any slack but also make sure he could dive deeper and still keep him away from the shore and structure that he could lose me in. After 10 or 15 minutes of this where I was really worried we might lose this fish - I still hadn’t seen him or any bubbles, or, “Crab Farts” as Captain Phil would say - which would be the first indication that it might be a catfish or not. I felt it was due to the way it fought and would occasionally snap its head from side-to-side in an attempt to lose the hook which wasn’t what I had been through the week before with the Carp I caught. But this was different in other ways too as this fish fought and even if it wasn’t tiring, I was! I know, I am a pussy but this was battle of mano-a-mano between the fish and me but I was more determined to land it than he was to get off the hook.


CONTINUED

Brian kept wondering aloud why we hadn’t seen the fish and I was trying to cover-up my getting tired and fingers going numb from the battle when the first sighting happened to confirm it was indeed another catfish – and a big one! The net looked like a toy against his size as he continued to rise to the surface only to head deeper and out of sight over and over. And every time Brian got the net in the water to try and scoop it into the boat, the fish went even deeper. Finally, maybe 25 or more minutes into the battle Brian was able to snatch the fish into the boat and I collapsed on the deck numb from the elbows down. The fish looked like twins but mine was bigger of course – Tom disagreed but I am writing the story!

Did I mention how hot it was? Well it was and we had been out there for nearly four hours on just two spots with just an occasional breeze but not enough to cool any of us off. And since the livewell was full from the seven Crappie we had caught and kept – four Overs and three Unders – we decided to motor back to the ramp and put the catfish in the ice chest in Tom’s truck and then hit under the Findlay Bridge as we already knew from some other fishermen we had chatted with that they had caught Crappie there but they had mostly been small ones. What struck me as I placed the catfish in the cooler was not how they dwarfed the cooler but how they started to try and flip themselves out of it as I walked away. Now that would be a problem to come back after the heat of the day to a closed truck with two dead catfish decomposing in the backseat. Que sera, sera.

Well, we hit the bridge for the Crappie and to provide a little relief from the heat for Tom and the rest of us. And, yes, we caught fish – actually, quite a few Crappie, Drum and even Yellow and White Bass, but nothing really big enough or worth cleaning. We decided to head to the point where the White Bass had been hitting for me the weekend before and left the cool comfort of the shade and began to brave the increasing number of pleasure boaters who were creating a tsunami of waves out on the lake. And on the way there, and just as Brian saw the waves coming at us, he said “watch out” just as they hit and I was thrown three feet into the air from the front deck where I had been sitting in order to help get us on plane. That was the first time I had been worried that I would end up in the drink and whether I would be able to try and make children again as my twig and berries hit the deck – hard!

However, I quickly recovered and found a better place to distribute our weight and maintain a hold on something where I had a handle to keep myself in the boat. Now this was a pretty good ride north and then east with a lot of boats throwing wake everywhere but Brian was being careful and I stayed in the boat. There were already a couple of boats there, one looked to have an Amish family in it with a Father and his five sons all throwing double-rigged jigs and wearing the straw hats you commonly see them wear. To me it was sure a strange sight what with people who ride around in a horse drawn buggy and who avoid most modern conveniences but here they were in an electronic-laden Bass Boat powered by a 115 HP motor! Truly a dichotomy in lifestyles…

Brian had bought a bag of Sand Blasters and we broke out the casting poles. The one I brought had 14-pound braided line with a snap swivel and I was in the water in seconds only to retrieve the lure to discover it had twisted around itself. For the next 30 minutes or so, I repeated this dozens of times and watched as the others caught three fish to my one all due to my line getting tangled every other cast. It was truly frustrating and I decided to switch to a monofilament pole only to have it happen to me here too! It had to be the way I was casting it and I tried to simply drop the lure in the water and do the jigging instead of casting out there 20 to 30 feet only to have it come back tangled. Again, this was very frustrating.

Still we were catching fish. Not left and right but it seemed as though we would get a lull every now and then along with the rest of the other boats and we wondered if we had arrived too late as it was now after 2 PM. As Tom needed a break from the sun, heat and humidity, we boated over to fish under the Route 32# bridge to where I had cleaned up on the White Bass last week. No one else was there and while we saw fish on the fishfinder, we once again were not getting the bites we expected but at least we were cooling off in the shade and with a cool breeze now. After a 20 minute break we decided to head back to the flat and finish out the day but the heat was getting to us all and after a short time there we decided to call it a day and made it back to the ramp and ready to head home just before 4 PM.

The final tally was 37 White Bass, seven Crappie and two very nice Channel Catfish – not too shabby and a pretty diverse bounty which we all contributed to. But you know it seemed like we all had visions of full limits of Crappie and beaucoup White Bass planted in our heads what with all the recent reports and experiences on Lake Shelbyville. And while it didn’t come to pass, we were all pretty satisfied with what we left with as it was darn sure more than we came with and I bet more than most who left the lake that day. And, the battles with the two Channel Catfish ranked up there with most memorable and a decided bonus.

Still, being men and problem-solvers prone to overanalyzing everything, we began dissecting our day well before we arrived at the ramp. One of the first things that came to mind was how long we stayed on the first spot when it wasn’t delivering. Sure, Brian had limited out in less than an hour on Monday but Crappie are fickle to some degree and they will move around and God knows who had been there since he last fished the spot. Then there was the fact that we hadn’t fished together as a group and only Brian and I had in the past. And as I become more experienced with fishing in general and Lake Shelbyville in particular, I will be better prepared and most likely won’t use the braided line with a Sand Blaster lure to avoid all the frustration over getting it untwisted and losing valuable time catching fish.

Oh, I failed to mention how I broke one of Brian’s poles. I had been at the back of the boat and had just put my rig down on the floor by the livewell to grab Tom’s pole so he could battle the first catfish but in the confusion I had placed it over the livewell with the door open and then knocked the door closed and broke the handle when I stepped on the door. Whoops! Then later on I had started to fish with it again when we moved and when I pulled back to set the hook on a bite, I discovered the rod had cracked and it almost broke in half. It seems that when I was sitting on the floor of the boat to put more weight up front so we could get on plane, I must have shifted my weight onto the poles strapped to the inside edge of the boat deck and cracked it. Hey, at least I broke the same pole twice and didn’t break two poles….sorry Brian!

And even Brian learned something about getting on plane with two “BIG” guys onboard. It seems that after we caught a bunch of fish, I would have to volunteer to sit up front so the weight would be distributed better but we were still having problems getting on plane when Brian realized that he probably shouldn’t have filled the gas tanks to the top at the rear of the boat that morning and that he should have released more of the water from the livewells to better balance the boat. This would have made it easier to maneuver through the pleasure boaters wakes as it was a real “joy” to try and avoid the major wakes or at least minimize their impact so I wouldn’t end up in the drink or emasculated…

I get asked why I go out fishing so much and I am sure for everyone there might be a different but maybe a similar answer or underlying cause. For me, besides being a lush who likes to do everything pleasurable to an excess, I simply love the challenge and the experience of learning something new. Sure, I am older but in my heart I am still a kid and the challenges of fishing and catching fish are like an illicit, addictive drug to me. I am out there not only competing against the elements and obstacles like weather, other boaters, methodology, and even the fish themselves but more importantly I am competing against myself to attain goals sometimes not even thought of or even recognized as such. Goals that to a person unfamiliar with the activity might not understand but for those who get out on the water will most likely understand. As I am trying to do something well and better than I had in the past so in effect I am competing against myself! No, I do not say to myself that I am going to catch “X” number of fish and set out to do that but I do think to myself that I will try and to accomplish something – ether on my own most days, or with others – that provides me with a sense of accomplishment and achievement. And during today’s outing I scored a couple of nice Crappie, the biggest Catfish I had even landed and a fair number of White Bass, all along with the other fish (Drum, Perch, Bluegill, Largemouth, etc.) we threw back into the water. And if we had caught our limits of Crappie as we had set our desires to accomplish, along with a couple hundred White Bass we craved, it wouldn’t be called fishing now would it as it would be called “catching” which doesn’t quite mean the same, now does it…

A picture of the Cats caught on Crappie poles!

http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i1...r1/Catfish.jpg

I'm done,I'm done,lol.That was a great story my friend.Glad that you all had such a memorable time.

Zettler, That was a good trip. I fish as much as I can get away with and have had a few good, above average trips myself. Your catfish stories remind me of a trip last year with Billy, a farmer, fisherman, and general good guy. We throw jigs almost 100%.As we near a spot that always produces for us we pass a point with some rock on it. 5' rods and 4lb ultralight reels. Bill makes a noise and sets the hook. I have to put my rod in the boat and keep him and his fish away from all the stuff that can get in the way. Fully 6 or 7 minutes later I net a whisker trout that's every bit of 6 or 7 lbs. We go on about it for a minute, release it and get back to business. Billy reties and casts back kind of in the same area as before. Bang - same scenario. Fish only a little smaller, but almost the same amount of time to boat it. Pics, release, retie and so on. Billy reaches back to fire off another cast in the neighborhood of the last 2 and I said" stop right there". He looked at me funny and I asked him " can we catch Crappie now? We both laughed and did just that. Good times with good friends are priceless.