They call him, Mister Sweetness!
By Bob Zettler
August 14, 2017
Some call me obsessed. Some call mecrazy. And some stupid. Whatever the case, I love to go fishing andhunting. And over the years I have been blessed to have come intocontact with so many good and great people who hunt and/or fish. Andwhile ALL of these individuals have been kind to me over the years,and years, and....years, when it comes to all-around WalterPayton(ish), I think of Brian Cleland.
We first met via Crappie.com maybe 8-10(??) years ago when he learned he was also going to be fishing atLake Shelbyville for Crappie when a coworker and me were headed overone day and we exchanged contact information to share how we weredoing or if we ran into trouble. Now my coworker and I were having adifficult time finding Crappie and around 1030 AM Brian texted me toask how we were doing and I replied, “not so good.” It turnedout Brian was already done and he asked where we were as he was downat the south end of the lake, while we were up north of the FindlayMarina. Now he had put in down there but a few minutes later hemotored up and officially introduced himself.
After some initial banter he offered toput us on fish before he left and we accepted! This is where it getsinteresting. You see he had been fishing way down by Coon Cove andwhen we arrived he threw out his own marker buoys and told us exactlywhere to drop our lines. Within minutes we were boating Crappie, GOOD Crappie! Unfortunately, he had to leave soon but told me tohold onto the buoys and he would get them another time. Now howoften does a stranger do something like this for some yahoo who heonly knows from an Internet forum!
Well the years have passed and he and Ifish every now and then out of his boat where I ALWAYS have a greattime but it had been awhile until last Thursday. He had read of howI had been having a difficult time catching Crappie the last monthand he took pity on me and offered to take me out after work the nextweek. We tentatively agreed on the next Thursday as I was headed toSt. Louis for the morning but could be back for a late afternoonexcursion. On that day while I was wrapping up my business, hetexted me throughout the day about whether he could get out of workand take me for our previously arranged 4 PM start. No need to fear,he moved the start time forward to 445 PM and he literally pulled inright behind me as I arrived at Bo Woods,
A quick turnaround and we are on thewater headed to our first spot by 5 PM. And it was a doozy and one Iprobably would have a difficult time finding or holding on due to itslocation way out in the lake – my boat hates the wind. He decidesfor us to use just one pole each and its on like Donkey Kong!!! Almost every cast of mine brought up the elusive “Over” Crappiethat I had been searching for the past several months while Brianwas, as he said, “getting the small ones out of my way.”
We soon had nearly a dozen keepers inthe live-well and moved on to the next spot where we added severalmore. Now we were racing darkness so time was of the essence, so weonly spent a short time at each spot, especially since we had solittle time left. And, much to my pleasure, he was also trying toshow me where to look and find brush-piles that I normally have thedarnedest time finding even with a GPS and even a leftover markerbuoy floating on it. Heck-fire, he said I could mark the spots on myGPS to boot! What a guy...
Anyway, to wrap this up without tellingyou all the six spots he introduced me to, suffice to say that in 150minutes from the time we entered the water till we were back in theparking lot, he and I put 23 keepers (ALL our OVERS and the restUNDERS) in the live-well. In addition, as I was having so much fun,I only marked 2.5 of the spots but I am totally content with thatsince that is but an infinitesimal portion of the spots he has onLake Shelbyville alone and each pone produced more for us in a shorttime than my spots had in an all day outing.
So, Brain Cleland (aka Mister Sweetness), mycontinued admiration for your fishing prowess and appreciation for how you have helpedme achieve what I have as I fish for Crappie! Thank you so very much.
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