The first time.

Can you remember the first time you went hunting or fishing? Who took you that first time?

I grew up beside a pond. When I say beside, it was literally within 100 feet of the front door. My dad and grandfather and step-grandmother loved fishing. Once spring rolled around, it was not uncommon at all for Dad to grab a fishing rod and go over to the bank and cast for an hour or so.

My first fish came with my mom. She purchased a plastic rod that had a plastic hook and plastic fish. I was beside the bank one day with her, slamming the plastic hook into the water, yanking it out, and slamming it back in. Remarkably, a bream somehow was in the wrong place at the right time, and it snagged onto that red plastic hook. I was both excited and petrified at the same time.

But as I got older, and by older, I mean like five years old, I would fish nearly every day in which the weather would cooperate. Why? Because I had seen my dad do it day in and day out. It was what you did. If I wasn’t at the pond, I would walk to Silver Lake and fish along the banks there. Sometimes my dad would be with me, sometimes he would be at work if on a weekday. The wildlife club had a building there and Mr. Barnes ran it each day. He was basically a temporary babysitter.

Times were much different then. I guess that is how things work out after half a century. But those times were the influence to get me outdoors to hunt and fish and camp.

This is one of our first challenges if we believe these outdoor activities must continue.

We no longer have the same schedules. Our workplaces are open longer and during more days. Weekends are no longer a time of rest and relaxation. People don’t get off of work at 5pm, and if they do, many may have commutes lasting an hour or longer. We have lost those brief opportunities that once meant so much.

This is where we need to better address our time management skills. Sounds like something you would hear at a meeting at work doesn’t it? Unfortunately, it is true though.

We come home tired. Heck, we often come home beat. I understand. I’m the same way. But where we once couldn’t go by the lake without seeing a dozen people standing along the shore with a cork in the water, we can’t go by the lake now and find anyone fishing. When we go to the park with friends, family, and most of all children, they are not accustomed to that. Instead they only see people walking or sitting. There is no connection to outdoors other than it being a scene, and they can find better scenes graphically created on their game console.

Even if you cannot take someone new to fishing or hunting with you, simply being out there is enough to spark conversation between others. It is what helps bring that little bit of intrigue and inquisition into what you find attractive about it. It is how a small kid that is full of questions may get to the point of asking his or her parent if they can go fishing.

We don’t get many of those opening title sequences from the Andy Griffith show anymore with Andy and Opie walking to the pond with the rods over their shoulders. But I bet you have many fond memories that resemble that form when you first started fishing and hunting.

Duane Raver. A National Treasure.

Several years ago, I ran across an elderly gentleman at the North Carolina fairgrounds. When I heard his name, I knew it was familiar but couldn’t quite place where I knew it from. I talked with him a bit as he led me to his booth that was setup in the Village of Yesteryear. Once there, I immediately realized who he was.

Since the age of twelve years old, Duane Raver has painted wildlife. He primarily dealt with fish species, and early on he knew he had a talent that others didn’t. He recanted a story form an art class in school when he was drawing trees and decided to help a classmate. As he looked over his classmate’s artwork, he scanned the room and took quick glances at everyone’s work. The art did not come close to matching what he was doing.

There are some people that have gifts at certain things, and Raver is definitely one. His work, especially fish related, is the absolute top of the game. His attention to detail with meticulous observance to scales, fin spines, and even colors down to the gradual shading from scale to scale made him the go to person for wildlife organizations and biologists in both creating a standard as well as identification of species.

The remarkable thing is that attention and steady brush has carried on to his current age. Yes, for an astounding eighty years Raver has applied brush to paint and then to paper. He has a book that is now ending its third printing detailing the art and characteristics of 150 species of fish. He told me while visiting with him this week the publisher informed him there were just a handful of that third printing currently left.

If you were to scan websites such as the North Carolina Wildlife Resource Commission’s, you will find his artwork throughout, including any citation sized fish or special catch certificates decorated with Raver’s art. Even the International Game Fish Association has his art as the identifiers for all to see.

He once shared a studio with his daughter who is a taxidermist. He expanded into drawing and painting various species that were brought into his daughter until he determined his old age prohibited him from making the 100-yard walk uphill to his daughter’s house and studio. Now, he has a spare bedroom in his own home that has been converted to his art studio.

The room has boxes and shelves full of prints of his artwork. Two wooden paddles rest on end against one wall, one with a bream painted on it, the other with a crappie. The bream is so perfect that when I showed my wife a photo, she asked why he had a real fish laying on it.

To the side of his art table rests a canvas depicting a black bear in the woods. Each hair on the body could be seen when viewing closeup, and looking from a few feet away, the blackness of the fur all blended in a smooth looking coat.

On his table, he had a mostly completed commissioned piece of mourning dove flying over farmland. The buyer requested having dove sitting on a wooden fence in the background. His fence was perfect, and the dove on the fence were perfect as well. Of course, the main draw were the two birds flying in the foreground with the sky behind. All were neatly and perfectly placed.

At 92 years of age, Duane Raver continues the path that he was born to do. His passion and expertise has made him not only a respected North Carolinian, but a national treasure.

We are in a crisis. Part 2.

I wrote about the crisis currently going on in the United States with declining hunting and fishing license sales despite a growth in population over the past couple of decades. The dollars generated from license sales goes towards protecting species that are in decline or are in an unstable number.

What can we do other than take someone fishing or hunting and hope they catch the ‘bug’ to continue an outdoors life?

It is easy to find problems. Solutions are much harder. However, as the late Dr. John Dewey once stated, “a problem well stated is a problem half solved.” We know there is more obstacles in the way of converting current generations and recruiting future generations for outdoors activities that include hunting and fishing than ever before.

At one time, it was a necessity to hunt and fish in order to survive. Agriculture became prevalent and efficient to the point that food is plentiful and available to all at low costs both in money and effort. Our world has slowly shifted from a hands-on type of civilization to an efficient digital low mobility existence in which communication can be done in milliseconds at virtually no cost and products and supplies can arrive from thousands of miles away in less than two sunsets.

We have a vociferous minority that can demand results against hunting or fishing that often gets lots of media attention and fear from advertisers marketing to certain activities. Because of this the general population loses exposure to these activities unless on very specific networks.

Older generations either die off or age to the point that the activities become harder to participate in, limiting the passing of the heritage from one generation to the other. The middle generations get wrapped up in work where weekends are no longer the same for everyone as nearly every business is open seven days per week. And the younger generations, who do get off during the weekends from school do not have the parent, family member or other adult mentor that is available to take them out, and instead spend their time at a gaming console or in front of the computer.

Sure, there are some other smaller factors, but in short, we have all become busy with things that take our time away from hunting and fishing. Probably the biggest of the other factors would be cost to get started, as you have to find land to hunt and water to fish, which isn’t always public reserves, as well as the entry costs of gear, ammunition and tackle.

So, what can we do to put a dent in this crisis? We have to do multiple things. My personal take is to expand on something I am doing. Sure, this column gets out to many people over many newspapers. Yet, show me a kid under 18 that reads a newspaper. I used to. Mainly, I would look at the boxscores form the games the night before and read the comics. That isn’t the case any longer. Now, if it isn’t on social media, reddit or YouTube, the 18 and under generation won’t see it.

My goal is to create a YouTube channel that is informative, yet attractive to that generation. Currently there are several big channels, however they lack in appearance for the most part. I am going to create something that is a mixture of River Monsters and Casey Neistat. This won’t be your Outdoors Channel sponsored content. This will be short doses with quick hitting action that at the same time educates.

There are other ways to try to bring in new people, and I think we need a mixture of it all to be successful. This is the way I am going to participate.

If you are interested in helping, whether with ideas, donations or just words of support, I would love to hear from you at billhowardoutdoors@gmail.com. We can do this together.

I'm back. But I never left. And we are in a crisis.

We are in the midst of a crisis.

I know we hear that a lot. There is a reason. When we are told that something is in such dire circumstances that the scenario is at a tipping point to where only a correction made immediately is the only way to have favorable results or everything is lost, it instills action.

Climate change is an example. We have an entire generation that is being taught blindly that without something changing last week that the earth can only survive for a little over a decade. The sense of urgency is important to create change. That sense is usually brought on by fear of something undesirable.

You can even hear it in sports. If a team isn’t performing well and it is approaching midseason, you will hear mention of the moment being critical, whether it be the second half of an important game, the upcoming game, or the next series of games. Crisis mode has been created to put a sense of urgency and complete focus onto something in order to create the change needed to be successful in the team’s goals.

Well, we are in crisis mode in the hunting and fishing community. This crisis is not only bad for the hunting and fishing community, but for natural resources and wildlife as well.

Two decades ago, North Carolina had 399,045 licensed hunting and fishing individuals that created just under $9 million in gross revenue. South Carolina had 263,045 creating $6.7 million. The United States in whole reported 15.7 million licensed hunters and anglers resulting in $688 million.

These monies are important. License sales go to protecting endangered and threatened species, providing habitat for those species, as well as employing officers that focus strictly on those activities.

By contrast, last year North Carolina had 592,564 licensed hunters and anglers bringing in $10.3 million in revenue to go to those activities. South Carolina had 200,912 licensed individuals resulting in $8.6 million. The US as a whole? 15.5 million with $896.4 million revenue.

While we have seen growth in numbers for both NC and SC in licensed outdoorsmen, the United States has lost numbers. We haven’t even mentioned the cost differences from twenty years ago.

North Carolina also increased population by nearly 3 million people over that same time period. For North Carolina, the licensed individuals (I keep mentioning it this way because looking at only license sales doesn’t give a perfect number as many people have multiple licenses) kept up with the population growth. South Carolina on the other hand, lost 62,000 licensed individuals over twenty years while having a population increase of 1.3 million.

South Carolina is an example of what is happening across the country.

With a loss of 2 million hunters and anglers in the US over the twenty-year period while having a population increase of over 50 million, we are losing the ability to protect these species and habitats as we need to. License sales used to nearly supply all the revenue needed. The outdoors community was a self-funded endeavor. Now, we have bipartisan bills in congress providing monies from the general funds as well as allowing more freedom in the uses of monies from past legislation such as that from the Pittman-Robertson act to both protect the species and encourage and recruit new hunters and anglers.

With a world that has increasingly pulled youth to new activities (specialized sports and training, television and video games to name a few), and an older generation that has increased responsibilities and longer work hours in a faster running world, we will all suffer.

The monies in the past helped turn around the potential losses of species such as whitetail deer and Canadian geese to where they are plentiful and thriving. Now, we may end up seeing species suffer.

And this is a true crisis for everyone.

If the Hook is Wet, Be Ready

“You ain’t gonna catch any fish unless the hook is in the water.”

That was a wise saying from grandfather. I took it to heart too. After a cast, I would not pull the lure above the surface until there was no way not to. Many times I caught a bream or bass just inches from the shoreline with me standing a foot or so away.

Now, understand how a child takes something so seriously to follow the advice every time and then you hear something contrary to the wisdom given.

We had a boat that consisted of two pontoons held together by four sheets of plywood decking. It was built primarily for my grandfather’s business, as we had a pump in the pond that would send water down to the manufacturing plant to cool off the injection molding machines. The pontoon boat allowed my dad or other workers access to where the pump was in the pond if it failed with a large deck to work from.

Once, while in high school, we had a pump failure in the cold of winter. I was the guinea pig that day, and would have to go in the frigid water, dive below to find the pump, and bring it up to the surface in order to repair it. I was certified in SCUBA a few years prior and had always been comfortable around water, but I would be diving into water with near nothing for visibility and would free dive without a tank since the water was so cold that I would not be able to stay in long. Afterwards, I was quickly taken to shore where I ran into the house tossing my wet cold clothes and jumped into the lukewarm shower. It made me feel important.

But I digress.

We occasionally would take the pontoon boat out as a base to swim from in the pond, or to give us a platform in which several of us could fish. While I fished with my grandfather and dad many times in that pond, I only remember one time in which my grandfather and I were both fishing from the pontoon boat together.

We were out towards the center, near where the pump was located below. Papa would work the shoreline steadily, and occasionally get a bite or small largemouth. I was fishing from the other side, pretty much casting in the center of the pond away from any structure or shore. Papa evidently caught a glimpse of me casting and reeling and after several throws, finally had enough. “Lil’ Bill, you don’t have to reel it in all the way to the side of the boat.”

As he said that I was finishing bringing the lure in. I was looking more at Papa and paying little attention to what I was doing, other than reeling. Directly beside the boat, with the lure being lifted straight up, a largemouth shot from below and engulfed the bait, slapping the side of the boat with his body while doing so. He wasn’t a monster, more like a two or three pound bass. But Papa realized that his original saying was truer that what he was trying to explain to me. And I was as convinced as ever, that the longer the hook was wet, the better the chance to catch something.

Fast forward to this last weekend. I was fishing hard trying to upgrade my largest crappie for the North Carolina Kayak Fishing Association’s crappie tourney. I fished a great crappie fishery in Lake Jordan on Saturday, and brought one in a half inch larger that my previous best for the tourney. The fish were around 23 feet deep in water that was between 28 and 30 feet deep.

Sunday, I fished a lake that I had only fished once in the last three decades. But in the fifteen years prior, I knew every spot having spent my entire summers doing nothing but fishing. It didn’t take long to find where the crappie were staging. I had one rod with a cork and minnow, and another I was using a beetle spin to cast along the banks. I continuously swapped rods while bringing in black crappie in the 10 to 11 ½ inch size range.

Once, after a particular aggressive strike and fight with an 11 incher, the minnow was pushed up the line from the hook about an inch. I unhooked the slab and laid the rod down with the tip sticking over the front of the kayak. As I measured the crappie, the tip took a jump and I quickly grabbed the Denali Rosewood spinning rod. It bent over double as the crappie pulled under the kayak with only a foot or so of line stretched from the tip.

From crappie hovering over 20 feet deep the day before, to a crappie that basically attacked a mangled and dead minnow that was not even on the hook at the surface, it again proved, you ain’t gonna catch a fish, if your hook ain’t in the water. Or maybe it proved something else, as in if the hook is in the water, you better be prepared to catch a fish.

A Visit with an Old Friend - Part 1

I grew up in Eastern North Carolina. In my very young days, we did not have day cares or early public schools. In fact, the way kids grew up then could be considered child endangerment now if the wrong people tried to push the issue.

My summers consisted of making rounds. My parents worked just a few hundred yards away from the house at my granddad’s manufacturing plant. During the morning I would walk down to the plant and visit with them at work as well as the other employees.

At some point just before lunchtime, I would make my way over to the Silver Lake Oyster Bar seafood restaurant which was directly beside Howard Enterprises. There I would talk with Buck and Mr. Dixon as I called them. While I was taught my manners and behaved very well, it just did not seem right to call both of them Mr. Dixon, so Buck gave me an out by having me call him Buck, and call his father Mr. Dixon.

After hanging out there I would go home for lunch with my parents and then head over to the Wilson County Wildlife Club. The activities grew exponentially there, whether it would be making hopscotch games in the sand, rummaging through the john boats looking for hooks, lures, corks, and split shot weights, or getting the line wet and trying for bream and crappie.

We did not have much of a neighborhood, and before I started school these were about the only people I knew besides cousins. You could say Silver Lake was my best friend.

While the lake has become more beautiful during the last four decades, time has not been kind overall. The Wildlife Club moved from one side of the lake to the other and eventually disappeared. The lake was drained and fish were moved in order to repair the dam that began showing the effects of age and hurricanes Fran and Floyd’s battering and flooding. All public access to the lake vanquished as well, with only lake front land owners keeping any access to the waters.

My grandfather had lake front land in which we even had a pier, but after his death the land was sold.

As best as I can remember, the last time I fished the lake was around 30 years ago. I could not get the thoughts of how grand one last time on the lake would be.

Today’s world is much different than those years. With avenues such as Facebook, our connections are greater and easier to obtain. All it took was a single post on my Facebook timeline asking if anyone knew who I may contact to make that one last trip.

The summer sun was pounding with fury, but I was determined to make this visit. Instead of a john boat I would be taking my kayak for the paddle. I wanted to start fishing and touring near the dam area. As I approached that small corner of the lake memories washed over me. On the shore line to my right my friends and I would take wiffle ball bats and pretend to be playing in the All-Star game while swatting rocks out into the water. Bobby, Mark, Scott, Pat and myself, sometimes just two of us, sometimes more, hitting rock after rock into the water. We wore those plastic baseball hats; mine proudly emblazed with the NY of the Yankees.

Near the corner of the restaurant and the dam there stood a water fountain. We would hook a minnow that we caught with a net near the Wildlife Club’s boat ramp and bring in crappies, or fish with crickets or worms and reel in shellcraker.

At the base of the dam, where the foundation of the restaurant met the churning waters below was the prime spot for catching huge robin. It was all in the cast. With experience, we learned to bounce the cork off the side of the restaurant and have it land where the rushing water only made the bait seem more alive enticing fish after fish to strike with a vengeance.

While these memories took me back to a long forgotten time, the day had just begun.

Bad Day Fishing

There are all kinds of sayings related to the outdoors. Some refer to ancient stories dating back to the time of Christ such as “if you are not catching any fish, maybe you should try from the other side of the boat.”

My grandfather used the saying “you ain’t gonna catch any fish unless the hook is in the water.” We also had an alternative form for hunting with hunting doves and lead in the air.

However, one of the most widely used, and it can be used for just about any activity, is “a bad day fishing is still better than a good day at work.”

I have to say though; I have had some bad days fishing. These days did not usually involve just a lack of bites however.

One of my earlier bad days of fishing happened well before I ever thought of work or having a job. My friend Bobby and I used to fish a lot during the summers. We would fish the lakes. We would fish farm ponds. We found bodies of water that no one ever thought existed covering not much more area than an average sized house located deep inside the woods and would somehow catch fish.

This one particular day we were fishing a couple of nearby ponds. We rode to the area on our bikes, as all pre-teens did back in the day. It was kind of slow fishing that day, but we were still hopeful. Bobby tied on a new lure. I decided to try a different lure too. While I was still behind him, he turned toward the pond, whipped the rod tip backwards and casted mightily as if he were trying to throw it across the water.

The drag screamed with excitement; mainly because a 50 pound bow was attached to one of the hooks on the new lure when Bobby slung forward. The hook embedded in my left arm. The result was a tetanus shot and a scar that can still be seen to this day. I did learn something that day though. There is nothing magical in taking a barbed hook out of one’s arm. You just push it all the way through.

After my wife and I were married, we took a spur of the moment fishing trip on a head boat off the coast. She did not have a lot of experience fishing near or off shore other than pier fishing. I on the other hand, spent many a summer vacations on moderate sized center console boats with my dad. Never once had I been sick or even remotely thought I would feel bad on the rolling waves. Until this trip, that is.

It started with a few people near us heaving fluids and chunks of partially digested gunk. I guess the smell and sight along with the unusually rough water, searing heat, and empty stomach got the better of me. Miserable would have been an emotion I longed for, because I would much rather have been thrown overboard and used for shark bait than remain there, with my new bride, feeling as if the beast from the movie Alien were trying to tear through my intestines and throat.

Just last year I ran into circumstances that made me think twice about how to do things on my own while on these trips. I used a paddleboard designed for fishing on a float down the Neuse River. The river was high with quick flowing currents. The temperature was only expected to hit the lower 60’s during the weekend, and I packed a tent, sleeping bag, and change of clothes into a dry bag that I attached to a cooler that sat on top of the board.

Just minutes after leaving the dock I came across a low hanging tree branch. All was well, or so I thought. I ducked the branch, but forgot about the rods I had sitting in holders on the back of the cooler. They grabbed the branch, causing the standup paddleboard to roll over. So, here I was at the beginning of a 22 mile, two day float, soaking wet on a paddleboard. The cooler rolled over top of me during the spill also. I saved all of my gear, but kept feeling a pain on my right side that worsened throughout the day.

That evening I discovered my sleeping bag had gotten wet, making it a very cold night with the temps dropping near freezing. Not only that, I discovered later I broke a rib from the cooler landing on top of me in the water, and labored to just breathe that night. I envisioned game wardens discovering me later in the week, lying there in my tent having either frozen to death or suffocated from blood filling my lungs.

The next day’s seven miles of paddling did not help matters either.

In defense of the saying though, one thing is clearly different. Even during a bad day of fishing, there is always hope and promise of a better day of fishing to come, as each cast has the potential of a hard strike and a tight line. A good day of work is the exact opposite. Only the last day of work offers any resemblance to the bad day of fishing, and only because you know you get to go fishing the next day.

Welcome Guests

Our world has ever increasing demands. Gone is the 40 hour work week. Now you either are looking for ways to get more hours in order to provide the necessities (and luxuries) of life, or you are wishing for a lessened work load in order to enjoy those same necessities, and well, luxuries of life.

Quotas, increased sells, cut backs in order to maximize profits; they all have a burden on our mental and physical wellbeing.  One friend, who purchased a portable blood pressure monitor due to hypertension, noticed a pronounced increase during work. In fact, just walking in the door at the start of the day would cause a jump of 20 or more points. There is no wonder heart disease and strokes are such competent killers.

People often think of the beach or the mountains as perfect relaxation destinies. Why? Both are as close as many people get to nature. Visions of decades past remind me of beach trips in which my family would take a three day weekend.  As an only child, I often would have a friend or three tag along with us. One day was always spent jumping the waves and trying to build sand fortresses that never could withstand the onslaught of the incoming tide.

 During the evenings we would walk the boat ramps and piers. We would carry along makeshift nets on long broom handles and pride ourselves in the various crabs and small fish we could quickly snatch from the waters. Each fish was different and we had little hope of identifying the two inch long water breathing creatures of the depths.

One day would be devoted to bottom fishing from the boat. Daddy would find some underwater structure or anchor near a bridge piling. After hooking a piece of bait shrimp to the two hooks on the bottom rig, we would submit to dropping the line down beside the boat only to reel it back in just seconds later with a fantastic golden fish grunting on the other end of the hook. It just wasn’t the same unless that croaker would chirp like a bullfrog when it landed on the deck of the boat. We never tired of that noise.

When making another trip to the coast with the family at the request of my daughter and her friends, I could not help but think of those days. I put together a rack for the Chevy Suburban and loaded the kayak once again, searching for the relaxation needed after a hard week of the real world.

I decided not to target anything too difficult. I just wanted to wet the line, sit back in the seat of the Old Town Predator, and enjoy the gentle rocking of the waves and the taste of the salty breeze in my lungs.

Early on, I brought in fish after fish as they could not resist the offerings I was providing. Some were large, some were small, but on the rod they all felt like giant sea monsters after the initial pat-pat-pat of the bites.

Then something caught the corner of my eye. Something big was just a just a few hundred feet away, but I could not tell what. To my right I heard what sounded like the pounding of a beaver tale warning any unwelcome guest to get away. Even with a quick jerk of my head I did not see what it was, just the remaining churn of water.

Straight ahead, maybe 20 feet off the bow of the kayak, I was able to make out what it was. Two, no three, better make that four dolphins rose in succession ahead. To my left, two more blew air and rolled in the water. Yet another to my right rose to the surface.

I paddled slowly with the pod for about three quarters of a mile. They happily swam beside me, in front of me and behind me, encircling the kayak. I forgot about fishing and relished in the opportunity to join their ranks.

Old sailors used to note the dolphins as protectors and friends on the deep blue. For nearly an hour they released all the pressures and demands upon one man’s shoulders.

Fish Rubbing - Gyotaku

I first heard of Gyotaku a couple of years ago.  The only problem is I could not remember the name or how it was spelled since I am not fluent in Japanese.  I was mainly interested in it because of what it was; a unique and artful way to display and memorialize a great fishing experience.

In Japanese, ‘gyo’ means fish and ‘taku’ means rubbing.  Hence, gyotaku is a ‘rubbing of a fish’.  I thought it was great because it is something you can do yourself and it is inexpensive to create.  This also makes it the perfect creation for the little one’s first fish.

The first step in creating a Gyotaku print is to catch a fish.  Since my new year has not been all that kind to me, I had to enlist help for this part.  My now eight year old son Cooper provided the ideal fishing partner.  It was just two years ago that he brought in his first fish.  Each time we go out, he always finishes on top with the number brought in.  I am not sure if it is because he is just that much better than me or if it has to do with my time is being used to bait his hook, help him cast, help get his hook loose from a limb when he decides he can cast the bait better, or just witnessing his youth and awe of nature.  Either way, I am happy to assist in his success.

For this story, the fishing started out a little slow.  We fished with some Canadian nightcrawlers on a small #8 hook with a cork bobber.  I had a spot picked out under a bridge just in case it rained.  Funny thing about that spot; there was more traffic under the bridge than on top where the road was.  In a space of a few hundred feet, we had acquired no less than twelve different anglers using a variety of tackle.

 None of which had so much as a pretend bite.

I convinced Cooper to let’s head to another location and try our luck.  It did take some convincing.  As much as he likes to fish, he really, really gets bored if nothing is taking the line.

So we ended up at an old fishing hole I knew about and threaded another nightcrawler.  By the way, the nightcrawler farm had the best catch phrase for their bait.  “Our worms catch more fish, or they’ll die trying!”

It did not take long before Cooper brought in his first fish.  A small bluegill that was too small for the project.  A little later, he brought in a beautiful pumpkinseed.  He liked the name of the species and started figuring out why it carried such a moniker.

I made one last cast and left the line alone as we packed up everything.  After loading the truck Cooper asked where my rod was.  I told him and we walked over to where I had it sitting.  However, it was no longer standing up.  It was now flat on the ground twitching.  I finally caught a fish!  We had a short fight with the monster bream (well, average sized bream for most people) and we both laughed now that the slump was over.  He would work great for the Gyotaku print as well as provide a small meal.

Part two of the print is the preparation of the fish.  You want to clean and dry the fish completely.  Use dish detergent or vinegar in the cleaning to help kill any bacteria.  After washing, take paper towels and pat dry.  Pay special attention to the gill area and other openings.  Push the paper towels up into those areas to dry as well.  Flare the fins and use something underneath them if necessary to keep them flat.

For part three, there are several options.  This is where the actual printing process will start.  Take a paint, it can be anything from a water color, to an oil base, to an acrylic, and brush the fish with it.  For fish that are multicolored or fade from one color to a lighter version, you can brush with different mixed paints as well to simulate the actual colors.  For our print, we used a non-toxic paint since Cooper was involved.

Now we get to the ‘taku’ part of the print.  Gyotaku was originally invented in the mid 1800’s as a way for Japanese fishermen to show the size of their prized catches.  Rice paper has historically been the medium for the prints as it is light weight and flexible enough to reach all the contours of the fish.  We did our print a little different but I will explain the process first.

Take the paper and lay over the fish.  Begin rubbing the paper onto the fish so the details of the scales are seen.  Be sure to press the paper into the fins in order to get a good print as well.  On our particular catch, we placed the fish on a piece of canvas and approached the rubbing from the opposite way, pressing the fish instead of the paper.

When completed, it makes an excellent display.  And if used for your kid’s or grandkid’s first fish, it will also make a treasured heirloom.  You can repaint the fish to make a few other prints to share with grandparents and loved ones as well.

The World's Best Fishing Bait

In a recent discussion about the Alabama Rig and how effective it is, we went off on a slight tangent on what is the best fishing lure period.  First, let me talk a little about the Alabama Rig to catch you up on the progression of the conversation.

The Alabama Rig made its mark on the fishing world around a year ago.  Basically, the rig has a fish jig head where the line it tied.  Trailing behind the jig head is an ‘umbrella’ of small wires that end with loops to attach up to five more lures.  This presents a ‘school’ effect and the largemouth bass cannot stand it!  The rig has been responsible for a number of professional fishing tournament wins and has brought out the voices to outlaw it.  Some municipalities and wildlife agencies have even researched whether the rig should be allowed for recreational fishing.

Now this sounds like one of those golf ball advertisements you can see every now and then with the fake news headline ‘Ball Flies So Far it has Made Courses Obsolete.’  However, from what I can see, the Alabama Rig is the real deal.  But, the Alabama Rig is NOT a lure.  Nope.  It is a rig in which you put lures on it.

So, that is where we came to the best lure.  One way to think of this is if you have one artificial bait to fish with, what would you use?  Not just for bass, or crappie, or catfish, but to make sure, to insure, you would get the rod tip bent and the line tight.  Notice, this discussion is on artificial bait.  Live bait could have its own arguments as well, but personally, in a survival situation, I would say earthworms would dominate.  They are easier to find than a bunch of crickets, and a whole lot easier to catch and hook.  One worm can also be torn into several pieces providing multiple baits from the same body.  See how easy it is to go off on a tangent?

Back to the best artificial bait.  My opinion, and yes my opinion is not worth a bunch unless it can be backed up, is the beetle spin provides the best opportunity to bring in a fish. The beetle spin is a small jig head with a single hook where a small plastic worm or ‘beetle’ is slid over top.  The jig head is attached to a small wire that is elbowed with a spinner at the opposite end.  The fishing line is tied where the elbow is located.

One of the great things about the beetle spin is the number of different colors and combinations of beetles that can be used.  Some of the more common ones are grub looking beetles that are solid white with a red dot, black worms with yellow stripes, yellow worms with black stripes, and a vast assortment of solid colored worms such as white, yellow, and green.

But we are trying to narrow it down to one lure, not an assortment of possible lures in the same setup.  I have had great success with the beetle spin for over 35 years.  Hard to believe since I am only 29 years old…(see, fishermen lie about more than the size of their catches, or near catches).  To pinpoint the best bait, it comes down to four specific worms for use on the beetle spin.

The first is a green/brown almost transparent, well maybe the best word is translucent, with two black stripes.  If you fished with a catalpa worm on a hook, think of what the insides look like after a small bream has attacked it with the ferocity of a piranha on a blood soaked chicken leg.  I know, not an image you want to keep in your head very long, but honestly, that is what it looks like.  It is a great color combination for the fish and the spinner does the attraction.  But still, this is not the best lure.

Another of my favorites is the white grub with a single red dot.  I often like to use this with a split tail.  I don’t know why I prefer the split tail with this particular plastic bait, other than the possible extra movement is enough to get the bites.  Again, this is a great spinner bait, but the next two are the finalists for world’s best bait.

Black worm, two yellow stripes.  You would think the mostly black bait would be hard to see, but the fish find it.  The spinner once again draws the attention and then the yellow stripes seal the deal.  Remember the squashed catalpa worm vision from earlier?  No, I didn’t rehash it to make you queasy.  But this is exactly what this bait looks like, except before it gets squashed.  If you have never fished with a catalpa worm, you need to find one.  Back in the day, we had four catalpa trees near our pond.  The summer was spent hooking the worms and tossing them in the water.  The line would constantly alternate between wet and dry.  Why?  Because we would have to keep pulling those fish in!

Now, as great as that sounds, this final beetle spin setup is by far my favorite, and my vote for world’s best.  Solid yellow body with two black stripes ending in a split tail.  I have always said it reminds me of a bumble bee.  My son and I entered a small tournament several years ago.  The tourney had prizes for most fish, largest fish, and smallest fish.  I explained in typical parent/mentor to son/protégé the significance of the knowledge I was about to share with him.  The bumble bee beetle spin is the Holy Grail of lures, yet many just do not possess the intellectual capacity to understand how wonderful it is.  It was one of those moments when you could hear the angels singing in the background and the earth tremble with the passing of the wisdom.  We caught the most fish that day.  Proof is in the pudding as the saying goes.

Back to that Alabama Rig briefly.  I wonder how great I could be on the professional bass fishermen’s circuit with five beetle spins tailing the back of that setup? 

Outdoors and the 'New Media'

Social media, new media, what is it anyway?  Why is it even being discussed in an outdoors column?

The reality is our world has changed and continues to progress.  It is much smaller than it was just a decade ago.  At one time, places like Africa, Alaska, and Australia were distant lands that you could only find in either an encyclopedia or National Geographic magazine.  Now, we can call up a ‘friend’, watch them in real time and speak to them through the computer.  Now we have ‘wiki’ instead of actual volumes of books.  And National Geographic is much more than a magazine; it is a television network and website.  I’m sure the younger generation is oblivious to who is a ‘pen-pal’, my generation’s original ‘friend request.’

The new media consist of online television shows and episodes, e-magazines, and podcasts.  My podcasts consisted of taping a one way conversation on an old cassette recorder and mailing it to a friend who moved several states away one summer.  Can you imagine if this was our way of communicating now?  Fortunately the new media is easy and available.  As for the outdoors community, this opens the world to us all.

We are able to learn from others in ways as never before.  My grandfather was a hit with my friends with his stories of big game hunts from around the world.  There were not many people you could meet and talk to who had ever taken any game other than dove, ducks, deer, squirrels, or rabbits.  Everything else was exotic; things you only saw in the zoo or again, the encyclopedia and magazines.  Now we can not only reach out and hear the stories from all kinds of hunters, anglers, mountain climbers, hikers, kayakers, and bird watchers, we can interact and learn.

We can get answers to our questions, hear others questions that we would have never thought to have asked, and participate without having to be the 10th caller.  Online no-frills talk shows bring in educated and experienced guests to share knowledge to others and help the non-experienced prepare for their own outdoors adventures.

The new media has become such a hit and shows so much potential in growth, companies are investing largely into it to better their brands.  Podcasts like FMP Bowcast garner a large audience and multiple advertisers just so someone can download the audio to their media player.  The Outdoors Channel has acquired MyOutdoorTV.com that is set-up somewhat like Netflix while only showing outdoor shows.  Just a quick count on the hunting directory produces over 100 high definition shows both popular such as North American Hunter and Remington Country and regional like Southern Ohio Wild.

This Monday, July 2nd, I will be a guest on Coast to Coast Outdoors.  This is one of those new media talk shows that share what is going on with all things outdoors with everyone.  They have talked about things such as the Alabama Rig and its influence on both the professional anglers’ tours and the regular weekend fisherman searching for his own trophy bass.  They have discussed the problem with feral hogs, not just in a single state, but everywhere from North Carolina to California.  In fact, the two hosts are in each state.  R.B. Wright hosts the show from the ‘Ole North State while Kerry Mackey hosts from the left coast.  At the same time.  That is the beauty of the new media.

The show is hunting and fishing show that is not really hunting and fishing show.  You will likely not see the trigger pulled, the bass bend the rod, or the arrow flung, but you will see R.B. and Kerry talking to you, almost face to face like, discussing hunting and fishing.  It makes it personal and enjoyable.  So if you have a few moments this Monday at 9pm go to Livestream.com/Coast2CoastOutdoors and get a glimpse of what the new media has to offer the outdoorsman.  One other nice aspect about this new media is even if you cannot watch it live, most shows are available when you want it available without having to set the VCR, DVR, or whatever other ‘R’ there is.

But one last observation; Pen-pal does have a better ring to it than E-mail-pal.  We’ll have to work on that one.

You can follow Coast2Coast Outdoors on twitter @C2COutdoors or on facebook at Coast2Coast Outdoors.

Fishin' Quest

June 2 through June 10 marks National Fishing and Boating Week 2012.  Just as I did last year, I carried my youngest son Cooper out to dip the hook in the water.  Last year he caught his first fish.  This year, he has already expanded on his species list bringing in his first catfish.  And how he loves fishing!

Drew Haerer and a Suwannee Bass

I recently started following the exploits of Drew Haerer from Duke University.  I have read some of his stories in the past, mainly because he is located here in North Carolina.  Drew is an avid fisherman who enjoys self propelled transportation on water.  In other words, he is hooked on fishing from a kayak.  The sub-sport has been growing by leaps and bounds and those that do it are akin to fly fishermen or traditional bowhunters.  It is almost like ‘extreme fishing’.  No lazy days on the side of the pond.  No, you must stay alert, mark the locations you feel are good spots, and either paddle upstream and float back down or float downstream and paddle back up.

Drew announced a couple of weeks ago he is attempting the B.A.S.S. slam.  This is where it really gets interesting.  The slam consists of catching all 9 species of black bass located in North America within a one year period.  Since the species are located throughout the United States, travel and planning become a must.

So, in reading Drew’s goals, I was able to determine something within Drew’s spirit that makes him unique.  He strives to take something difficult, compound it with obstacles that he puts in his own way, and still has the faith that it can be done.  Drew’s ambition is to not only complete the B.A.S.S. slam, but he is adding in another bass fishing recognition program, the RiverBassin’ slam (they have slightly different measurement requirements in order to qualify), he is going to do it from his kayak, he is doing it only from public waters, and the waters will all be either rivers or streams.  “I am not a big fan of guys catching huge fish in private water and then bragging about it all over the internet.  So, I wanted to show how much great fishing is available in the public realm.”   Drew went on to say, “I think if I can complete the slam, it will probably mean a lot more to me twenty years from now than any other fishing accomplishment.”

Drew and a friend of his, Bill Kohls of Reel Fishing NC guide service, took off on a rotation throughout the Southeast U.S. a couple of weeks ago.  They scouted through the internet using Google, different fishing forums and communities, and contacted a state wildlife agency for clarification on the borders for one of the species targeted.  I have got to admit, I like doing things a little ‘non-traditional’ as much as Drew, so I was hooked checking his status updates on his quest over the last couple of weeks.

Not only did they have to find the locations of the species, they needed to find public access to the rivers and plan their equipment properly.  I asked Drew if he needed to use different lures and lines for the different species or was different equipment used simply for the conditions at hand.  Do not let the word simply fool you, nothing was ‘simple’.  Drew did have to fish more to the conditions and with the menacing storm Beryl bearing down on the Southeast during the trip, Drew and Bill would have to endure rain and wind along with the conditions the run-off and heightened fresh water would throw at them.

Still, Drew said confidence was a key, and he would continuously go back to what he was most comfortable with; a finesse worm.  That confidence was a deciding factor in much of the success he enjoyed on the trip.

Setting goals and taking the task at hand to heart are things that many of us begin to understand once we become older and wiser.  Experiencing the outdoors can help us relate to these attributes and become better because of it.  “For me it came down to the challenge and the adventure.  I mean, most avid bass anglers probably never heard of a Suwannee bass.  Most of my favorite memories are trips with my family, friends, and girlfriend.  Any time I get to spend with them is special…and even more special if we are catching fish!”  Well said Drew, well said!

You can follow Drew’s pursuit at ManPoweredFishing.com and Quest for the Bass Slam on facebook.