Winter Walkabout

In winter, I like to visit the boat launch and fishing sites in my area.
    It gives me a chance to see the water levels, and to take note of any changes since the last time I was there. Over the last two winters, I haven't done my usual reconnaissance, however, thanks to work commitments and my wife's losing battle with cancer.
    Lets just say I was preoccupied and leave it at that...
    But now I'm officially "retired," and I'm reminded of a few words from another "retiree," Cardinal Robert Bellarmine, from his work, 'The Art of Dying Well'...

"Being now free from Public business and enabled to attend to myself, when in my usual retreats I consider that which suits me..."

    As the name implies, Bellarmine's work was about living one's life with the end in sight. See my closing thoughts on that topic.
    And while that IS on my mind, I'm not morbid...because I'm excited about the immediate approach of this seasons fishing!
    And being now, "free from public business and enabled to attend to myself..." I hit the reconnaissance trail once again.

Come along on this montage to see what I found.

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SITE #1 - Cedar Ramp

$3 to launch, but don't park here 😁



Water down - all will be once more under water by March

SITE #2 - A-Park Ramp

Price increase - 10$ to launch, now
You can park here, however, so a kayak or float tube is an option.
But....



Same site - barely improved launch.
Not real excited with this one.

SITE #3 - Striper Ramp

Public ramp, managed by the power company.
FREE.. and worth every penny! 

Foggy Day at Striper Ramp

People always ask, "What color is the water?"
Right now? Coffee Latte 😀

SITE #4 - The Point

Another FREE site, also managed by the power company.
This one is picturesque, has excellent facilities,
and it includes primitive camping.

The results of FREE primitive camping options....
Trash Baboons and the garbage they leave behind.



2nd load of Trash Baboon garbage



3rd load of garbage... or was it 4th?
I lost track.



PS Wear gloves when picking up after the Trash Baboons...
You never know if they'll leave a knife in their garbage.
Yes - I cut myself.

Will fish live in these branches and roots
when the water comes back up?
Leave your comments below



New fish habitat falling in all the time.

Lots of these guys in the water...I'm thinking shrimp for bait.

SITE #5 - Clouds Landing

One of my favorite sites, also FREE.
The development around the lake, however, is a curse
on all of us anglers.

Water, 3 feet down.
This is an excellent shore fishing
site when the water rises.

SITE #6 - Hares Creek 

Looking up the creek at a popular, "unmanaged site."
A favorite location of mine for years,



Down the creek at the same site
Development is encroaching on all sides, however.
I give it 5 years before it is off-limits.

Trash Baboon Power Cell - dumped at the bridge.
Taking it to Walmart for recycling.

A little bit of useful "trash."
I find so many floats, I'll never have to buy another.

    I like fishing of course. And I like catching just as much.
But a good walkabout paves the way for those two activities to come.
    Thanks for coming along.

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Writers should always strive for a job well done... even half-baked ones like me. So if you found value in this article, please like, comment, and share it. 

Do you have questions, compliments, or suggestions?
If so, email me at...dahutist@gmail.com

If you appreciate a no-drama, no-hype Facebook group, follow this link and come join us at: 

Palmetto Fly n Fish

Thanks so much for reading, and...

Tight Lines,

Dave Hutton

CLOSING THOUGHTS
    I do not use this medium as my personal spiritual pulpit - for that you can go to my OTHER blog page, linked here: "Catholicity"

    But with both my wife's final two years, and now Bellarmine's, "Art of Dying Well ...," fresh in my mind , I will beg your tolerance just this once.
Thank you.

To Beat Death
        As much as we may try to avoid or “cheat” death, it will come knocking at our door soon enough. It is inescapable in this world and so the question is not IF we will die, but HOW we choose to meet death. 
    To respond to this question, St. Robert Bellarmine wrote a small book in 1619, called, "The Art of Dying Well." 
    In it, he details the key to preparing for death - not when death is imminent, but most importantly, when we are in good health. That is the only tool we have in our bag to beat death.

    He explains, “...It is a most dangerous thing to defer till death's door our conversion from sin to virtue: far more happy are they who begin to carry the yoke of the Lord ‘from their youth,’ as Jeremiah said.
    We can not put off turning our lives around until we are old, but must begin doing so today."
    Bellarmine reiterates this fact by saying, “This first great truth now remains established: a good death depends upon a good life."

    To read Bellarmines book, "The Art of Dying Well," you can download it in about any format possible, at this link: 

https://archive.org/details/TheArtOfDyingWell 

© All rights reserved, David Hutton/Palmetto Fly N Fish 2024

ZEBCO REELS for an EXPERT

ZEBCO and the EXPERT

Those of you familiar with Elwood, “Buck” Perry, and his fishing technique known as, “Spoonplugging,” or as it has been sometimes called, “speed trolling,” or “search trolling,” you will know it is made up of two phases.

    If you've never heard of Perry, and DON'T know this technique, well, it has two main phases. 😁

    They are...

    Phase 1 – Trolling

    In this phase, you troll lures that run at specific depths to “sift” the water, vertically, for schooling fish.     - This is not riding all over the lake looking for, “fishy spots,” or watching a screen and hoping to see fish.

    - Also, it's rarely a shallow water activity; the best results are most often found away from shore in deeper water.

    - Nor is it haphazardly dragging any old lure around the water, hoping to hook up.

    It is quite the opposite – it is deliberate, defined, and more than a little work. It is also knowing where fish should be, through education, and trolling methodically up and down across the depths to find them. Which is probably why 95% of the anglers out there don't do it.

    Phase 2 – Casting

    Once a school is located by trolling, you stop the boat.

    You immediately throw a floating visual marker behind you, over the contact point, and begin casting specific lures to work fish out of the school you found. It all comes together because, contrary to popular thinking, large and active gamefish are schooling fish - not grouchy, old loners sitting by a shallow log the whole season.

    They may eventually end up there, which is when we say we had good luck, or the bite is “Hot!” 🔥     Actually, we are right about the luck - lucky to be there at the right place and time.

    But to get there, the shallow water fish will have followed distinct, almost linear, patterns of movement out of deeper water. With knowledge, we can determine the likeliest routes the fish might follow, and troll across them to intercept the fish as they migrate to and fro.

    With that brief summary in mind – I hope you're still with me - a guy named Edward Best wrote a small booklet on this topic (32 pgs.) that distills this technique down as well as any other that I've seen.

    And in it, he un-apologetically explains exactly which lures and gear he has proven to be the most effective, and why.

You could say they're the, “Best.” Pun intended.

    On the subject of which reel he selects for the casting phase, he surprises us all:

    “CASTING REELS:

    We use closed face spin-casting reels exclusively.

    For years, we used Zebco's Model 33, which to my mind is the finest reel on the market. I love its velvet smooth operation.

Now, today, in keeping with our mindset of heavier tackle, I use a Zebco 808, a sort-of lightweight, saltwater, closed faced spinning real.

    While on this subject, I would like to say a word, in general, about reels.

    Some of the nice, expensive bait casting reels with free spools, star drags, and all the other refinements are a joy to use... for the man who fishes everyday and can learn to use one well.

    But for the average man, it is much too fast and will only give him continual headaches. Rare is the man that can cast a light plastic worm into a strong headwind with such a reel...*”

* (((here, I suspect Mr. Best is referring to the Swedish Abu “Ambassadeur” series of reels, given the time period of this book. See end note)))

Mr. Best goes on to say...

    “...I can - and have - limited out over an active school with my Zebco's, while my fishing partner was still trying to get his lure out to the spot with equipment that costs 9 times more than my outfit (and which caused 9 times the trouble).

Me, I'll stick to the good old closed face reels.

    One thing I do every time I go out is take the real apart enough to grease the breaking mechanism.

    That's right, grease.

    I then tighten it up as far as is practical.

    That way, I have an absolutely smooth running brake.... not one that jerks and works in spasms.

    This is not just for the Zebco reels, either. I have yet to find a brake that works smoothly after it has been wet a time or two.”

END NOTE

    The one problem with all this is that the booklet I refer to, “Lunkers and Limits,” was printed in limited number in 1971. You'll catch hell trying to find one, nowadays, and they'll cost a bit of green when you do.

    Originally, this little gem cost $1.35. Last week, I paid $15.92 to get one...over ten times the cover price.

    Of course you know what I'm going to say – that's not much in today's fishing world, and it was worth it.

    If you read nothing else this year, and follow what Mr. Best says as closely as possible, well... he and many others have proven this method works.

    You just have to be willing to join the 5% that sticks with it.

I hope you liked this little piece. If you did, a comment, like, share, or care package of your choosing is welcome. Thanks, and TIGHT LINES David Hutton Palmetto Fly n Fish © all rights reserved (such as they are), David Hutton/2024

CLEAN UP WITH HANNAH

School Is Out For A Day
January 15, 2023

The kids in our area got off school for Martin Luther King Day this week, and I got the babysitting job. 

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So, lets be clear when I say, "babysitting" - That's two grandkids, for the whole day, ages 7 and 13. This is not as dire as it sounds - I pick them up after school and look after them for a few hours most afternoon's anyway. So I'm used to it.
It's part of my retirement plan, you might say.

But the question always arises with kids: "What are we gonna do?"

My grandson (age 13), he's a quiet guy who is happy to play video games all day.
But my granddaughter, Hannah (age 7) - she's the polar opposite and ready for action, all the time!  
And today this meant a trip to the lake, to see what's doing.   

Hannah, Seven and Sassy

Every trip to the lake involves picking up other people's trash, because, well, the general public are slobs. Yes, I said it.
"Trash Babboons," I call 'em.
We might be picnicking, fishing, or swimming at the lake, but we make it a point to pick up some of the garbage others carelessly toss down. Its a habit of mine, and it's one I've instilled in these kids:
 

"Others are trashy slobs, but we set a better example"

But in winter, the water is down and the shoreline is exposed - and that means scavenging for Loot, as well as cleaning up.
Today we got a few gleanings from the lakeside Treasure Chest.

The Loot, dumped out

That's a small barbeque grill on top.

"Dang," says Hannah, "...people are slobs leaving this in the bushes."

I was proud of her.

The Loot, part 2

The grill is gone and the Loot is sorted.

The gnarly feminine hygiene products on the right were the first to go in the trash.

The Loot, part 3

After the clean up, from left, clockwise:

1 - bank stick rod holder

1 - wad of poly bailing twine (I'm a cordage geek)

1- flattened bobber, still functions

1- wire leader with weedless hook attached

1- Flat steel clamp

1- S hook

(I'm also a hardware geek)

1- Teensy Torpedo prop bait

1 - #6 Aberdeen hook

1- Soft plastic worm, well soaked

(The worm was threaded on a large baitholder hook with massive swivel, as if it was a nightcrawler)

NOTE: No tackle was harmed in the making of this blog post. All of it can be re-used.

The Teensy Torpedo 

It's a dinky little thing - The Heddon Torpedo is one of my favorite topwater lures, and this one is micro-size!

Worm Revival

This soft plastic worm (green pumpkinseed) was all curled up on the hook, but I boiled it in hot water for a few minutes and it straightened right out. Another Frankenworm, resurrected!

They say this sort of day is, "making memories" - that the kids will always remember such times, long after we are gone. And I reckon they are right; I know I enjoy them and will remember it fondly.

There are many kinds of treasures to be found, I guess.
And, no, that's not a tear in my eye....

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Thanks for reading. It is said that writers should always strive for a job well done... even half-baked ones like me. So if you found value in this article, please like, comment, and share it. 

Do you have questions, compliments, or suggestions?
If so, email me at...dahutist@gmail.com

If you appreciate a no-drama, no-hype Facebook group, follow this link and come join us at: 

Palmetto Fly n Fish

Again, thanks so much for reading, and...

Tight Lines,

David Hutton

© All rights reserved, David Hutton/Palmetto Fly N Fish 2024