As the days grow longer and the sun shines warmer and the occasional temperatures tip 70 degrees, a retired man’s fancy turns to fishing.
Spring is a serious time for a crappie fisherman. The warming of waters signal the crappie spawn. Sam’s taken a day here and there to scope out possibilities. By late January he was up at 4 a.m., and with a quick kiss goodbye and a thermos of coffee, he was off to Grenada Lake.
“It’s a different kind of fishing. After winter rains they open the gates so the high waters pour through, pulling the fish with it,” he says.
“Fishing the spillway brings lots of crappie but not a lot of sport. So many fish come through you can actually catch shad.”
After a long cold winter, sport is of lesser importance than being “out there.” The desire to feel the tug and the struggle of a big fish beckons like a siren. Later in the season, skill will be more important.
Sam said though the competition, Sam against fish, was not great, the chance to catch a 3-pound crappie was worth it, worth getting up at 4 a.m., driving two hours and wearing all the warm woolens he could find.
After a few trips — just long enough to get to know a few of the other fishermen, never by name but only by fish bait and boats — Sam was ready for local fishing.
Sometimes putting in at Leroy’s Landing, sometimes Charles Younger Landing and sometimes at Camp Pratt, Sam surveys how winter has changed the water’s landscape. Rotten stumps have floated away, trees have fallen; debris is corralled by drifting logs. All these structures change the “fishing holes.”
As a retirement present to himself, Sam purchased a Hummingbird depth finder. He enjoys the toy, but after 50 years of exploring the creeks and rivers he knows the lay of the land by instinct, the shape of a long-dead tree, where the red berries grow, the buckeye tree at the water’s edge, the 55-gallon rusty drum. Giving Sam an electronic device to find fish is like giving him a map to find his way home.
One day he went out scouting “holes,” though it wasn’t optimal conditions. Early on, he came up on a family of otters. If they weren’t so cute “wallering” over one another, as Sam described them, he’d be upset.
“They eat a lot of fish; they’re really just long rodents.” The otters barked, swam and wallered on the bank ’til Sam moved on.
Near “buckeye” slough, where last year we walked a squirrel hunt, Sam saw his first alligator of the season. The 4-footer floated high in the water for the sun’s warmth. There were about 40 turtles all piled on top of a short log, like Yertle the Turtle.
All signs of creatures yearning for spring, but none so great as the heart of a fisherman.
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