Road Apples by Tim Sanders
May 14, 2012

Hooked on fishing

Share |

I have always loved fishing. I don’t fish as much as I used to, but even when I can’t fish, I enjoy watching other folks fish. When, for reasons known only to our satellite provider, they screw up and give us a free fishing channel for a few weeks, I am happy. I’ve contacted them, offering to swap them all forty-seven of our stinking home shopping channels for just one full-time fishing channel, but they won’t go for it. Not even when I offer to throw in the Lose Belly Fat channel and their choice of three or four of those fine Swaggart Family Hullabaloo channels, which are almost as good as new since we’ve never put any mileage on ours at all.

Which is not to say that I like all fishing shows. Watching a fishing tournament, for example, is no fun for me. That’s because when I was a kid, and fell in love with fishing, there were no fishing tournaments. Fishing was what you did when you were fortunate enough to find some water deep enough to float a cork. It was always an adventure, imagining what might be swimming around down there, and wondering just how long it would be before you caught it. If someone had told us we could have grown up to become “professional fishermen,” we’d have choked on our chewing gum laughing. Getting paid for fishing? HAH! Oh sure, and next you’ll tell me I can earn a living sampling ice cream!

The whole idea behind fishing was ... well, to catch fish. Sure. But also to get out on a lake or a river or a pier and relax. Look, listen, enjoy your surroundings, let your mind wander a bit. My mind could wander in almost any location, so I had no prejudices when it came to fishing. I could spend all day on a Lake Michigan pier, fishing for yellow perch, or sitting in a boat on Harper Lake catching bluegills, or fly fishing for rainbow trout on the Little Manistee River, or catching northern pike on the Thornapple River that flowed through our little town. I can still see those locales in my mind’s eye, which my neurologist tells me is somewhere between the other two eyes, only farther back in my skull. I can still describe how the trestle over the Thornapple River shook when a train rattled across while I was sitting underneath, casting my daredevil for pike. I can describe where certain lily pads on Harper Lake provided excellent cover for bass, and exactly where that old, dying white pine stood along the shoreline, where one day I actually saw an arctic owl, gloriously white and spotted, perched near the top. When he finally flew away, I was amazed at his wingspread. It was easily six feet. Come to think of it, probably eight. Those things were all part of fishing.

I’ve watched some of those competitive fishing shows, and seen some of those poor “professionals” flying around various lakes and reservoirs in their multi-thousand dollar, high-powered bass boats, all stocked with aerated live wells, high-tech electronic equipment and GPS fish finders, giving themselves ulcers trying to find that one special spot where they still have time to outwit just one more bass with a brain not a bit larger than your average congressperson’s. Tournaments have managed to turn an art into a science, and in the process, sucked all the fun out of it.

There were no bass boats when I was a kid. My dad had a flat-bottomed wooden boat which he used for years. He powered it with a mighty 2.5 horsepower McCullough outboard motor which I believe was designed before the Civil War. That motor had a pulley on top with a knotted rope to yank on when you wanted to start it. As I remember it, the thing flooded out fairly quickly if improperly choked, and there were times when starting it took almost as much time as we actually spent fishing. Auxiliary equipment included a stringer for the fish and a coil of anchor rope with a cement block at the end. In those days there were no electric trolling motors, so most fishing boats had a set of oars for backup power. Dad had acquired some pink paint at a very low price. I believe it was a gift. Several gallons. He used it to paint things around the house, including the screen door and his boat. Waterproofed it, he said. I say all of that just to point out that even from a pink wooden boat, powered by almost no motor at all, and with no electronic equipment, we were able to catch a wide variety of fish, including bass. The bass hadn’t yet learned that they deserved their own special BASS BOATS. Nowadays, of course, the bass would know better.


“DANG GIL, I’M SO HUNGRY I COULD EAT A WATER SNAKE! OOOH, SEE THAT THERE PINK JON BOAT WITH THE TWO YAHOOS IN IT? RECKON THEY CARRY BASS FOOD?”

“Naah. That might be a perch boat or a carp boat, but it ain’t no bass boat! The bass boat that snagged Larry last Thursday had an aerated live well and a plexiglass windshield and hydraulic steering and could make 60 miles per hour in a headwind! Larry tole me all about it right after they throwed him back. He said to steer clear of them jon boats ‘cuz it’s the bass boats that always serves the very finest fresh cuisine.”

“I’m glad they throwed Larry back. How’s he doing now?”

“His lip is still sore, and his nerves is bad, but he’s got his appetite back. Yesterday he ate a bluegill long as your dorsal fin and managed to keep down a whole gob of waxworms. He tole me that he had a close call, but if that had been the end, at least he’d of gone in style. No pink perch boats for him! He said if you want a refined dining atmosphere, the bass boat was the only way to go!”


So maybe we weren’t the best fishermen in the world, and maybe our equipment left a lot to be desired, but we still enjoyed ourselves. And we managed to outwit a good number of fish, too. Even a few of the really smart ones who traveled in schools.