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Author Archives: Henry Veggian

The Big Picture: Behind the Scenes at a Fishing Photo Shoot

18 Monday Feb 2019

Posted by Henry Veggian in Essays

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Tags

Bass Fishing, Fishing, kayak fishing, mike zlotnocki, nature, North carolina, photographer thomas harvey, photography, Sports, wildlife in NC

One day last summer, at the height of the best topwater and deepwater bites of the year, I received the call asking me to attend a photo shoot and to be a representative kayak angler for an article in Wildlife in North Carolina magazine. My first thought was “I’m gonna stick a state record at the shoot.” It was a selfish impulse, but an honest one. Who wouldn’t have it? I could lie and tell you I smashed ’em, or that I lost a big one, or that as soon as it was over I went to another spot and landed a biggun. All anglers are liars, anyway, but there are witnesses in this case. Here’s what really happened at the big photo shoot: I caught a skunk. Zero bites. Not even a wayward Bluegill.

Maybe I’ve been fishing for too long and the sun’s worn through my skull, but I just don’t care if I don’t catch fish. I’m just grateful to be alive and that’s usually enough to make my day. But the article attached to the cover shot in this post represents our sport so well that it made me grateful for something far more important, something much bigger than the little thrill of seeing my grizzled mug on a magazine cover or the disappointment one might assume when looking at a cover that is, in some way, a reminder of a bad day of fishing. I’ll come back to that point…

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Recent Product Reviews

15 Saturday Sep 2018

Posted by Henry Veggian in Bio, product reviews

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product reviews

I struggle writing in  this genre, but I enjoy it, too. Here is a sample of recent product reviews I wrote. Let me know what you think!

  1. The Wilderness Systems Kayak Krate

https://shopgetoutdoors.com/blogs/get-outdoors-blog/review-of-the-wilderness-systems-kayak-krate

2. The Yak Attack Leverage Net

https://shopgetoutdoors.com/blogs/get-outdoors-blog/from-kentucky-lake-to-toledo-bend-fishing-overtime-with-yak-attack-s-leverage-net

 

Video

Memory, Fishing and Stalled Fronts: The May 2018 KBF Armed Forces Challenge

21 Monday May 2018

Posted by Henry Veggian in Bio, Essays, Kayak Fishing Posts

≈ 2 Comments

I’m writing this while sitting on a bench in downtown Raleigh waiting to meet up with a friend after a concert. It’s 11 pm and I am barely awake, having fished from sunrise nearly to sunset today, as well as the previous 2 days. This is a post about fishing and exhaustion and memory. There’s a little video evidence of what I discuss in the last paragraphs:

I should write this down before I forget. And when I say forget, I mean I am “wipe the memory slate clean, MIB gadget” tired. I fished for something like 30 hours this weekend and I feel like a tray of lasagna that’s been heated up one too many times. But there is something about exhaustion that can sharpen your focus, narrow down the world. That’s how I managed to jump back into 1st place late on Sunday. It didn’t hold, but that isn’t the important part.

First, congratulations to “Florida” Jerry Burdine and Matt Kasparek for besting me in the KBF Armed Forces Challenge this weekend. I also want to thank Jonathan Lessman and Richard McMichael, as we exchanged leads in a great dog fight over all 3 event days. I saw Jerry’s name high on the leader board every day, too, so he had to grind it out like I did. It was a battle, and he made the “leap” as I call it, with a great final day that put him ahead of the leaders.

This three-day event was not on my schedule because I had other plans. So I buckled down to improvise, adapt to a constantly shifting bite and fish through some bad weather. In the end, I landed fish on three different patterns, using a variety of lures. Day 1 was dominated by swimbaits and crankbaits, a chatterbait produced my best fish on Day 2, and day 3, well, you’ll see…

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Bowfin Country Field Report

13 Friday Apr 2018

Posted by Henry Veggian in Field Reports

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April, 2018

Lead into Gold: A Review of Kenn Oberrecht’s “The Angler’s Guide to Jigs and Jigging”(1982)

30 Tuesday Jan 2018

Posted by Henry Veggian in Book Reviews, Writings

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Angler's Guide to Jigs and Jig Fishing, Bass Fishing, Book review, Fishing Books, Jig Fishing, Ken Oberrecht

Lead into Gold: A Review of Kenn Oberrecht’s “The Angler’s Guide to Jigs and Jigging”(1982)

 

People sometimes ask me “Hank, why do you read these old fishing books?” My answer is “Shakespeare.” Awkward silence generally follows, or someone accuses me of being a professor.

Let me explain (that’s what professors do, after all). First, there is no such thing as an “old book.” Every book is new the first time we read it. And just like any other book, we ease into it, fit our mind to its author’s style in the early pages, slip into ideas and characters that it presents, etc. We all remember the first time we read Hamlet in high school. It was like learning a new language. If you stuck it out you were rewarded with a mighty drama about choice and regret.

Second, there is no such thing as a “fishing book.“ That’s just a phrase we use to describe writings composed by people who spend a lot of time holding fishing tackle around water. What we call “fishing books” are really just books that explain how a person thinks through a specific type of problem. The central premise of every fishing book is basically “How can I trick and catch a living animal that cannot directly be seen (most of the time).” As such, fishing books are really books about the art of tricking an aquatic animal. Or, if you prefer, books written by people who think too much about fishing.

Does thinking ever get “old?” I hope not. And what would life be without choices, or regrets? I wouldn’t want to know. For one, the fishing stories would be few and far between.

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A Bucketmouth for the Bucket List

07 Tuesday Nov 2017

Posted by Henry Veggian in Essays, Kayak Fishing Posts

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Tags

Bowfin Country, Kayak Bass Fishing, KBF 100 Challenge, Largemouth Bass, Toledo Bend

You may be wondering about the title. “Bucketmouth” refers to a Largemouth Bass, a big Largemouth Bass. A “Bucket List” is of course something we keep, checking off an item or two if we are lucky, or we endure. But there is more to this title. There were many options to consider as I drove through the scrub forest, swamp and farmland, watching the horses on ranches run and the slow rivers roll.  And it came to me then because I started thinking about the great Western films in history. I was thinking specifically of a little known Spaghetti Western by an Italian director named Damiano Damiani, a film called A Bullet for the General (1968). Set during a revolution, it is a film loaded with counter-revolutionary plots and surprises of all kinds. Damiani’s film is one of the best Westerns of its time, and it ranks high on my list of favorites. It’s a complicated film about complex people in crazy times, and as I came to the trail head of a complicated trip, it seemed to point in the direction I wanted to go as I tried to answer the question “How do I explain what happened on that lake?”

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Fly Fishing for Bowfin

24 Thursday Aug 2017

Posted by Henry Veggian in Fishing for Bowfin

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Tags

Bowfin, Bowfin fishing, Fishing, Fly Fishing, Fly Fishing for Bowfin

Here is a well illustrated and informative post from Isaac’s Fishing Corner, a fishing page I follow. In it Isaac describes fly fishing for Bowfin (note his use of larger flies and a strong leader, but also a lighter 5 weight fly rod). There is not much available about fly fishing for Bowfin in the fishing literature so this was a welcome sight from Bowfin Country.

I can clearly remember the first time I ever saw a Bowfin: I was fishing a little irrigation ditch that ran through some corn fields when this strange looking fish slowly surfaced and gulped some air before disappearing back into the muddy water. As soon as I saw that fish I knew a new obsession […]

via Fly Fishing For Bowfin — Isaac’s Fishing Corner

Bowfin Country Field Report

14 Friday Jul 2017

Posted by Henry Veggian in Field Reports

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Tags

Bowfin, Falls Lake, kayak fishing

Falls Lake, July 2017

Video

Bowfin Country Field Journal: Kayak Topwater Largemouth

22 Thursday Jun 2017

Posted by Henry Veggian in Field Reports, Kayak Fishing Posts

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

bass, Henry Veggian Kayak Fishing, jordan lake, kayak fishing, Kayaks, Topwater Fishing

Topwater fishing, late May. The clock said noon but it was still early morning in the cove. Contrary to popular belief, bass will strike all day on topwater in low light, depending on circumstance and presentation. Stealth is essential; I was in 4 feet of water and the cove was only 30 feet wide. A single paddle bump on the kayak would have spooked every fish.

They never heard me coming.

 

Bowfin Country Field Report

09 Friday Jun 2017

Posted by Henry Veggian in Field Reports

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Bowfin, Bowfin fishing, Fishing, kayak fishing, Shearon Harris Lake, Tarpon 130, topwater Bowfin

June, 2017. Bowfin from the kayak.

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