19 Monday Jul 2021
Posted in product reviews
Tags
Bass Fishing, Bowfin Country, kayak fishing, Largemouth Bass, P-71 Pop-R, P-71 Product review, Rebel P-71
Introduction
When I heard the news that the Rebel Lure Company was going to release a new version of its Pop-R model in 2021, my hair stopped greying and I felt ten years younger; when I heard the lure was a throwback to Rebel’s legendary P-70 design of the early 1980’s, I felt like a kid again.
Continue reading27 Monday Jul 2020
Posted in Essays, Kayak Fishing Posts
Tags
Bass Fishing, Bowfin Country, Cape Fear River, Carolina Kayak Anglers, CKA, Jackson Kayak Fishing Team, kayak fishing, Kayak Fishing Posts
Saturday, July 25th, 2020.
The forecast says baste your hide and prepare to be cooked.
When I arrived at the launch site there was a truck parked there, but it wasn’t Drew Blair’s truck. A man emerged from the woods dragging a kayak from the direction of the river, his headlight beam a cloud of insects.
“This isn’t the start I was expecting.”
My second thought was “Where the hell is Drew?” A short conversation later, and I said goodbye to Mitch, the woodsman, who gave up on the launch site. “That’s a rough launch” he said. I offered to help Mitch because I knew, deep in my heart, that Drew was asleep and I wasn’t going to make it alone. He always sleeps in on tournament day. Sure enough, a phone call confirmed it. Thankfully, he lives nearby. Mitch declined.
I waited in the dark for a bit. There wasn’t any morning breeze. I wondered if there was any air. I hoped to hide from the bugs in the darkness, but they found me. I was standing still but I was sweating. The sun would rise in 30 minutes. Drew, half asleep, rolled up and tried to use his Jedi mind powers to make the Hobie slide off his truck.
I’ve launched from difficult locations. This one ranked near the top of the list. The weeds were waist high, ruts in the abandoned road were knee deep and the drop from the bank to the water was actually two separate drops that added up to a Cubist painting. After launching, I realized that one of my rods left one of my lures somewhere in a tree branch behind us.
This isn’t an essay about how good I am at my favorite sport. It’s about a hot river and a cold bite. It’s about the risks I take, the decisions I make and the company I keep. It’s about admitting nature doesn’t care about your fishing plan – or any plan for that matter.
07 Tuesday Nov 2017
Posted in Essays, Kayak Fishing Posts
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?”
31 Wednesday May 2017
Posted in Field Reports
Cape Fear, NC.
09 Friday Dec 2016
Posted in Bowfin in Journalism, Writings
Tags
amia calva, Bob Frye, Bowfin, Bowfin Country, Fishing, living fossils, Pittsburgh, primitive fishes, Tribune Review, yinz
Here is a rare Fossil Friday post: on Sept. 21, 2008, the Pittsburgh Tribune Review printed an article about a Bowfin that was caught in the Allegheny River in Pittsburgh, PA. The newspaper still ran a print edition then. Hence, the digital copy below is the fossil, a crude impression left by the extinct print copy. The print edition also ran the attached photograph; I include it here for historical reasons. That photo is everywhere now, and I want people to know where it first appeared in print.
The article’s history: it began when Bob Frye, the outdoors writer for the “Trib,” contacted Chuck “BAGman” Meyer at the old Bowfin Anglers group site. Chuck sent Bob my way, and Bob and I had a nice long chat. We spent a good part of the time talking about Myron Cope and the Steelers.
Bob somehow managed to turn my ramble into a great article – Bob is a professional journalist, after all. Looking back on it now, I was happy to draw some attention to my favorite fish and invite some folks into Bowfin Country.
A side note: the tackle shop mentioned in the article apparently had so many requests for the mount that they took it down, or so I was told by a friend who went there.
Here is the article, for your paleontological reading pleasure:
http://triblive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/sports/outdoors/s_589149.html
25 Sunday Sep 2016
Posted in Field Reports
A rare photo of a common sight, as I sound the deeper water in Bowfin Country.
Photo Credit: Larry Anderson
9/24/16
21 Saturday May 2016
Posted in Field Reports
29 Tuesday Mar 2016
Posted in Field Reports
Tags
There’s a plague in Bowfin Country, and I’m in quarantine. I have the fishing bug real bad this season. As a result, I’ve been fishing after work; yesterday I captured something exceptional on my little video camera. For years, I’ve been watching Ospreys descend from the sky and pull fish from nearby water. They’ll fall in a controlled flight, almost vertically at times, and gently pluck their prey from the surface. Yesterday, an Osprey made a stunning cameo while I was filming some fishing footage. You can see it at the 1:40 mark of this video:
29 Tuesday Mar 2016
Posted in Field Reports
Tags
Spring 2016
05 Friday Feb 2016
Posted in Field Reports
Welcome to Bowfin Country 