Turnabout Is Fair Play

Something from the tackle box:

       Don’t fail to correct your children.  You won’t kill them by being firm, and it may even save their lives.  (Proverbs 23:12 CEV)

       Growing up in a house located on the corner of two intersecting country roads in rural Barry County Michigan I did have neighbors.  Although none of them lived closer than half a mile away, we were surround by neighbors in each of the four directions you could go from our place. 

       To the east was the Decker family.  They were good friends, and we knew them well as they had youngsters in the family too, some older ones that babysat for my two younger siblings and I when we were very little, but also a couple who were closer to our ages.  We got on the bus and rode to school together with them from the little shelter built at the end of their driveway.  We would also go swimming with them in their pond, or in our pool, in the hot summer months as we were growing up together. 

       To the south of us was the old Sprague place.  You can read about what an “adventure” it could be to try and bike past their farm on ones way to a favorite fishing hole.  That story is recorded in a post I made on this blog back in July. 

       A half a mile north of our place was the home of Bruce and Dortha Brumm.  We knew them well too.  In fact, they were like an extra set of grandparents to my brother Joe, sister Joy and I as we were growing up.  It was only a ten minute walk to get a homemade cookie any time that you wanted one.  They had a gentle collie dog that liked to play with kids.  They had the first color TV in our neck of the woods, and they’d let you watch Bonanza, or The Wonderful World of Disney, on it.

       Bruce and Dortha lived on a farm that took up a good chunk of the land north and west of the intersecion of Thronapple Lake and Price Roads.  They would have had everything northwest of that stop sign for half a mile in both directions, had they not sold the old farmhouse I grew up in, along with eight acres of land, to my parents several months before I was born.  The Brumms were good friends to my folks, and awfully good to us kids over the years we were neighbors, and while this story isn’t about the Brumms, per se, their friendship towards our family does play a role in this adventure.

       This story is about an incident involving one of our closest neighbors to the west, Ellis Garlinger.  Ellis and Dot Garlinger were an older couple who lived on a nice little farm on the south side of Thornapple Lake Road, just a half a mile west, and on the other side the road, from our place on the corner.  Across the road from the Garlinger place was about where the fencerows, fields, meadows and woodlots of the property owned by our good friends, the Brumms, had its western boundry. 

       Now, Ellis and Dot Garlinger were fine people, and good neighbors too, but as a kid I didn’t really get to know them all that well.  They had no children for me to play with, and they seemed to be busy with their own lives on the farm, which was as it should be.  I would wave to them if they were out as I biked past their place, and they would wave back, but I would never have dreamed of turning in their drive for a homemade cookie and cup of hot coco like I might have with our neighbors to the north.  They were just the older folks who lived down the road to the west, we knew them, but didn’t really take that much interest in them.  – That is, until they got the peacock. 

       I can still remember the first time I heard the bloodcurdling scream coming over the hill from the west.  I was sitting on the steps of the deck on the south side of our house, eating my Captain Crunch in the cool air of a beautiful summer morning, when the sounds of what I took to be raw human agony rent the misty peace and caused me to slosh half of my milk and cereal into my lap. 

       “Mom!  Dad!  Get out here quick!”

       “What is it son?”

       “I just heard somebody screaming over there!” I said, pointing to the west. 

       “THERE IT IS AGAIN!!”

       “My word!” cried my Mom.  “Elmer, you’d better get over there and see what’s going on!  It sounds like someone might need some help!”

       Dad just started laughing at us.  “Well, you’d better get used to it, because it sounds to me like Ellis has bought himself some peahens and a peacock for the barnyard.  It’s amazing how that sound will carry on a calm day.” 

       “Are you sure?” Mom replied, “Sounds to me like somebody is getting murdered with a hatchet.” 

       “I’m sure.  I saw Ellis putting up real high chicken wire around the empty henhouse yesterday and figured something was up.  I had imagined it would be turkeys or geese he was getting ready for, but that’s a peacock if I ever heard one.  We’ll drive by later and take a look.” 

       And that’s what we did, sure enough.  That peacock and his hens were beautiful, downright gorgeous in fact, and everyone who had heard them, and then driven around to see them, said the same.  But, gorgeous or not, we would all have to put up with the agonizing cries of dying ax murder victims on a daily basis for the pleasure of having those beautiful birds ensconced in our bailiwick. 

       Truth be told, we all got pretty used to the screeching pretty quickly.  It even became a source of entertainment for us kids when friends and relatives visited, and we could act out gruesome pantomimes in concert with the sounds of the merciless bloodletting that came from down the road.

       So, now that you have some background information, I can get around to telling you about a particularly memorable fishing adventure that I had with my brother, sister, and my younger cousin Ned, on a bright sunny Autumn day later that very year. 

       As I said earlier, our friends and neighbors to the north, the Brumms, owned a large section of land to the north and west of our place on the corner.  Being so close to us, and understanding the advantages that come with growing up in union nature as country folk, they allowed my brother, sister and I to run free on their property for the purpose of exploring and enjoying its woodlots, meadows, lanes and swales, like any kid would do if given half the chance.  As long as we didn’t disturb any crops in any field that might be tilled at the time, we could do as we pleased on the Brumm place.  And we did.  It was a gift to our young lives beyond price, and I will always love Bruce and Dortha for allowing us the access to what became, for us, a veritable kingdom of wilderness adventures.  This story is about one I remember particularly well.

       My cousin Ned was over for a weekend stay with my brother, sister and I, and one of us got the idea that we should make the trek over to the pond over on the western edge of the Brumm place for the purpose of hooking minnows, catching frogs, netting dragonflies, or otherwise seeing what kind of wildlife we could trap into temporary captivity along the pond’s cattail lined banks.  As all parties were agreeable to this idea, it was not long before we had outfitted ourselves with fishing rods, butterfly nets and an assortment of boxes and jars for our intended safari. 

       The pond was an easy march from our place.  You went down an old farm lane, due west from our barnyard, for a quarter mile.  From the end of the lane you cut diagonally across a beautiful meadow that was only occasionally cut for hay.  Once on the other side of that rolling meadow, you crossed a ridge with an old fence line running along it, and then entered a brushy swale with a two-acre pond at its bottom.  The pond would gather a lot of runoff, growing quite big on a wet year, but it also had spring that fed into it, so that even in a dry year it always held a couple feet of water and very small fish could be caught in it.  The whole thing sat due north of the Garlinger farm, about a quarter mile due north off the road.

       It was a beautiful parade on the way back to the pond on that sunny afternoon.  I had the fishing pole, Joy carried the butterfly net, Joe and Ned followed in train with the boxes and jars for our intended catch.  Optimism was running high about our prospects of success.  But once we were within site of our hunting and fishing grounds we realized that the gathering of specimens for our pleasure and study might not be as easy achieved as we had hoped for at first.  When the weather is dry the old pond would stay well within its appointed banks, with a very narrow band of mud and cattails being all that had to be negotiated when fishing or frogging.  But with much rain, as we’d had over the last couple weeks, the banks widened and sponged up considerably.  There would be no getting up to the water without some very careful scouting for suitable approaches.  We split up, surrounded the pond, and began our assault in these less than optimal conditions.

       “It’s too mucky over here!”

       “Wha did ya say?”

       “IT’S TOO MUCKY!!”

       “Oh, .. Well, … be careful then.”

       “My shoe just came off in the mud.”

       “Wha did ya say?”

       “I said, MY SHOE’S STUCK IN THE MUD!!”

       “Well, … OK, .. pull it out and back up.”

       “OK, … I’ll have to get down on my knees and get my pants a little muddy.”

       “Wha did ya say?”

       “I said, MY KNEES ARE GETTING IN THE MUD!!  I CAN’T GET IT OUT!!”

       “Hold on, I’ll come over and help you.
       “What did you say?”

       “I said, HOLD ON I’LL TRY AND HELP YOU!!”

       “Hey!  What’s going on down there”

       “Ned’s got a shoe stuck in the mud.”

       “What?”

       “I said, NED’S STUCK IN THE MUD!!  COME OVER AND GIVE US SOME HELP!!”

       “If I go around this way I’ll get in the mud too.”

       “Wha did ya say?”

       “I said, I CAN’T GET TO YOU THIS WAY!!  I’LL GET STUCK TOO IF I TRY!!”

       That’s about when we saw Mr. Garlinger come over the fenced ridge to the south of the pond.  He was on a dead run, huffing and puffing like an old man that had just sprinted a quarter mile, which is exactly what he was.  He pulled up short when he saw all four of us standing together on dry ground, one of us with dirty knees and holding a muddy sneaker.

       “WHAT IN TARNATION IS GOING ON!”

       “Hey there Mr. Garlinger.  Ned’s shoe just came off in the mud.  We got it out now.”

       Mr. Garlinger sat down on an old log, pulled a bandana out of the pocket of his bib overalls and began to mop his brow.  It took him a minute to say anything else, but when he did we all knew that he was pretty upset.

       “You kids git home right now!  And tell your mothers that you all need a spanking for scaring me half to death!  And don’t you come back here any time today!  Do you hear me!?”

       We somberly picked up our gear and headed in the direction of our house.  We were half way home before anyone spoke.

       “Boy, your neighbor sure was mad.”

       “I don’t think he can kick us off the pond.  Bruce and Dortha say we can play there any time we want.”

       “Well, …I don’t think we’d better go back and try again today.”

       “I wonder why Ellis was so upset.”

       “I don’t know.”

       “Maybe those screaming peacocks of his woke him up too early this morning and now he needs to take a nap.”

       “Mayy-beee.”

Something to take home in your creel:

        We sure as heck never did tell our mothers that we needed a spanking for scaring Mr. Garlinger half to death that day, or ever even hinted to our folks about what had happened for that matter.  Ellis is long gone to a better home now, and I never did apologize to him for upsetting him so that day.  But I’m sixty now, and much more in sympathy with him over what happened than I was back then…  The memory still makes me chuckle though. 

The Image Fisher

The Image Fisher

Something from the tackle box:

       If you want to learn, then go and ask the wild animals and the birds, the flowers and the fish.  Any of them can tell you what the Lord has done.  Every living creature is in the hands of God.  (Job 12:7-10 CEV)

The Image Fisher

I took a friend to Tinker’s Creek.

   Not a fishermen, per se,

      But one with an eye for wonders,

         And a teacher of seeing that way.

Knowing she might like to capture

      All that I so often see

            Recording with an artist’s heart

                  The glories this place can weave. 

For when I’m fishing on Tinker’s Creek

      A Spirit I often perceive

            Shining brightly in the instant  

                  But not so readily retrieved.

At least not by one with a fly rod

      And landing net in his hand

            Drawing beautiful watery dancers

                  To a short lived appearance on land.

Where the fish from the fly must be parted,

      Removed from the net in her rage,

            Gently bathed till she’s breathing more sanely,

                  And returned to her watery stage.

Time to ponder that wonder is fleeting.

      For ballerinas must be sent home

            To rest for their encore performance

                  The next time they dance through the foam.

No time to take notes in that moment

      For the one holding line, reel and rod.

            But a friend with an eye for that wonder

                  Just might catch reflections of God. 

Something to take home in your creel:

       Thank you M.M and R.W. for sharing an evening on Tinker’s Creek and at the Shamrock with me, as well as for all the lessons on how to look at the world going all the way back to my youth.  Blessings be upon you both.  M.J. 

*All photos were taken by, and remain the property of, Marianne Martin of Vermontville, MI.

DeSoto’s for the Fish

Something from the tackle box:

     Keep being concerned about each other as the Lord’s followers should.  Be sure to welcome strangers into your home.  By doing this, some people have welcomed angels as guests, without even knowing it.  (Hebrews 13:1-2 CEV)

       I recently got home from a few days visit to Gulf Shores, Alabama.  It’s a trip that I’ve made every late summer for the last several years now.  About twenty-five years ago my parents started spending winters in Gulf Shores.  A couple of months at first, then three months, then four, and stretching out to five months by the time they hit their seventies.  When it got to the point where they were spending more time in Alabama then at their home in Michigan, my parents (wisely, I think) decided to sell their home up here and buy a house in Gulf Shores.  And that is exactly what they did about twelve years ago now, - just before Hurricane Ivan hit their new home neighborhood hard in 2004!

       Dad actually took that storm as a good omen concerning their decision to move to the coast.  Their brand new home, built in compliance with the most up-to-date codes, weathered that major storm admirably, despite being located less than two miles from the beach.  Aside from replacing a few shingles and a couple of tipped over palm trees, Mom and Dad were able to move in and set up house when many of their new neighbors, including their church and their favorite place to eat, DeSoto’s Seafood Restaurant, were faced with major rebuilding and repairs.  Some of which they helped out with as this was their new home, and those less fortunate folks their new neighbors. 

dad and joe on the U.P. hay farm

       Even though my parents love being Alabamians now, complete with a Gulf Shores P.O. box, Alabama driver’s license, and voter registration cards, they do drift back north to spend the summer months of June, July and August at our cottage on Long Lake in Cheboygan County, Michigan.  After all, there is the Jarvie family reunion picnic on the 4^th of July, Mom needs a chance to visit with friends and relatives she wouldn’t otherwise see living in Alabama, and Dad wants to drive tractor and bale hay on my bother Joe’s farm just across the bridge in the U.P.  While some of the Rudyard locals up there, including a few relatives, have let my brother know that he shouldn’t be letting his 87 year old father work like that at hay time, my Dad says that he will whip anyone who mentions that in his hearing.  And so Mom and Pop come up in the summer to stay connected with family, old friends, – and to help bale hay. 

       This brings me around to my annual trip south at the end of each summer.  While Dad is still capable of making the twelve hundred mile drive from the Straits of Mackinaw to the Gulf Coast by himself (Mom can no longer help with the driving because of her failing eyesight) it’s a lot easier to do it with some help.  Now, at the beginning of each summer, my brother Joe flies down to Pensacola and he and dad share the driving north to Michigan.  Then, at the end of the summer, I share the drive south with Mom and Pop, spend a few days in the late summer heat of Gulf Shores with them, and then fly home from Pensacola.  It’s actually gotten to be an enjoyable and somewhat anticipated tradition for both my brother and myself.  And this finally brings me around to the focal point of this story – DeSoto’s Seafood Kitchen!

my parent's car is closest to the door, as usual

       Since my folks first started spending the months of January and February in Gulf Shores, close to thirty years ago now, their very favorite place to go out and eat lunch has been DeSoto’s Seafood Kitchen.  Mom and Dad were introduced to this local landmark by new friends already devoted to this Gulf Shores institution, and soon fell in step with this local lunchtime tradition.  All these years later, they still eat lunch at DeSoto’s every single day they don’t have some good reason to be somewhere else for lunch.  At the very least, they eat at DeSoto’s five days out of any given week, and usually more.  They have their own table reserved for 11:00 o’clock, when the place opens up and Mom and Pop will be found up towards the front of the line waiting at the door to get in.  Lunch at DeSoto’s is de rigueur for Elmer and Junia Jarvie.

       Now, I’ll be the first person to tell you that the seafood at DeSoto’s is good.  In fact it is very good, and always has been.  DeSoto’s reputation as a first rate seafood restaurant is of long standing.  But lets be honest, there are at least a couple of dozen very good seafood restaurants within a fifteen minute drive of my folk’s place in Gulf Shores, a couple of them are within sight of DeSoto’s, and I’ll bet that there are several hundred within an hour’s drive.  Why this unwavering loyalty to this one – albeit very good – eatery? 

       This was a question that had puzzled my wife and I for over two decades. My Dad always told us it was the broiled grouper, which he orders almost every day for lunch, but since I’ve been making the long drive back home with Mom and Dad these last several years now, I’ve learned the real answer.  Yes, the food is good, but what really makes it the place to be for my folks, is the sense of belonging to a caring community, which they experience at DeSoto’s, and that brings them back day after day. 

       Now, belonging to a caring community entails more than what it sounds like at first hearing.  There is more to belonging to a community than making sure that everyone is greeted with a pleasant smile, warm greeting, and sincere inquiries as to how you are doing.  It’s always nice to ask how someone is, it makes for a pleasant meeting, but it is quite another thing to be a participating agent in how that person is, a real factor in whether or not they are doing poorly or well, before you even ask the question. 

mom and dad at "their" table by the window

       Let me explain how it works for my folks at DeSoto’s.  When we arrive at their home after our trip south it’s about three in the afternoon.  Way to late to get their usual table by the window at DeSoto’s for lunch.  But Dad says, “Well, lets go there for dinner tonight. (by which he means five o’clock in the afternoon)  The dinner menu is more expensive than lunch – but that’s OK. – We can afford it!”  My Mom and Dad like a good lunch deal, but they are not afraid to shell out good money for a good meal either, they tip very well too, and so we walk through the front door of DeSoto’s late in the afternoon. 

the new kid at the door

       The first staffer to see us is new, doesn’t know them, but politely and professionally escorts us into the lower dining area, where older staff start spotting them, and start congregating around them, so glad to have them home.  They even remember me, from last year when I brought Elmer and Junia back to them.  Someone checks and finds that their usual lunch spot is just being bussed.  Another minute and we are being ushered to an ordinary table with lots of light from the window shining on it.  It’s where they belong.  One by one the staff and friends start dropping by the table.  “How was the lake this year?  How was the drive south?  Did you get in that big storm we saw up in Michigan on the news?  How much hay did you get in the barn this summer?  How was the family?  Will you be playing bridge tomorrow at the senior center?”  And my folks are asking them as many questions about their lives as they’re being asked about theirs. 

     When we get up to pay and leave we find the restaurant owner is at the cash register.  It all starts over again!  The laughing, the hugging, the kissing.  She gets out her cell phone and takes pictures, – and then messages them to all of the staff who aren’t at work right now, - so that everyone knows that Elmer and Junia are home.  On the way out Dad calls back from the door, “We’ll see you tomorrow at the usual time.” 

the usual clientele and staff

       And that’s when the homecoming really started.  Now it’s not just the staff – it’s everyone!  We’re there at five minutes before eleven and there are already three cars in the lot and five people waiting at the door for the place to unlock.  They all know Mom and Dad.  One of them is Jerry.  Now Jerry is a true local, a genuine Alabamian, whom I’m pretty sure has never been out of the state, and whom I wouldn’t be surprised to learn hadn’t ever even been outside of Baldwin County.  Jerry runs a one man lawn care service, that one man being Jerry himself.  Jerry mows my folk’s grass while they are in Michigan for the summer.  He also keeps and eye on the place while they’re gone.  It’s a job.  But Jerry acts like my Mom and Dad are kinfolk when he sees us driving up, like favorite cousins or something, and it’s genuine. 

       It’s the same with the other regular patrons that start filing in after we’re seated at our table.  Our waitress, one of several that have been on staff for years at DeSoto’s, tells us how glad she was to see the picture of Mom and Dad, home safe and sound, that the boss had sent her the night before.  The talk then turns to family, her’s as well as my folks’, joys and triumphs, illnesses and tragedies, love, and really caring.  Oh! – and the grouper was fantastic!

Something to take home in your creel:

       Being the pastor of a small town, mainline church with an aging congregation, I have grown used to hearing the continually echoed lament; “We’re dying!  If we can’t attract some younger people soon, we'll be closing the doors in a few years!”  It is a constant sigh, breathed out with every breath it seems, like background music in a funeral home.  But, despite hearing it all the time, I’ve learned that it is not necessarily so.  A church’s spiritual health is not dictated by its size and demographic composition.  A growing church, full of active youngsters, in not necessarily a healthy church.  An older congregation of a few silver haired saints hanging on to their traditions is not necessarily a declining church.  The only sure indicator that I’ve found to gage how a church is doing, the direction they are moving in spiritually, is how the people who are in that church are treating each other, and how they are treating the world around them. 

High Summer Trout

Something from the tackle box:

       A river and its streams bring joy to the city, which is the sacred home of God Most High.  God is in that city, and it won’t be shaken.  He will help it at dawn.  (Psalm 46:4-5 CEV)

                High Summer Trout

The dog days of late summer is not the season

     To fish for trout on little streams,

           Or so most people say.

The knowing sportsmen have all left the brooks

     To cast their baits on lakes for bass

          Around Memorial Day. 

Or, perhaps have forsaken their rod and line for clubs

     And mid-day tee-times in the blazing sun. 

But I know that trout still rise to flies

     When August days are hazy hot,

          If only for a time. 

For a short half an hour, just before sunset,

     And twenty minutes after dawn,

          The fishing can be prime.

For one who is willing to gear up and get out 

     To wade a stream for such short lived fun.

This morning on Tinker’s Creek was such for me,

     With a summer fog hanging on the banks,

          Air denser than the brook.

I cast near a hole I had fished in yesterday’s twilight

     A spot where I had gotten seven rises

          Without setting a hook.

Those seven strikes had been encouraging, if frustrating,

     This morning there would be but one.

A quick splash, and the rod bent over, hook well set.

     Her breakfast tasting better than dinner,

          At least at first, I bet.

Not big as trout go, but flashing and dancing in the current

     All the way, until leader met rod tip,

          And she nestled in my net.

As I introduced myself, a golden spotted beauty she was,

     I removed the hook and let her run.

For we may well meet again upon another summer morning.

     Or perhaps an early evening tryst awaits us.

          One can only wish.

Either way, I shall have her to myself, if and when that happens,

     For the knowing sportsmen have all left the streams

          To fish for bigger fish.

And I alone will wade in Tinker’s Creek, right at dawn and dusk,

     High summer hard upon us, but my fishing not yet done.  

Something to take home in your creel:

       I really did have a glorious, if very hazy, morning on a Tinker’s Creek today.  As well as the fish I just wrote about, I had a hummingbird fly up and call me “buttercup,” as she stuck her beak under the bill of my cap.  Although I didn’t get a picture of that, here are some other photos of the beautiful late summer foliage along the banks this morning.

One Year Ago Today

Something from the tackle box:

       Respect your father and your mother, and you will live a long time in the land I am giving you.  (Exodus 20:12 CEV)

bluegills caught on an old Southbend bamboo fly rod

       One year ago today I opened this blog site, bluegills on a fly rod, to share my reflections on fishing, family, friends and faith with the world at large. My first entry was posted on August 24, 2015, and was titled, Introduction to a Fisherman’s Tales.  In the twelve months since that first posting I’ve put up many more stories and reflections, including this one, totaling 34 in all.  I hate to sound too hackneyed, but this project really has been a labor of love for me.  All of the entries on this site, be they good, bad or indifferent, have come from the heart.  In the next week or so I hope to post a reflection talking a little bit about my motivation for creating this blog. 

       Over this past year I have checked the account page for this site almost daily to see if anyone is actually reading my stories.  As of this morning the page-view counter informs me that over 2,720 visits have been made to bluegills on a fly rod.  This is way more hits than I ever thought I would get when I started this project a year ago. 

       All I can say to this astounding fact, is this; “Gee Whiz, - Thanks a lot Mom and Dad!  To have visited my blog site over seven times each and every day over this past year really took a lot of love and dedication on your part.  I love you both so much.” 

mom & dad on the porch at Long Lake

Something to take home in your creel:

       OK, - so maybe there are a few more people out there following my blog than just my folks.  I know that!  I really do want to thank all of my readers. The encouragement that your continued interest in bluegills on a fly rod has given me makes this project all worthwhile.  May God bless each of you for the blessing you have given me by enjoying my stories.

       In addition to my Mom and Dad, some extra special thanks go out to Michelle, Wayne, Pam, Von, Terry, Bessie, Scot, Thom, Jack, Mimi, Ron, and the unknown membership of my Russian fan club, all of whom have read, commented on, and shared so many of my stories from the very beginning.  -  May peaceful waters and hungry fish be your lot! 

I Just Keep Pluggin’ Away

Something from the tackle box:

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.  And the earth was without form and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.  And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.  And God said, Let there be light:  and there was light  (Genesis 1:1-3 KJV)

a nice pike taken on a "Lucky 13" this summer

nolan and grandma feeding the camels

       I went to the zoo with my three grandchildren last week.  It is one of those zoos where you can feed some of the animals from your hands, carrots to the giraffes, leaves of lettuce to the camels, tiny seeds to the parakeets.  I think the grandparents enjoyed this as much, or maybe even more, than the children did. 

       At the end of the outing, near the exit to the park, we came to the koi pond.  It wasn’t that exciting of an exhibit to look at.  The water was rather murky, and even though you could see the shadowy forms of a few fish meandering back and forth below the surface, it all looked pretty drab.  But then I saw the dispenser for the fish-food pellets.  I knew that for twenty-five cents you could bring those shadowy and lazy swimmers to the surface in a bright orange, snow white and jet black blotched feeding frenzy.  Koi can be beautiful when you get a good look at them near the surface and I figured it would be well worth the price of one slim quarter to delight the now tired grandkids.  That it did, and I had well over a dollar’s worth of quarters poked into that pellet dispenser before we could get the oldest to make the final exit through the gift shop and out to the car.  Beautiful fish roiling on the surface of the water are fun to watch.

       I am primarily a fly-fisherman, and a dry-fly fisherman at that.  The reason is simple; just like feeding the koi fish-food pellets at the zoo, there is something magical about actually watching with your own eyes as a fish rises to the surface of the water and strikes your well placed feather and hair fly with a splashing lunge.  It is an experience that is just not available when fishing with baits that ride below that plane where the air meets the water.  A fish may come up to splash around after it takes a bait below the surface, and that is certainly fun to watch when it happens, but that initial excitement of the strike is experienced differently, and to my mind less excellently, by those who must rely on the feel of a tug or the sight of a disappearing bobber to know when to set the hook on a fish.  And so I am primarily a dry-fly-fisherman, but not exclusively, as there is another method to bring fish to the top for a strike.

a tray from my box

       When I am out in a boat with my spinning rods, fishing for perch and bluegills that are hanging out in deeper water, I always pack along a few surface plugs in my tackle box.  It is not all that unusual to be out quietly jigging deep for pan-fish only to have your peace disturbed (quite pleasantly) by some larger game-fish busting the surface around your boat as it feeds on insects and minnow near the top.  This is especially likely to happen in the gathering light of dawn or the lowering light of dusk.  When something bigger starts advertising its hungry presence in this way I swap out a jig-head for a surface plug and test the hungry splasher’s interest in what I might have to offer. 

       I have caught some mighty fine fish this way, bass that are both large and small of mouth, as well as pike.  The largest Smallmouth Bass that I’ve ever caught in my whole life was taken in this fashion.  You can read about it in the post, My Week of Big Smallies, found under February of last year in the Blog Archive.  As I made plain in that story, it is just an absolute blast to catch fish this way!  

the plug is just right of his head

       Not only is it a lot of fun to catch a fish on a surface plug, the lures themselves are veritable works of art in comparison to most other sub-surface fishing lures.  Many people collect old fishing lures and the old hand carved wooden surface plugs are almost always among the most interesting and desirable items to aficionados of that hobby.  While I am not willing to pay the high prices that some of those old lures can bring, especially if they are like new in their original packaging, I have managed to pick up a dozen or so old wooden plugs at yard sales and second hand shops over the years.  Displayed in an old tackle box they are very beautiful indeed.  But I don’t just look at them, I fish with them too, as watching a big old fish take an old wooden plug adds even more to the fun! 

Something to take home in your creel:

       Any honest fisherman, even those who love fishing on the surface like I do, will tell you that you are going to catch far fewer fish working the top of the water with a plug than you will going down underneath with a rubber worm, beetle-spin, or some other well proven submarine crank-bait.  And it’s the truth, I’ve caught quite a few nice Northern Pike in my fishing days, but only a handful of them have come to the surface to take a top-water plug compared to the numbers that I’ve hauled up from the deep on a jig-head and minnow rig.  It’s the same with bass.  If it were the numbers I was most concerned with in fishing I’d probably have a tackle-box stuffed with nothing but purple rubber worms.  But, when it comes to catching fish, numbers are not my main concern.