One day, my uncle and I were fishing for bass from a 12-foot jon boat. We were using plastic worms and shiners.
Attached to the rod I was using was a spinning reel with 8-pound test line, and on this line I had tied a 3/0 Aberdeen hook baited with a shiner. I made my cast and began "freelining" the shiner.
After about 20 minutes, I decided to check the bait. As I was reeling in the line, I seemed to get hung up on something. Thinking I had snagged a stump or tree limb, I gave the line a sharp tug. I was surprised when the "snag" started to fight back!
I loosened my drag and tried to bring whatever it was to the surface.
"What do you have on there?" asked my uncle.
"I don't know," I replied as I struggled with the rod.
Finally, I worked my catch to the surface, and I found myself staring at the extended head and legs of a huge turtle! It was fighting like mad. I grabbed the net with my free hand.
"What are you going to do?" asked my uncle.
"I'm bringing it on the boat," I pronounced.
"Do what?" exclaimed my uncle incredulously.
After several minutes, I had worked the swimming turtle next to the boat. I put the net around his head. Then, setting my rod down, I grabbed his tail with my other hand and hoisted the monster into the boat.
The turtle just lay there in the bottom of the boat, so we resumed our fishing. After about ten minutes, he started to move around , so I propped both my feet on its shell to hold him still. But, that wasn't enough. The irate turtle started to thrash around in the boat, and it was all I could do to keep the net around its head. With my feet firmly pressed down on its back, I grabbed the sides of the boat and held on as tightly as I could to keep the turtle immobilized.
I told my uncle that this trip was over, and we had to try to get back to the dock. After what seemed like forever, we pulled up to the dock, where we were then able to dispatch the turtle.
It weighed 30 pounds, and it was an experience I'll never forget.
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Thursday, 7 July 2011
Fishing on Yuppie Lake
Nov 13, 1999. Dbx16, Jeff, and myself went fishing at Dover Lake. This was the lake that my Dad taught me to fish on. For years, my dad and I would take the boat there after he got off work, and then stay 'til it got dark, at least 2-3 times a week.
But, like usual, someone else messed that up for us by not respecting the property. The owners then closed the lake to everybody. As luck would have it, the owners sold the property to a developer so that yuppies could build their $200,000+ homes.
Our friend Jeff just happens to be one of the sons of those yuppies, and so one morning - with Jeff's blessing, of course - we put the boat into the lake. We fished most of the day, catching small bass, a few slab crappie, and some of the biggest bream I have ever seen.
Around 2:00 in the afternoon, Dbx16 hooked what he thought was a structure fish - 'til it got near the boat. Then, she took off. After a 2-3 minute fight he landed the largest bass I've ever seen: 9 pounds, 2 ounces.
Doggone! I was jealous, but I was happy for him at the same time. 'Bout 2 hours later, just before we were thinking about leaving, we went to that same spot. Using the same lure, I made a cast and hooked the stump that Dbx16's big bass was hanging around. So I cast again, and then all I heard was drag going out.
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But, like usual, someone else messed that up for us by not respecting the property. The owners then closed the lake to everybody. As luck would have it, the owners sold the property to a developer so that yuppies could build their $200,000+ homes.
Our friend Jeff just happens to be one of the sons of those yuppies, and so one morning - with Jeff's blessing, of course - we put the boat into the lake. We fished most of the day, catching small bass, a few slab crappie, and some of the biggest bream I have ever seen.
Around 2:00 in the afternoon, Dbx16 hooked what he thought was a structure fish - 'til it got near the boat. Then, she took off. After a 2-3 minute fight he landed the largest bass I've ever seen: 9 pounds, 2 ounces.
Doggone! I was jealous, but I was happy for him at the same time. 'Bout 2 hours later, just before we were thinking about leaving, we went to that same spot. Using the same lure, I made a cast and hooked the stump that Dbx16's big bass was hanging around. So I cast again, and then all I heard was drag going out.
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Muskie Do, Muskie Don't
Recently, I had the opportunity to fish on Michigan's St. Clair River with several of my sponsors who were visiting from Arkansas.
There is a place on the river where a fairly strong current passes by some old concrete pilings. The eddies behind those pilings are usually loaded with nice smallmouth bass. We pulled our two boat justs below one of these eddies and began casting.
Suddenly, my boat partner's rod bent sharply downward, and the line began peeling out. This was definitely not a bass!
In fact, we soon discovered, it was a muskie. A really, really big muskie. In fact, it was a potential record muskie that looked to be well over 60 inches long.
The problem was that the only net on either boat would barely fit over the muskie's head, let alone his whole body. "You'll just have to play him out until he gets tired," I encouraged my sponsor, who was having the battle of his life. "Then I'll try to grab him."
Well, this guy fought that muskie - and fought it very well - forever. Finally, it looked like the big brute was tiring out. When he went under the boat for the last time, my guest suggested that we try to land it.
I went up to the bow of the boat, and knelt down as a very tired fisherman began to work the fish up from beneath the boat. Finally, I got a good look at the fish. IT WAS HUGE!!
I reached down to grab our prize. That's when the muskie tipped its head up, opened its mouth, and spit out what was really hooked on the lure: a two-pound bass!
Then the muskie, realizing its freedom, decided that enough was enough, and with a flip of its tail, slowly swam away.
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There is a place on the river where a fairly strong current passes by some old concrete pilings. The eddies behind those pilings are usually loaded with nice smallmouth bass. We pulled our two boat justs below one of these eddies and began casting.
Suddenly, my boat partner's rod bent sharply downward, and the line began peeling out. This was definitely not a bass!
In fact, we soon discovered, it was a muskie. A really, really big muskie. In fact, it was a potential record muskie that looked to be well over 60 inches long.
The problem was that the only net on either boat would barely fit over the muskie's head, let alone his whole body. "You'll just have to play him out until he gets tired," I encouraged my sponsor, who was having the battle of his life. "Then I'll try to grab him."
Well, this guy fought that muskie - and fought it very well - forever. Finally, it looked like the big brute was tiring out. When he went under the boat for the last time, my guest suggested that we try to land it.
I went up to the bow of the boat, and knelt down as a very tired fisherman began to work the fish up from beneath the boat. Finally, I got a good look at the fish. IT WAS HUGE!!
I reached down to grab our prize. That's when the muskie tipped its head up, opened its mouth, and spit out what was really hooked on the lure: a two-pound bass!
Then the muskie, realizing its freedom, decided that enough was enough, and with a flip of its tail, slowly swam away.
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The Biggest Pink Salmon that Never Was
Back when pink salmon were relative newcomers to the Great Lakes, my friends and I went on a charter out of Frankfort, Michigan on the Sea Joy.
We left Betsie Harbor at about 6:30 on a very sunny, comfortable morning. This being our first trip of the year, we were all looking forward to six hours of what we hoped would be some real salmon action. As we cruised to our first destination, we drew cards to determine the order in which we would take strikes.
The mate had just set out all the lines when one of the rods popped up. Someone yelled "Fish on!" My friend Mike, having drawn the high card, jumped up and grabbed the rod. After several minutes of furious fighting, he pulled in the first fish.
It was a salmon, but it was unlike any salmon we had ever caught. For one thing, it had this huge hump on its back. The color was also a bit unusual.
"That's a pink salmon," said the captain. He looked at it a moment, then looked at his mate, who nodded. Then he looked at Mike.
"You know," he offered, "that's pretty big for a pink. You boys might want to consider turning around right now and weighing it in. You could have a real catch here."
We all looked at the fish, which didn't seem all that big to us. It was only about 7:00 in the morning, and everyone wanted to catch fish. Especially Mike, who thought this dainty pink unworthy of a trip back to the marina.
"No way," he decided. "Let's keep fishing!"
So, we threw the salmon into the box and kept fishing. Eventually, we picked up several kings, a couple of steelhead, some lakers, and one brown that looked to be about 13 or 14 pounds. Each fish we added to the box further dwarfed the pink salmon.
Now it was time to return to the marina. We pulled in all the lines and headed back.
After docking the boat, we hauled all the fish up to the cleaning station. Word of our pink salmon got around, so we had a small crowd on hand when we put it on the scale.
"Six pounds, two ounces," said the captain. "The state record is currently six pounds, four ounces. You missed it by just two ounces."
The captain explained that because pink salmon were so new to Lake Michigan, they hadn't had time to grow very big. Then came the heartbreaker that we already suspected.
"That pink sat in the box all morning, drying out," the captain lamented. "He probably lost several ounces in water alone. If we'd have brought him in right away, you'd have beat the state record with no problem."
To describe Mike as being angry would be an understatement. I won't repeat the rather colorful language that was heard around the marina that afternoon. Suffice it to say that EVERYONE within a large radius of the cleaning station discovered just how creative a man's language can become when he has thrown away the chance to become a record-holder.
Personally, if it was my fish, I would have at least sent it to the taxidermist. But, not Mike.
That night, we grilled a potential record pink salmon over a bed of charcoal. Served it with potatoes. A lot of people say that pink salmon aren't very tasty.
Searching for Mel: I've Got Your Dollar
I am not a "fisherman" per se, but I have fished on and off over the years and enjoyed it when I did.
It seems to me that one of the best parts of fishing is the company you have when you do it. The laughter, the wagers, the constancy of having someone tell you to be quiet so you "don't scare the fish"—and knowing all the while that is not going to happen. After all, how can you possibly share your fish tales if you aren't talking?
Which is what brings me to write this story. I found a dollar bill in my wallet, and at the top of it is written First Bass in Boat 7-20-95 - From - Mel. The way I figure it, Mel was fishing somewhere on a lake with a friend or friends. A bet was made. And somewhere on the lake, maybe in the tall reeds, in a little cove, or perhaps right out in the middle, the first bass was caught.
From the way the dollar bill is worded, I am not sure if Mel was the winner or the loser. I thought I would put this story into circulation to see if Mel remembers that day not so long ago (7-20-95) and the memories and the laughter that was shared. Or, maybe one of Mel's friends remembers that day.
I ended up with the memory making dollar bill in the middle of Arizona where, as you know, lakes are not that plentiful! I imagine the dollar was spent for maybe more bait, or possibly a cold beer somewhere after their day of fishing, where more fishing stories were told.
So, Mel, if you're out there, I've got your dollar if you'd like it. You've got the memories!
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Annie Learns the Double-Haul
Midway through the summer of 1992, it rained for four days straight, swelling the Saco river in North Conway, NH to its high banks.
I was finishing out the 4-day fly fishing lesson with a local guide that my husband had given me for a wedding present, along with a beautiful Orvis 5ft by 8 weight rod. The class consisted of three middle-aged men and myself – a young rock-climbing woman.
The guide told us we would be practicing double-haul technique, since there was "no way" we would catch any fish with the water so high and cloudy. He told us to put on a heavy fly of any description. I secretly wanted to catch a fish, and after choosing a glittery wooly bugger, I started flogging the water.
The guide came up to me laughing. “Trying hard to scare away all the fish, aren’t you?” he asked.
I shook my head and said, “I am going to catch one.” He laughed, but I remained intensely focused on my
casting.
casting.
After 30 minutes, the rest of the crew were down stream when something big hit my line. I thought it was caught on a submerged log, but then the log started moving. The line flew off my reel, and I finally realized this was no log.
“I got a fish!” I yelled loudly enough for the crew to hear and come running. As the class and guide gathered
around, I played and landed a beautiful 4-pound brown trout.
around, I played and landed a beautiful 4-pound brown trout.
As I let the fish go, I turned to my guide and said “I told you so.”
Daddy
4:30 a.m.
“Time to get up,” Daddy would say.
It was Daddy’s internal alarm clock that would awaken him during our “Speck" vacation. I'm referring, of course, to Speckled Perch. That’s what folks in central Florida would call the crappie Daddy and I would fish for in the waters of Lake Beresford.
It was the favorite week of Daddy’s year. The long-awaited fishing trip was the highlight of a long year of repairing cable lines for Southern Bell and running a small farm. He would rouse me from the comfort of my bed to dress for a day of "hunting slab."
It was usually mid-spring to early summer when he would book us for a week at the Hontoon Marina in DeLand, Florida. The rest of the family, Mama and three sisters, would come along but pass on the early wakeup call, instead waiting until later to join us in our fishing adventure.
By 5am, Daddy and I would be eating at his favorite restaurant for breakfast—a truckstop place I fail to remember the name of, but I can't forget that they made the best tasting grits and eggs I can remember. It was always a treat to talk to the different truckers who frequented the place.
With a full belly, Daddy and I would go back to the marina, where he would rent a slip for the Bass Tracker PF-16 he had purchased for this auspicious annual occasion. The boat would be ready the night before, being that Daddy was not one to get ready the day of. He made sure the poles were rigged, the gas tank full, and the afternoon lunch packed. We were not coming back for lunch. Lunch was a waste of time and travel according to Daddy. Also it took up too much fishing time. Many times a bologna sandwich, pack of malt crackers, and plenty of Coca Colas were the items on the menu for the lunchtime feast.
In the marina store, we bought the minnows we would need, and then walk down to the boat. At the first sign of safe light, we would set out into the St. John’s River.
The early morning air would cut through my clothes like pins. I learned if I turned my back into the wind, it was a bit more bearable. What was even better was being able to sit right behind Daddy and use him as a shield against the piercing wind. I still remember smelling his Old Spice as we raced toward his favorite patch of lily pads. After fifteen minutes of shivering in the morning air, we had a minnow on a hook and were dipping into the spaces between the lily pads. Each dip brought a different anticipation of when the first strike would come.
Daddy had an uncanny knack of catching the first fish of the day. He never let on he had hooked a speck until I heard the singing of the reel on his fiberglass pole. By the time I heard his reel singing, Daddy would have the fish in the boat. I would ask him where he hooked the fish. “Over there,” he would reply, without pointing or even nodding his head. I just had to open the live well and let him deposit the prize. Finding specks was my problem to figure out. Eventually, I would figure out how to find the ever-elusive prey. Just keep fishing.
We would fish that same set of lily pads at the same time every day. Just like anyplace Daddy would fish, if the specks were biting, we stayed; if they weren’t, we moved to another place.
That was typically the routine for the day: keep trying and trying, until success came our way. Daddy would maneuver the boat with precise movement to avoid running over the swarm of specks we would often encounter. He would control the trolling motor with one foot, fish with one hand, drink his Coke with the other hand, and all without getting too close to the limbs of the trees on the banks of the St. Johns. He knew if we got close to the limbs of the trees, I would find a way to go squirrel fishing.
I would catch one to every three of Daddy’s. Our goal was to catch the limit. Often we would come close, but I don’t remember ever catching the limit. But, it was sure fun trying. We would try many techniques, and even experiment with radical ideas. But, Daddy would often stay with dipping the minnows in amongst the lily pads.
By the time darkness would start setting in, we would head back to the Hontoon Marina. According to how far we were away, Daddy would set toward the marina and get there with barely enough light to see our way back to the slip. We would unload our catch into the cooler, and clean them in the cleaning station at the end of the dock under the watchful eye of an owl. The marina manager told us if we gave him one of our fish, he would leave us alone. Daddy didn’t want to give up any of our catch the first time we encountered him. Well, the first time we stepped away from the cooler, the owl swept down, flipped the lid of the cooler himself, and took off with one of our fish! Then, sure enough, he left us alone to clean our fish. After that, we would sacrifice one fish to the owl every time we went to clean our fish.
Now I live in LaGrange, Georgia. The memories of Daddy and I fishing still live while I fish in West Point Lake. The techniques are a lot different, but the effort is still the same: keep trying until you find them. Daddy, I have even found a way to avoid the hot part of the day and the activities of the ski boats. It’s called night fishing. Man, I’ve got lights which attract millions of baitfish, spinner rods that fish thirty feet deep if I have to, and I'm able to tie up under Yellow Jacket Creek Bridge without having to run the trolling motor.
Oh, yeah, I’ve still got the Bass Tracker PF-16 we used in DeLand.
Thank you, Daddy, for the lessons you taught me and the good times we had fishing together.
Cal
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“Time to get up,” Daddy would say.
It was Daddy’s internal alarm clock that would awaken him during our “Speck" vacation. I'm referring, of course, to Speckled Perch. That’s what folks in central Florida would call the crappie Daddy and I would fish for in the waters of Lake Beresford.
It was the favorite week of Daddy’s year. The long-awaited fishing trip was the highlight of a long year of repairing cable lines for Southern Bell and running a small farm. He would rouse me from the comfort of my bed to dress for a day of "hunting slab."
It was usually mid-spring to early summer when he would book us for a week at the Hontoon Marina in DeLand, Florida. The rest of the family, Mama and three sisters, would come along but pass on the early wakeup call, instead waiting until later to join us in our fishing adventure.
By 5am, Daddy and I would be eating at his favorite restaurant for breakfast—a truckstop place I fail to remember the name of, but I can't forget that they made the best tasting grits and eggs I can remember. It was always a treat to talk to the different truckers who frequented the place.
With a full belly, Daddy and I would go back to the marina, where he would rent a slip for the Bass Tracker PF-16 he had purchased for this auspicious annual occasion. The boat would be ready the night before, being that Daddy was not one to get ready the day of. He made sure the poles were rigged, the gas tank full, and the afternoon lunch packed. We were not coming back for lunch. Lunch was a waste of time and travel according to Daddy. Also it took up too much fishing time. Many times a bologna sandwich, pack of malt crackers, and plenty of Coca Colas were the items on the menu for the lunchtime feast.
In the marina store, we bought the minnows we would need, and then walk down to the boat. At the first sign of safe light, we would set out into the St. John’s River.
The early morning air would cut through my clothes like pins. I learned if I turned my back into the wind, it was a bit more bearable. What was even better was being able to sit right behind Daddy and use him as a shield against the piercing wind. I still remember smelling his Old Spice as we raced toward his favorite patch of lily pads. After fifteen minutes of shivering in the morning air, we had a minnow on a hook and were dipping into the spaces between the lily pads. Each dip brought a different anticipation of when the first strike would come.
Daddy had an uncanny knack of catching the first fish of the day. He never let on he had hooked a speck until I heard the singing of the reel on his fiberglass pole. By the time I heard his reel singing, Daddy would have the fish in the boat. I would ask him where he hooked the fish. “Over there,” he would reply, without pointing or even nodding his head. I just had to open the live well and let him deposit the prize. Finding specks was my problem to figure out. Eventually, I would figure out how to find the ever-elusive prey. Just keep fishing.
We would fish that same set of lily pads at the same time every day. Just like anyplace Daddy would fish, if the specks were biting, we stayed; if they weren’t, we moved to another place.
That was typically the routine for the day: keep trying and trying, until success came our way. Daddy would maneuver the boat with precise movement to avoid running over the swarm of specks we would often encounter. He would control the trolling motor with one foot, fish with one hand, drink his Coke with the other hand, and all without getting too close to the limbs of the trees on the banks of the St. Johns. He knew if we got close to the limbs of the trees, I would find a way to go squirrel fishing.
I would catch one to every three of Daddy’s. Our goal was to catch the limit. Often we would come close, but I don’t remember ever catching the limit. But, it was sure fun trying. We would try many techniques, and even experiment with radical ideas. But, Daddy would often stay with dipping the minnows in amongst the lily pads.
By the time darkness would start setting in, we would head back to the Hontoon Marina. According to how far we were away, Daddy would set toward the marina and get there with barely enough light to see our way back to the slip. We would unload our catch into the cooler, and clean them in the cleaning station at the end of the dock under the watchful eye of an owl. The marina manager told us if we gave him one of our fish, he would leave us alone. Daddy didn’t want to give up any of our catch the first time we encountered him. Well, the first time we stepped away from the cooler, the owl swept down, flipped the lid of the cooler himself, and took off with one of our fish! Then, sure enough, he left us alone to clean our fish. After that, we would sacrifice one fish to the owl every time we went to clean our fish.
Now I live in LaGrange, Georgia. The memories of Daddy and I fishing still live while I fish in West Point Lake. The techniques are a lot different, but the effort is still the same: keep trying until you find them. Daddy, I have even found a way to avoid the hot part of the day and the activities of the ski boats. It’s called night fishing. Man, I’ve got lights which attract millions of baitfish, spinner rods that fish thirty feet deep if I have to, and I'm able to tie up under Yellow Jacket Creek Bridge without having to run the trolling motor.
Oh, yeah, I’ve still got the Bass Tracker PF-16 we used in DeLand.
Thank you, Daddy, for the lessons you taught me and the good times we had fishing together.
Cal
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How Do Blind People Fish?
When I was very young, my father introduced me to fishing. He let me hold the rod with him while the float bobbed on the water and the sinker fell slowly to the bottom of our favourite lake. At first, I just held it to get a feeling of what it's like when fish are not biting. And then, slowly, my father taught me how to fish in earnest.
By holding the rod, I could feel if a fish pulled. I learned how to pull the rod in the right way so that my father could get the fish off the hook. Later, when I fished with rollers and a vertical rod, I could hear the bell when a fish pulled and reel in the line with the roller.
Baiting the hook was a challenge. I needed to feel everything on the hook and also do the baiting, and that sometimes takes more than two hands. I developed a method of holding the hook with both hands with the bait in my right hand, which was my better one. We started off with wooden replicas of hooks and just bread for bait. Then, we moved to regular hooks, and the bait turned to meat when I mastered the bread.
Tying the weights was a bit tricky at first. The line is so thin and sometimes slippery, and it was tough to thread and tie on the weights. I started with the thicker lines, and later I gained the dexterity that allowed me to tie the small weights onto the thinner lines.Fishing from a boat or a rock in the water was fun. I could feel the fish better and raise the lines almost by myself, because you don't have to pull backwards like I did when fishing from land.
I could never master the art of throwing the line a long distance. Also, taking fish off the line was tricky because of their flopping and shaking. I just grabbed the hook and tried to free it from the fish's mouth, and it wriggled and slipped away.
Nowadays, my father is old and does not fish anymore. I troll only the Internet, but the fishing memories will remain with us for good.
The Mississippi Deep Sea Fishing Rodeo 1972
It all began when Michael caught a big fish, a spotted weakfish. But we didn't call it that. Michael caught a speck, short for speckled trout, so named to distinguish it from a white trout, which is smaller and not so tasty. None of these are really trout. It seems many fish on the coast are called trout. As we were to find out, the largemouth bass that come up into the brackish waters of the bayous are called green trout (we call them black bass in Texas).
It was June of 1972, and I was ending 11 years of service in the Air Force. We had been stationed in Massachusetts, Texas, and finally at Keesler AFB in Biloxi Mississippi. My last day on active duty would be June 30, and on July 1 we would be on our way to my first civilian job in Birmingham. When we were transferred to Biloxi, we naturally adapted to the saltwater environment of the Mississippi Sound and the brackish waters of Fort Bayou, learning to use live shrimp for specks.
Our family—Barbara, Rob, Dave and Mike—had begun tent camping when Rob, the oldest, was less than a year old, and we had camped with infants in diapers when there were no disposable diapers. All of my sons had been fishing from the time they could walk, and all of them were passionate about it, with Michael the most enthusiastic of all. He'd fish in a rain puddle.
Only five years old, Michael was already an accomplished angler, as were his two older brothers. ‘Keep the rod tip up.' 'Don't give him any slack.' 'Let the drag do the work.’ If I'd said those things out loud, Michael would have given me a withering look. "I know how to fish," he’d have said. He didn’t need my advice.
Our boat was a 15 foot Chrysler Commando with a 55-HP Chrysler engine. A fisherman friend of mine had recommended it as ideal for use in the Mississippi Sound, capable of going as far as the offshore Ship and Horn Islands, as long as the weather was calm. But the boat turned out to be a disaster. No matter how many times I brought it back for tuneups, the engine would stall just as I was bringing the boat into the dock, preventing me from stopping its forward speed by applying reverse power. How we avoided disastrous crashes I'll never know. We stuck with that boat until the boys were in their teens and it no longer had enough power to pull them on water skis.
Back to Michael's fish.
Michael fought that monster for quite awhile before it finally tired. When it was close enough to the boat, I scooped it up in the net. My son knew this was a big fish, bigger than any he had ever caught. As I was dislodging the hook with longnose pliers, he got the fish scale from the tackle box.
"Look, Dad, over 5 pounds. Remember, you promised, you promised."
And so I had. If any of the boys ever caught a fish weighing more than five pounds, we would have it mounted.
"Let's go now, please Dad?"
We had been out long enough anyway, so I headed back into the bayou and up to the boat launch. After backing the trailer into our driveway, we unhooked and headed for Biloxi and John Cook's taxidermy shop. It would be the first of many visits.
We were in the midst of selling our house and the new owners wanted to move in as soon as possible, so we had to find a place to stay for my last week of duty. The Flint Creek Water Park is in Wiggins about 40 miles north of Biloxi. We decided we would camp there for that final week and set up our tents on Sunday.
After we had pitched the tents, we found that there was a covered area with boat slips that were available to the campers. All of the slips were empty, so we launched the boat and took it over to one of the berths.
Monday morning, after breakfast, we took the boat out for a spin. It was a very pretty lake surrounded by pine forest. It was small enough that even with a speed limit of less than 10 miles an hour, chugging along with the engine just idling, we could go from one end to the other in 15 or 20 minutes. There were fishing rods in the rod holders and Mike said he wanted to fish.
"C'mon Dad, let me troll a lure."
"There are no fish in this little lake, and you'll just get hung up."
"Please, Dad? What lure should I use?"
I looked in the tackle box and found a Bomber bait we had used for bass fishing in Texas.
"OK, tie this one on, and toss it over and let some line out."
The bomber bait had two sets of treble hooks and a lip which made the plug dive down and bounce off the bottom. Sure enough, a few minutes after tossing out his lure, Mike's rod arched over and the drag began to sing.
I put the boat in reverse to stop it, intending to back up and unsnag the lure.
"Dammit, I knew we'd get hung up."
At that moment, there was a fearsome splash and a sizeable bass came leaping out of the water, head wagging trying to throw the hook. Mike kept up the tension on the line and didn't give any slack when the fish jumped, and in a few minutes had it alongside the boat so that I could get my thumb into its lower lip and haul it aboard.
The bass was still struggling, and I had to be careful not to impale myself on the treble hooks. A landing net might have been safer, but when fishing with plugs the hooks would get tangled in the net so it wasn't worth the trouble.
No sooner had I gotten the hooks out with the pliers than Mike had the scale out. "Six pounds, Dad. Can we have it mounted?"
What could I say? I had promised. That afternoon, we drove the 40 mile to Biloxi to John Cook's. "Nice fish," commented the taxidermist. Even he seemed impressed.
Now Mike had two fish mounted and Rob and Dave were somewhat peeved. The next morning, the sun had just risen when Rob and Dave were shaking our tent shouting, "Get up Dad. C’mon mom. Let's go. Get up. We want to go fishing."
"Hold your pants on, boys. Breakfast first."
We were on the water by 8 and we had four rods in rod holders trolling Bombers. In a weedy lake like this, we were bound to lose some. Sure enough, we hung several times, but if I stopped the boat quickly enough and reversed, the lure would come loose and float to the surface.
After about an hour of trolling, we passed over the hot spot where Mike had caught his fish, and for the first time that morning when the rod arched over, it wasn't because a lure had hung. We could tell from the quivering rod tip that we had a fish on.
David was closest to the rod and he pulled it out of the holder. After a few minutes of playing the fish, letting it tire against the drag, we were able to land it. He got out the scale and announced "Six and a half."
Not wanting the fish to lose a drop of weight, he took off his T-shirt and dipped it in the lake, then wrapped it around the fish and put it in the cooler.
Another hour of trolling resulted in two lost Bombers and no more fish. After a quick lunch, nothing would do but to get in the car for a ride to the taxidermist. "Nice fish," he said once more.
I was beginning to worry about how much all this mounting of fish would cost. We stopped by a sporting goods store and bought half a dozen more Bombers in various colors and headed back to camp.
The next day would be our last on the water. Then I would be going to the base to get my medal and discharge papers, and we would be preparing to break camp for an early start on our trip to Birmingham and the new house and new job.
Rob had yet to catch a fish worthy of being mounted, and he was impatient to be fishing. We trolled over the two spots that had been so productive. It was a good day of fishing. Rob finally got his bass. Dave and Mike each caught one, and my wife Barbara reeled one in as well. After lunch, we drove to the taxidermist to have the two largest bass mounted. Fortunately, one of them was Rob's, so he finally had his trophy.
As the taxidermist was writing up our order, he told us that he was the weighmaster for the Mississippi Deep Sea Fishing Rodeo starting on Saturday, July 2. The tournament was held every year in Gulfport Mississippi, and this year it would be during the July 4th weekend. It was by invitation only, and he'd be happy to enter us in the "green trout" division, green trout being the local name for largemouth bass.
To clinch the deal, he said "And the first prize in that division is a Honda Mini-Trail motor bike."
That got the boys’ attention and Rob said, "Dad, let's do it, let's enter!"
"Hold on," I protested. "First, we'll be up against the pros, so what chance do we have? Second, we can't stay at the campground, which will be full on this holiday weekend. And last, but not least, I have to be in Birmingham to start my job, and I'd rather not be late for my first day."
However, I was only finishing up my tour, so it wasn't a retirement ceremony with everyone passing in review. Instead, it was the hospital commander, the chief of medicine, and a few of my colleagues sending me off to my new life. Someone had brought some champagne, and after a toast and the presentation of my medal for meritorious service, I headed back to Wiggins to start a new adventure.
The campground was already filling up for the holiday weekend. There was a lot of traffic on the park road, so it took me a little while to get to the campsite. I stared in disbelief. When I had left that morning, driving our red VW Beetle, our site contained two green umbrella tents and a blue and white VW bus. But now, there was a big ugly orange and blue cabin tent and two pickup trucks.
"What happened to the people who were camped here?" I asked the new owner of the site.
The man shook his head. "Sorry. There wasn't anyone here when we came in this morning. This is the site they give us at the office."
I went back to the camp office, and the manager said, "I thought you'd be by. The missus asked me to tell you we found you a site in loop B across the lake from where you were camped. We had a last minute cancellation. Pretty lucky, huh?"
I found the other site, and there they were, all set up and looking proud as punch. "We did it all ourselves." Rob was pretty puffed up. "We talked them into giving us a site for the weekend and moved the whole camp ourselves."
I was still a bit confused, though I must say I was impressed that my wife and 3 little kids were able to move the camp themselves.
"Why did you bother? We didn't have to break camp till tomorrow morning, and we thought we'd beat the holiday traffic by getting an early start."
"But Dad, now we can enter the fishing rodeo."
'What the hell,' I thought.
"Why not? I guess I'd better call my new boss and tell him we'd be a little late getting to Birmingham." He had told me there was no rush, and to take my time and let him know when we had arrived.
There were a few boats out on the lake on Saturday morning, the first day of the tournament. From the way the fishermen were casting toward the shore, I assumed they were using plastic worms. Usually purple in color, they had become the favorite bass bait. A sliding sinker would be placed on the line above a large single hook. The worm would be threaded onto the hook, pushed up the shank until the point came through. Then the hook would be rotated and pushed back into the body of the worm, making the rig "weedless."
You could toss a plastic worm into the deep cover preferred by the fish and not get hung up on the underwater tangle of weeds and roots. It took patience. Raise the rod tip, let it fall (imagining the worm fluttering back down), and slowly take up the slack. If you felt a tug, you let the reel freespool with the fish taking the bait and starting to swim away. After a moment, you'd close the bail or thumb the spool (if you were using a casting rather than a spinning reel) and jerk hard, setting the hook into the fish's mouth. Sometimes the fish would swallow the worm and would not survive dislodging the deeply embedded hook, but in those days most of us were meat fishermen and didn't practice catch and release.
We didn't own any plastic worms. We had left Texas just before they became popular, and we hadn't developed the skills necessary to be successful with them. So there we were, chugging along, bouncing the bombers off the bottom behind us, and stopping now and then to retrieve a snagged lure.
Our previous days of fishing had taught me that bass prefer certain spots. If we caught a large fish and came back to the same spot the next day, we'd find that another big one had taken its place. So we trolled the same path and, sure enough, we caught two more large fish in exactly the spots we had caught the others.
We drove down to Gulfport and found John Cook at the weigh station under the big tent. The area was crowded with fishermen checking in their sharks, redfish, groupers and other gulf fish that made up the bulk of the tournament categories. As he weighed and registered our two fish, he asked, "Do you want to mount these as well?"
"No," I replied, "I can barely afford to pay you for the fish we are already mounting."
"Well then, do you mind if I mount them for myself to display in my shop?"
Wow, a high compliment indeed.
"No problem," I said, although I could see that Rob and Mike were disappointed. "Sorry boys, we just can't mount any more. Tell you what, though, if any of your fish win a day prize, I'll let John mount that one for you." At the time, it seemed a pretty safe promise.
That night, after supper, we went to the camp office to watch the evening news on the TV. They were interviewing John Cook about the tournament, and he talked about the day's winners. He pointed out the giant hammerhead shark, the huge grouper, the enormous redfish, and then he held up a black bass caught, he said, by the green trout Gams family.
We all let out a shout, and then I realized that Mike had won the day prize. We would be mounting another fish after all.
There were a few more boats out on Sunday, and we had another very good day. We caught four fish, one each, none less than 7 pounds. When we arrived to check the fish in, there was a small crowd at the scales.
"Did you catch them on plastic worms?" someone asked me.
"Er, yeah," I said, not wishing to give away our secrets.
"Did you go up in the bayou?"
"Um, yup." Fishermen never reveal their hot spots.
At this point a reporter from the New Orleans Times Picayune asked the boys and Barbara to pose for a photo holding their fish. The picture was published in the next day's paper.
Monday, July 4, was the last day of the tournament and our last day in Mississippi. We had an early breakfast and were out on the water where, to my amazement, we found dozens of boats, some with two or three fishermen casting worms to the shoreline. It occurred to me that someone must have followed us back to Wiggins for word to have spread about where we were catching all the big fish. In fact, Dave's fish had won Sunday's day prize.
We went cruising over our usual route, and it wasn't long before we had a fighter on the line. It must have jumped 10 times before Rob managed to reel it in, and it seemed like every eye was on us as he fought the fish. When I got it into the boat and removed the hooks, I grabbed it by the lower lip and held it up in triumph. A few people in neighboring boats even applauded.
That fish, weighing in at 8 pounds and 2 ounces, was awarded the first prize.
That evening, after the award ceremony and the fireworks display, we wheeled the Honda mini bike out to the van and managed to squeeze it in among our other possessions. By Tuesday night, we were in Birmingham.
During the tournament, I was driving the boat, so I didn’t catch any fish. Rob never lost his love of fishing and is now a charter boat captain in Orange Beach, Alabama. Now he’s the one driving the boat and is no longer catching fish.
The Honda ended up being stolen from our garage in Birmingham, and I'm not sure whatever happened to all those mounted fish.
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It was June of 1972, and I was ending 11 years of service in the Air Force. We had been stationed in Massachusetts, Texas, and finally at Keesler AFB in Biloxi Mississippi. My last day on active duty would be June 30, and on July 1 we would be on our way to my first civilian job in Birmingham. When we were transferred to Biloxi, we naturally adapted to the saltwater environment of the Mississippi Sound and the brackish waters of Fort Bayou, learning to use live shrimp for specks.
Our family—Barbara, Rob, Dave and Mike—had begun tent camping when Rob, the oldest, was less than a year old, and we had camped with infants in diapers when there were no disposable diapers. All of my sons had been fishing from the time they could walk, and all of them were passionate about it, with Michael the most enthusiastic of all. He'd fish in a rain puddle.
Only five years old, Michael was already an accomplished angler, as were his two older brothers. ‘Keep the rod tip up.' 'Don't give him any slack.' 'Let the drag do the work.’ If I'd said those things out loud, Michael would have given me a withering look. "I know how to fish," he’d have said. He didn’t need my advice.
Our boat was a 15 foot Chrysler Commando with a 55-HP Chrysler engine. A fisherman friend of mine had recommended it as ideal for use in the Mississippi Sound, capable of going as far as the offshore Ship and Horn Islands, as long as the weather was calm. But the boat turned out to be a disaster. No matter how many times I brought it back for tuneups, the engine would stall just as I was bringing the boat into the dock, preventing me from stopping its forward speed by applying reverse power. How we avoided disastrous crashes I'll never know. We stuck with that boat until the boys were in their teens and it no longer had enough power to pull them on water skis.
Back to Michael's fish.
Michael fought that monster for quite awhile before it finally tired. When it was close enough to the boat, I scooped it up in the net. My son knew this was a big fish, bigger than any he had ever caught. As I was dislodging the hook with longnose pliers, he got the fish scale from the tackle box.
"Look, Dad, over 5 pounds. Remember, you promised, you promised."
And so I had. If any of the boys ever caught a fish weighing more than five pounds, we would have it mounted.
"Let's go now, please Dad?"
We had been out long enough anyway, so I headed back into the bayou and up to the boat launch. After backing the trailer into our driveway, we unhooked and headed for Biloxi and John Cook's taxidermy shop. It would be the first of many visits.
We were in the midst of selling our house and the new owners wanted to move in as soon as possible, so we had to find a place to stay for my last week of duty. The Flint Creek Water Park is in Wiggins about 40 miles north of Biloxi. We decided we would camp there for that final week and set up our tents on Sunday.
After we had pitched the tents, we found that there was a covered area with boat slips that were available to the campers. All of the slips were empty, so we launched the boat and took it over to one of the berths.
Monday morning, after breakfast, we took the boat out for a spin. It was a very pretty lake surrounded by pine forest. It was small enough that even with a speed limit of less than 10 miles an hour, chugging along with the engine just idling, we could go from one end to the other in 15 or 20 minutes. There were fishing rods in the rod holders and Mike said he wanted to fish.
"C'mon Dad, let me troll a lure."
"There are no fish in this little lake, and you'll just get hung up."
"Please, Dad? What lure should I use?"
I looked in the tackle box and found a Bomber bait we had used for bass fishing in Texas.
"OK, tie this one on, and toss it over and let some line out."
The bomber bait had two sets of treble hooks and a lip which made the plug dive down and bounce off the bottom. Sure enough, a few minutes after tossing out his lure, Mike's rod arched over and the drag began to sing.
I put the boat in reverse to stop it, intending to back up and unsnag the lure.
"Dammit, I knew we'd get hung up."
At that moment, there was a fearsome splash and a sizeable bass came leaping out of the water, head wagging trying to throw the hook. Mike kept up the tension on the line and didn't give any slack when the fish jumped, and in a few minutes had it alongside the boat so that I could get my thumb into its lower lip and haul it aboard.
The bass was still struggling, and I had to be careful not to impale myself on the treble hooks. A landing net might have been safer, but when fishing with plugs the hooks would get tangled in the net so it wasn't worth the trouble.
No sooner had I gotten the hooks out with the pliers than Mike had the scale out. "Six pounds, Dad. Can we have it mounted?"
What could I say? I had promised. That afternoon, we drove the 40 mile to Biloxi to John Cook's. "Nice fish," commented the taxidermist. Even he seemed impressed.
Now Mike had two fish mounted and Rob and Dave were somewhat peeved. The next morning, the sun had just risen when Rob and Dave were shaking our tent shouting, "Get up Dad. C’mon mom. Let's go. Get up. We want to go fishing."
"Hold your pants on, boys. Breakfast first."
We were on the water by 8 and we had four rods in rod holders trolling Bombers. In a weedy lake like this, we were bound to lose some. Sure enough, we hung several times, but if I stopped the boat quickly enough and reversed, the lure would come loose and float to the surface.
After about an hour of trolling, we passed over the hot spot where Mike had caught his fish, and for the first time that morning when the rod arched over, it wasn't because a lure had hung. We could tell from the quivering rod tip that we had a fish on.
David was closest to the rod and he pulled it out of the holder. After a few minutes of playing the fish, letting it tire against the drag, we were able to land it. He got out the scale and announced "Six and a half."
Not wanting the fish to lose a drop of weight, he took off his T-shirt and dipped it in the lake, then wrapped it around the fish and put it in the cooler.
Another hour of trolling resulted in two lost Bombers and no more fish. After a quick lunch, nothing would do but to get in the car for a ride to the taxidermist. "Nice fish," he said once more.
I was beginning to worry about how much all this mounting of fish would cost. We stopped by a sporting goods store and bought half a dozen more Bombers in various colors and headed back to camp.
The next day would be our last on the water. Then I would be going to the base to get my medal and discharge papers, and we would be preparing to break camp for an early start on our trip to Birmingham and the new house and new job.
Rob had yet to catch a fish worthy of being mounted, and he was impatient to be fishing. We trolled over the two spots that had been so productive. It was a good day of fishing. Rob finally got his bass. Dave and Mike each caught one, and my wife Barbara reeled one in as well. After lunch, we drove to the taxidermist to have the two largest bass mounted. Fortunately, one of them was Rob's, so he finally had his trophy.
As the taxidermist was writing up our order, he told us that he was the weighmaster for the Mississippi Deep Sea Fishing Rodeo starting on Saturday, July 2. The tournament was held every year in Gulfport Mississippi, and this year it would be during the July 4th weekend. It was by invitation only, and he'd be happy to enter us in the "green trout" division, green trout being the local name for largemouth bass.
To clinch the deal, he said "And the first prize in that division is a Honda Mini-Trail motor bike."
That got the boys’ attention and Rob said, "Dad, let's do it, let's enter!"
"Hold on," I protested. "First, we'll be up against the pros, so what chance do we have? Second, we can't stay at the campground, which will be full on this holiday weekend. And last, but not least, I have to be in Birmingham to start my job, and I'd rather not be late for my first day."
However, I was only finishing up my tour, so it wasn't a retirement ceremony with everyone passing in review. Instead, it was the hospital commander, the chief of medicine, and a few of my colleagues sending me off to my new life. Someone had brought some champagne, and after a toast and the presentation of my medal for meritorious service, I headed back to Wiggins to start a new adventure.
The campground was already filling up for the holiday weekend. There was a lot of traffic on the park road, so it took me a little while to get to the campsite. I stared in disbelief. When I had left that morning, driving our red VW Beetle, our site contained two green umbrella tents and a blue and white VW bus. But now, there was a big ugly orange and blue cabin tent and two pickup trucks.
"What happened to the people who were camped here?" I asked the new owner of the site.
The man shook his head. "Sorry. There wasn't anyone here when we came in this morning. This is the site they give us at the office."
I went back to the camp office, and the manager said, "I thought you'd be by. The missus asked me to tell you we found you a site in loop B across the lake from where you were camped. We had a last minute cancellation. Pretty lucky, huh?"
I found the other site, and there they were, all set up and looking proud as punch. "We did it all ourselves." Rob was pretty puffed up. "We talked them into giving us a site for the weekend and moved the whole camp ourselves."
I was still a bit confused, though I must say I was impressed that my wife and 3 little kids were able to move the camp themselves.
"Why did you bother? We didn't have to break camp till tomorrow morning, and we thought we'd beat the holiday traffic by getting an early start."
"But Dad, now we can enter the fishing rodeo."
'What the hell,' I thought.
"Why not? I guess I'd better call my new boss and tell him we'd be a little late getting to Birmingham." He had told me there was no rush, and to take my time and let him know when we had arrived.
There were a few boats out on the lake on Saturday morning, the first day of the tournament. From the way the fishermen were casting toward the shore, I assumed they were using plastic worms. Usually purple in color, they had become the favorite bass bait. A sliding sinker would be placed on the line above a large single hook. The worm would be threaded onto the hook, pushed up the shank until the point came through. Then the hook would be rotated and pushed back into the body of the worm, making the rig "weedless."
You could toss a plastic worm into the deep cover preferred by the fish and not get hung up on the underwater tangle of weeds and roots. It took patience. Raise the rod tip, let it fall (imagining the worm fluttering back down), and slowly take up the slack. If you felt a tug, you let the reel freespool with the fish taking the bait and starting to swim away. After a moment, you'd close the bail or thumb the spool (if you were using a casting rather than a spinning reel) and jerk hard, setting the hook into the fish's mouth. Sometimes the fish would swallow the worm and would not survive dislodging the deeply embedded hook, but in those days most of us were meat fishermen and didn't practice catch and release.
We didn't own any plastic worms. We had left Texas just before they became popular, and we hadn't developed the skills necessary to be successful with them. So there we were, chugging along, bouncing the bombers off the bottom behind us, and stopping now and then to retrieve a snagged lure.
Our previous days of fishing had taught me that bass prefer certain spots. If we caught a large fish and came back to the same spot the next day, we'd find that another big one had taken its place. So we trolled the same path and, sure enough, we caught two more large fish in exactly the spots we had caught the others.
We drove down to Gulfport and found John Cook at the weigh station under the big tent. The area was crowded with fishermen checking in their sharks, redfish, groupers and other gulf fish that made up the bulk of the tournament categories. As he weighed and registered our two fish, he asked, "Do you want to mount these as well?"
"No," I replied, "I can barely afford to pay you for the fish we are already mounting."
"Well then, do you mind if I mount them for myself to display in my shop?"
Wow, a high compliment indeed.
"No problem," I said, although I could see that Rob and Mike were disappointed. "Sorry boys, we just can't mount any more. Tell you what, though, if any of your fish win a day prize, I'll let John mount that one for you." At the time, it seemed a pretty safe promise.
That night, after supper, we went to the camp office to watch the evening news on the TV. They were interviewing John Cook about the tournament, and he talked about the day's winners. He pointed out the giant hammerhead shark, the huge grouper, the enormous redfish, and then he held up a black bass caught, he said, by the green trout Gams family.
We all let out a shout, and then I realized that Mike had won the day prize. We would be mounting another fish after all.
There were a few more boats out on Sunday, and we had another very good day. We caught four fish, one each, none less than 7 pounds. When we arrived to check the fish in, there was a small crowd at the scales.
"Did you catch them on plastic worms?" someone asked me.
"Er, yeah," I said, not wishing to give away our secrets.
"Did you go up in the bayou?"
"Um, yup." Fishermen never reveal their hot spots.
At this point a reporter from the New Orleans Times Picayune asked the boys and Barbara to pose for a photo holding their fish. The picture was published in the next day's paper.
Monday, July 4, was the last day of the tournament and our last day in Mississippi. We had an early breakfast and were out on the water where, to my amazement, we found dozens of boats, some with two or three fishermen casting worms to the shoreline. It occurred to me that someone must have followed us back to Wiggins for word to have spread about where we were catching all the big fish. In fact, Dave's fish had won Sunday's day prize.
We went cruising over our usual route, and it wasn't long before we had a fighter on the line. It must have jumped 10 times before Rob managed to reel it in, and it seemed like every eye was on us as he fought the fish. When I got it into the boat and removed the hooks, I grabbed it by the lower lip and held it up in triumph. A few people in neighboring boats even applauded.
That fish, weighing in at 8 pounds and 2 ounces, was awarded the first prize.
That evening, after the award ceremony and the fireworks display, we wheeled the Honda mini bike out to the van and managed to squeeze it in among our other possessions. By Tuesday night, we were in Birmingham.
During the tournament, I was driving the boat, so I didn’t catch any fish. Rob never lost his love of fishing and is now a charter boat captain in Orange Beach, Alabama. Now he’s the one driving the boat and is no longer catching fish.
The Honda ended up being stolen from our garage in Birmingham, and I'm not sure whatever happened to all those mounted fish.
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Payara: Are They Really that Big in Venezuala?
The Payara (Hydrolycus scomberoides).
Dracula Fish, Vampire Fish, Saber-tooth Tiger Fish, Dog Tooth Characin...whatever you want to call it, the payara live in the waters of the Amazonia. You can find these extraordinary depredators in Brazil, Colombia, and Venezuela.
Many stories have been told about glorious fishing trips to the Amazon River Basin, with people landing huge payara, but the fact is that the biggest payara ever caught (39 lb. 4 oz.) was registered at Uraima Falls,
Venezuela. Located in the heart of the Venezuela rainforest, this place has been labeled by anglers as the prime destination to break or set any kind of payara fishing world record, either all tackle or line class. Believe it or not, anglers from many distant countries have crossed the Atlantic or the Pacific to get to this tiny spot in the
countryside of Venezuela to face the legendary payara. And what used to take 6-8 hours by boat from town to get to this remote and secluded area of the forest now takes about 3 hours by speedboat.
More than 14 years ago, a family from the town of Paragua, which is a small community that face the waters of the Paragua river at the south of the State of Bolivar in Venezuela, happened to own a small island upriver next to a beautiful waterfall called Uraima. Although the rain forest in South America is known to be the home of hundreds of different fish species, this family never imagined they would be the ones to discover a special place that—thanks to it’s natural conditions—is home to a predator of incredible size, force, and stamina.
As you travel up the Paragua river, you are hypnotized by the jungle, surrounded by mysterious rocks formations (mostly seen during the dry season). Your imagination takes over as you hear the different animal sounds from the dense vegetation along the riverbank, while spray from the dark current splashing against your boat refreshes your body from the intense heat of the sun. Suddenly, the current is stronger, and the white water reveals the river's great strength. It is in these turbulent waters that the payara feed, and you can't believe that the payara hunt for food in such an environment. Other anglers have had such thoughts, only until many fishing rods and lures were completely destroyed and lost.
It’s a long journey from La Paragua to Uraima Falls and, no doubt about it, you have traveled through many kilometers of thick jungle, rapids and geological formations. Finally, the horizon opens up, and you can spot white, sandy beaches in the distance, with many different kinds of birds flying over the green canopy. And then, it shows itself, surrounded by trees and water: a small island, so close to the falls that the sound of exploding water can be heard from your boat. Here is a shelter in the middle of nowhere, a fishing camp that will host you during your stay in these foreign waters as you search for gigantic payara.
Once you are here, there is no turning back—it is you and your tackle against nature. This remote place is far away from civilization. It is so deep into the forest that the logistics of your fishing trip must be set up many days in advance. You have entered the big league of payara fishing at the end of the world.
Fishing pressure is very low in these waters, and maybe this is one of the reasons the payara grow to such prehistoric proportions.
You have arrived at the moment of truth. Payara...are they really that big in Venezuela?
It is 6am. The wind is blowing. It is not yet hot, and when you wake up, the natural environment empowers your body with such positive energy that you feel 20 years younger. This is a gift, because you will need all this strength later on the day.
At the end of breakfast, you hear the fishing guides say "We are ready."
This is it. You have traveled from distant lands to see if the payara are as big as many people claim. Once you are in the boat and start heading towards the base of the water falls only a short 5 minutes away, you begin trolling in a spot called the Big Lagoon. Dark and deep, you can almost feel the turbulence created by the rocks below.
What will come out of that darkness? Good question...
Dracula Fish, Vampire Fish, Saber-tooth Tiger Fish, Dog Tooth Characin...whatever you want to call it, the payara live in the waters of the Amazonia. You can find these extraordinary depredators in Brazil, Colombia, and Venezuela.
Many stories have been told about glorious fishing trips to the Amazon River Basin, with people landing huge payara, but the fact is that the biggest payara ever caught (39 lb. 4 oz.) was registered at Uraima Falls,
Venezuela. Located in the heart of the Venezuela rainforest, this place has been labeled by anglers as the prime destination to break or set any kind of payara fishing world record, either all tackle or line class. Believe it or not, anglers from many distant countries have crossed the Atlantic or the Pacific to get to this tiny spot in the
countryside of Venezuela to face the legendary payara. And what used to take 6-8 hours by boat from town to get to this remote and secluded area of the forest now takes about 3 hours by speedboat.
More than 14 years ago, a family from the town of Paragua, which is a small community that face the waters of the Paragua river at the south of the State of Bolivar in Venezuela, happened to own a small island upriver next to a beautiful waterfall called Uraima. Although the rain forest in South America is known to be the home of hundreds of different fish species, this family never imagined they would be the ones to discover a special place that—thanks to it’s natural conditions—is home to a predator of incredible size, force, and stamina.
As you travel up the Paragua river, you are hypnotized by the jungle, surrounded by mysterious rocks formations (mostly seen during the dry season). Your imagination takes over as you hear the different animal sounds from the dense vegetation along the riverbank, while spray from the dark current splashing against your boat refreshes your body from the intense heat of the sun. Suddenly, the current is stronger, and the white water reveals the river's great strength. It is in these turbulent waters that the payara feed, and you can't believe that the payara hunt for food in such an environment. Other anglers have had such thoughts, only until many fishing rods and lures were completely destroyed and lost.
It’s a long journey from La Paragua to Uraima Falls and, no doubt about it, you have traveled through many kilometers of thick jungle, rapids and geological formations. Finally, the horizon opens up, and you can spot white, sandy beaches in the distance, with many different kinds of birds flying over the green canopy. And then, it shows itself, surrounded by trees and water: a small island, so close to the falls that the sound of exploding water can be heard from your boat. Here is a shelter in the middle of nowhere, a fishing camp that will host you during your stay in these foreign waters as you search for gigantic payara.
Once you are here, there is no turning back—it is you and your tackle against nature. This remote place is far away from civilization. It is so deep into the forest that the logistics of your fishing trip must be set up many days in advance. You have entered the big league of payara fishing at the end of the world.
Fishing pressure is very low in these waters, and maybe this is one of the reasons the payara grow to such prehistoric proportions.
You have arrived at the moment of truth. Payara...are they really that big in Venezuela?
It is 6am. The wind is blowing. It is not yet hot, and when you wake up, the natural environment empowers your body with such positive energy that you feel 20 years younger. This is a gift, because you will need all this strength later on the day.
At the end of breakfast, you hear the fishing guides say "We are ready."
This is it. You have traveled from distant lands to see if the payara are as big as many people claim. Once you are in the boat and start heading towards the base of the water falls only a short 5 minutes away, you begin trolling in a spot called the Big Lagoon. Dark and deep, you can almost feel the turbulence created by the rocks below.
What will come out of that darkness? Good question...
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