GOIN’ FOR THE SLABS

Fishing is best with minimal conversation while occasionally changing bait to best match the fish’s patterns… listen … let the breeze and warmth of kinship guide us.

 

 

    I love fishing.  I literally feet the tug on the line as I dreamed I was fishing.  Fishing dreams are said to have a religious context, but fishing dreams for me are damn near as much fun as the real thing!    

    At the time I wrote this, there was four days of fluffy snow blanketing the ground.  And more was forecast before the day became tomorrow.  February in Missouri is a plethora of sleet and snow, then a warmish spell teases us of spring.  Then comes fishing.  

That time of year I lust for Crappie fishing after all morning turkey hunting so I dreamed of yanking Crappie out of the icy clear waters, a frosty chill to the wind as winter yields to spring on its last breath.  But in the Midwest, we must first endure black ice road conditions as night’s freezing rain solidifies on bridges and highways.  Wet snow usually falls throughout the night, making driving very treacherous.  Such snowfall is beautiful from the comfort of your bedroom window, with the cat sitting in its own revered spot inside the curtains, alertly watches the big flakes fly past the glass.  That’s a typical Midwest winter.

    The winter of 2005 was unusually mild, nearly El Nin^o.  Late February felt like April — I could’ve been outdoors gardening!  Instead I gathered my ultralight fishing gear.  My heart set on Crappie.  I also grabbed my ol’ tattered red windbreaker.  Any fisherman knows — sunshine and three days of warm jet stream surely had woke up the Crappie from their winter sleep mode.   I was raring to go and it took only a mention to go fishing for my new fiance’ to grab a pole too.  I was excited to show him my old honey-hole at Rasa’s Lake, a private lake, the first of many fishing excursions me and my husband-to-be would embark on together.

     Fishing since I was eight or ten or so, no expert by any means but it’s more relaxing and addictive than snuggled with your honey on a starlit night with a cold beer in your hand.  And if there’s fresh caught fish and more beer in the cooler, always more possibilities for fun.  Including, not rather than.  That said, it’s an understatement that my heart beat a bit faster to soon be married to a man as obsessed with fishing as me.  We’d developed a bond exchanging fishing tales in the aisles at work — and we both grew up fishing with our Grandpas.   

     Private jokes are the wink to one another in mixed company, hilarious to each and so questioned by the others left in the dark of said funny.  For me, I took my work serious, so to laugh so hard to bring tears to my eyes midst of that work ethic I’ll admit my husband could really tell a joke.  He now says it’s no wonder he ‘got the girl’ I said that does it, he’s it, after attacking my funny-bone so well.  More like over the top.  

    He didn’t want me to share the best private joke but it has such a crude, funny insinuation to those who know us loving to fish together, I could not resist… I love jokes, dirty or clean.  He found out just how much because one day (at work) he told me the best funny fish tale, how his grandpa had caught a big sow bass.  The punch line bein’ how was on account of his grandpa had used a good old-fashioned wooden lure, whittled into of a the shape of a penis, that the sow bass just had to bite on it, therefore got caught.  He then showed me the penis lure!  I was hysterical — he knew he’d hit the jackpot of jokes…  We laugh every time over that lure and ourselves.        

    Our camaraderie quickly became enamored kinship of a soulmate, falling in love and sharing the passion for everything outdoors and wild, especially fishing.  It was the ‘cherry-on-the-chocolate sundae’ that our best friends, who were also best fishing compadres, joined in our celebration.  Love and family and fun and some excitement, meshed at last like BBQ and melted butter on corn-on-the-cob.

Okay, took care of the sweet tooth, the hankerin’ for excitement, the appetite for food and lust, now to get back to the fishin’…   

    

    Settling the long aluminum gate in the weeds, I drove the Ranger pickup past the wooden fence posts along the rutted grassy lane to the bank of the small lake.  Being late February the trees were still bare that lined the familiar shore.  I’d never fished so early in the year.  It looked odd that the trees that had always provided such shade during the dog days of summer were so completely barren.  Although the scenery lacked the usual lush vegetation, the lake was very beckoning to us winter-weary fishermen, as we were.  The sun mixed with clouds; the breeze was cool across the water, stirring the surface. We noticed evidence of an old campfire and cut logs as seats for those fishing compadres.  Seeing the many chunks of charred half-burnt logs, the youngsters had enjoyed a blazing fire last fall as their season wound down.  

  

 

  I ushered my future husband toward the Crappie holes in the lake.  I’d always had fair success on the point off a bank full of briars.  The hole was deep and perfect casting distance for a bobber or lure.  And I showed him that my best luck had been on the leeward side that paralleled the gravel road.  He opted to work his way toward the dam, into the wind.  I dipped my fingers in to test the water, it was ice cold.  The sun warmed the liquid surface.    

    I’d spent many relaxing hours fishing at Rasa’s, but I knew that time was gone since its owner was an elderly gentleman, who was no longer conscientious to stock it, while many of the county’s younger generation were very adept at reducing it.  So that day I was calmly reminiscing for myself, enjoying Ed’s company while tossing my line as absentmindedly as lazy ol’ Huckleberry Finn.  Rare just to get outdoors in late February.  

    I had driven to Rasa’s Lake for years to unwind after work, dangle my own feet lazily in the warm mossy water, munching on a snack, totally unprepared for a fish to strike.  I had come there to see deer graze and turkey strut across the field as I tossed a bass lure across the width of the pond.  No worries.  Not quite a lake, too big for it to be a pond.  Over ten years I had caught Bluegill out of deep moss, enjoyed the rage of a multitude of Largemouth bass on my hook and found many Crappie using a simple worm and bobber or minnow.

    Anyway, back to February 2005…

Ed and I fished quietly with little success that day.  He lackadaisically cast his Crappie lure as he wandered near me.  I stood near a bushy underwater snag of dead branches and young willow shoots above the water.  I took careful aim and flipped a tiny spinner close to the brush.  There it was! That tug.  I yanked the ultra-light pole setting the hook.  Instantly I cranked, the little Abu Garcia’s smooth drag let out a zzinnng.  I flipped open the bale with my finger to release tension off the 4# test line that was instantly taut and swirling around with the fish trying to escape.  Damn fish fought like a bass!  I snapped the bale shut and pulled the pole in front of me to get the booger out of the brush pile.

    When I saw someone’s bobber stuck underneath the snarled branches, I reeled faster as then I saw the big bright silvery Crappie slab trying to break free.  Steering it clear of the brush I let it run the line twice or the delicate monoline would snap.  I hollered at Ed, ‘I caught a big’un!’  Mr. Crappie was wearing out as I reeled it tight, bringing it up out of the water, that big sparkly beauty slapshing cold water all over my face.  The 4# test line held.  The hookset was good.

 I hung onto a sapling on the steep bank and scrambled to hang onto the pole with my slab Crappie thrashing about.  Grabbing it I held it by the lip to show off, it was the biggest Crappie I’d ever caught!  Just over 12 inches long, it felt like a four or five pounder maybe, give or take.  Ed and I were both as proud as a peacock rooster — that slab Crappie was going on the wall.

 

That was the beginning of me and my husband’s fishing competition.

 

That small lake in Lafayette county, Missouri was also home for a couple of hungry Snappers.  Unfortunately as my young daughter found out, Snapping turtles love Crappie too.  She was an adept fisher girl, learning at five years, little miss orneriness used to tease her older brother by sticking a worm in his face.  One day I took her to Rasa’s and within an hour she caught five good slabs.  She put them on a stringer anchored in the root of a bush, re-tossed the bobber and worm that instantly sank under.   I watched her set the hook giggling.  

I just smiled and shook my head — a real chip off her ol’ Great-grandpa Shore, bless his soul — I was quite sure he was smiling too, watching his pigtailed lil’ fisher-great-granddaughter from Heaven.  A bluish Crappie slab spun by the hook as she flopped it on the grass.  Delighted at the prospect of a good dinner, she said in her funny voice, ‘here fishy fishy’.

Then she stretched out her little hand and pulled up the stringer.  She gasped in horror!  Screaming to me, ‘Momma look!  Something ate my fish!  My fish got ate up!‘  I hastily retrieved my own bobber and raced to see the stringer.  Sure enough, three of the five slab Crappie were half chewed off, shredded meat dangling on the stringer with their eyes torn out.  I sighed.

    I felt her agony; she had had so much fun and we both looked forward to our tasty catch.  Her standing there with tears in her angry blue eyes was a bit much for me too.  I disengaged the torn up fishes and she attached the freshly caught fish with a dismayed grunt we’d at least have one to eat, ‘huh Momma?’  I agreed, patting her softly on her small shoulder.  

    Every fisherman must learn, some the hard way.  I told her the wicked culprit was a Snapping turtle and very likely still hanging around to eat anything she caught — turtles are known for getting freebies.  Obviously the rest of the school of Crappie was forewarned of a hungry turtle ingesting them because she didn’t catch any more, sure as heck not instantaneously as the ones Mr. Turtle had gobbled up.  With our fishing day done, we left to go home with the two fish.

    Such were some of hers and my best memories fishing, just hanging out between mum and daughter, soaking up beautiful weather at a countryside little lake.  She learned many fishing tricks and how not to be squeamish tearing a worm in two to fit onto a tiny hook.  And I learned she really is a chip off her momma and her great-grandpa when it’s about lovin’ to go fishin’.