In The News
The fishing up North is a little different than in the land down under the Mason-Dixon Line.
By Alan Jones
May 1, 2004
To keep you abreast of the latest action where you live, here is the regional news:
Up North
Now that it's May, winter is finally starting to release its icy grip on the North, and many areas are even reporting that the lakes are starting to thaw, catching some ice fishermen in Minnesota com-pletely by surprise while they tried to figure out what that glowing yellow disk in the sky was. But on the positive side, a submerged Buick makes an excellent walleye reef.
For Northern boaters, there's nothing like the excitement of pulling the tarp off of your boat for the first time of the year ' especially if a family of badgers has taken up residence there. Man, they get cranky when you surprise them. The water temperature is around 40 degrees in most lakes, signaling the start of water-ski season, but for some reason the fish are still a little sluggish. When they're like that, you need to work your lure slower than the line at the bank, now that, apparently, you can refinance your house right at the window.
To summarize the fishing action: Walleye are looking good, bass are down deep, smallmouth are quiet, shellcrackers are poppin', and although carp fishermen are complaining about the lack of action, perch fishermen are sitting pretty.
Down South
With the temperature and humidity converging near 100, there have been some reports of visiting anglers from up North who are spontaneously bursting into flames in the balmy Southern weather. Down in Florida, there seems to be a lot of trolling going on now that boaters have to go slower than a retiree riding a Rascal with half-dead batteries, because of all the manatee idle zones.
Concerns about Lake Okeechobee's high level of phosphorus resulting from agriculture fertilizer runoff were allayed by a recent public relations release from 'Big Sugar,' which claims that the pollutant actually helps bass grow faster, just like the sugar cane crop. Moreover, the resultant explosion of plant growth in the lake is actually a good thing, not only providing food for starving manatees, but allowing anglers to now be able to walk to their favorite fishing spots in the middle of the lake.
If you're talking about fishing in the South, you're talking black bass (a.k.a. largemouth), which is the state fish of Tennessee, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi and Alabama. Although Arkansas technically doesn't have a state fish, the Mrs. Paul's fish stick is the state frozen food. In springtime, the male black bass takes an active part in the rearing of its young, carefully preparing a nest and watching over the eggs 24 hours a day, giving them their complete and undivided attention ' pretty much like human males ' yeah right.
True Tales
In Illinois, 28-year-old Daniel Wyman and a companion were spending the afternoon on Fox Lake in a 14-foot aluminum boat and doing what most red-blooded Americans do on a beautiful summer day on the water: trying to catch a few fish for dinner with the help of explosives. Using M-250 'firecrackers,' which are the equivalent of a quarter-stick of dynamite, they were having a great time lighting and tossing them in the water. That is, until a gust of wind caught the boat and pushed it over the ordinance, causing it to blow a hole in the bottom of the boat, which of course didn't have any life jackets on board. Wyman, who couldn't swim, drowned, illustrating an important lesson: Always throw dynamite off to the side of a boat if there is wind or current.
Send your True Tales to Boating World at editor@boatingworld.com, and if your story is chosen for publication in the magazine, you will receive roughly the same amount in Boating World gear that Peter Menuit paid the Indians for Manhattan back in 1626.
Up North
Now that it's May, winter is finally starting to release its icy grip on the North, and many areas are even reporting that the lakes are starting to thaw, catching some ice fishermen in Minnesota com-pletely by surprise while they tried to figure out what that glowing yellow disk in the sky was. But on the positive side, a submerged Buick makes an excellent walleye reef.
For Northern boaters, there's nothing like the excitement of pulling the tarp off of your boat for the first time of the year ' especially if a family of badgers has taken up residence there. Man, they get cranky when you surprise them. The water temperature is around 40 degrees in most lakes, signaling the start of water-ski season, but for some reason the fish are still a little sluggish. When they're like that, you need to work your lure slower than the line at the bank, now that, apparently, you can refinance your house right at the window.
To summarize the fishing action: Walleye are looking good, bass are down deep, smallmouth are quiet, shellcrackers are poppin', and although carp fishermen are complaining about the lack of action, perch fishermen are sitting pretty.
Down South
With the temperature and humidity converging near 100, there have been some reports of visiting anglers from up North who are spontaneously bursting into flames in the balmy Southern weather. Down in Florida, there seems to be a lot of trolling going on now that boaters have to go slower than a retiree riding a Rascal with half-dead batteries, because of all the manatee idle zones.
Concerns about Lake Okeechobee's high level of phosphorus resulting from agriculture fertilizer runoff were allayed by a recent public relations release from 'Big Sugar,' which claims that the pollutant actually helps bass grow faster, just like the sugar cane crop. Moreover, the resultant explosion of plant growth in the lake is actually a good thing, not only providing food for starving manatees, but allowing anglers to now be able to walk to their favorite fishing spots in the middle of the lake.
If you're talking about fishing in the South, you're talking black bass (a.k.a. largemouth), which is the state fish of Tennessee, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi and Alabama. Although Arkansas technically doesn't have a state fish, the Mrs. Paul's fish stick is the state frozen food. In springtime, the male black bass takes an active part in the rearing of its young, carefully preparing a nest and watching over the eggs 24 hours a day, giving them their complete and undivided attention ' pretty much like human males ' yeah right.
True Tales
In Illinois, 28-year-old Daniel Wyman and a companion were spending the afternoon on Fox Lake in a 14-foot aluminum boat and doing what most red-blooded Americans do on a beautiful summer day on the water: trying to catch a few fish for dinner with the help of explosives. Using M-250 'firecrackers,' which are the equivalent of a quarter-stick of dynamite, they were having a great time lighting and tossing them in the water. That is, until a gust of wind caught the boat and pushed it over the ordinance, causing it to blow a hole in the bottom of the boat, which of course didn't have any life jackets on board. Wyman, who couldn't swim, drowned, illustrating an important lesson: Always throw dynamite off to the side of a boat if there is wind or current.
Send your True Tales to Boating World at editor@boatingworld.com, and if your story is chosen for publication in the magazine, you will receive roughly the same amount in Boating World gear that Peter Menuit paid the Indians for Manhattan back in 1626.
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In The News: The fishing up North is a little different than in the land down under the Mason-Dixon Line.
