Fishing the Old Way...

I headed out to the Big Slough again yesterday. I called myself duck hunting but did not see a thing. When my wife told one of my son in laws I was gone hunting he said, "by himself?" As a man that will fall into the elderly category of the population when my 65th birthday hits next week like a megatron bomb I do know how to make good use of my time. If there's no ducks on the water I check to see if there is fish in it.   

I had god luck on my last trip catching these little bass like this on my Ronco Pocket fisherman. Today for some reason it jammed up. I had brought a telescoping crappie pole which was really to be used to rake fallen wood ducks in but I tied a short line to it and a chatter bait and it worked just fine for bass fishing. 

I remember my dad telling me that they used to bass fish rivers and sloughs in the days before reels were common equipment in the everyman arsenal of gear. In those days they used a cane pole and a length of black dacron line to pitch the lure out and drag it by downed logs and brush tops. Here are a couple of lures from that early age of bass fishing which were in my dad's tackle box. I consulted an antique fishing lure book I own but no luck identifying these. One might be a Hawaiian Wiggler. Antique lures in good condition usually have some value but I don't think these would make that grade.      

The Ronco Pocket fisherman. The advantage to this outfit is the small bass seemed to hit after following the vibration and flash of the chatter bait after a longer cast. 

The old ways still work. Granted the equipment is a bit more modern. The telescoping fiberglass pole is easier to carry down through the woods and the chatter bait has a lip that skips over hang-ups making it pretty weedless. Flip it out and drag past a brush top and those bass decided it looked like a meal.   

There was another fellow that showed up on the slough with a bucket of minnows and a slip cork rig. He caught quite a few undersized crappie. That slough is full of fish.

Here's an example I filmed of my pitching technique with the crappie pole and a H & H spinner bait. The H & H was always my favorite when I was a kid because they were small and the bass liked them but because of their size big crappie would latch on. I think they were made in Louisiana to the exacting standard of some ancient Cajun French Creole who knew all kinds of things about the size of each species of fish's mouth. Now they are made in China by folks that are probably nice as that long gone Cajun but have little idea about old sloughs and bayous and what swims in them.  

There are a lot of good bass fishermen out there using modern techniques some of us might not have heard of yet and having a great time. I'm a catfisheman and it makes me feel good to fish like my dad did. It was a pleasure to fool a few fish with a lure and the fight of the fish on the light crappie pole was worthy.

Maybe I'll take someone with me next trip. 

@Carl-Wallace-23