Where Ever Fish Are Biting, That's Where We're Gonna Go

I grew up loving to fish. First with a cane pole and minnows from the bank. I can't say what we called that. But it was clear to me early on it was better to fish from a boat. Mainly because you can row or troll over to get unhooked off a tree or stump. Most of my early fishing was with my dad and my uncles or my dad and his friends. Dad is a good fisherman. He taught me all I know about fishing. He just hasn't taught me all he knows about fishing.

One of dad's friends we used to fish with was his friend Robert. He was also a teacher at the college and we worked with him in the summers and on breaks from school building and remodeling houses. Robert was (and probably still is) a jack-of-all-trades. Mechanic, welder, painter, plumber, carpenter, etc. I'm not sure he would be considered a master of any of them, in other words a "master of none." My dad wasn't always real comfortable with all that Robert did. He was a little "rough" as we say.

Robert was the first to teach me about catch and release. His philosophy was "catch and release into the grease." I don't think in all the years we ever fished with him I ever saw him "throw one back." It was like it was against his religion. Sometimes we fished at a place with him where all the bass had some sort of internal parasites burrowed into the meat. I only remember seeing them in fish from that one pond near a church in Edom. Dad and I never wanted to keep the fish from there. Robert just called them "crunchies" and went on about cleaning and keeping them to eat.

Robert always drove a Bronco, like the one in the picture above. He had two or three Broncos at any given time. I remember this trip was to Pure Oil lake somewhere in East Texas. It was the first time I used a Roadrunner. It was a small solid white (1/32 oz) jig with a built in spinner on the head. We got into these small crappie in the upper end of the lake and caught one every time we cast out. I had a blast catching them. The only problem was they were about the size of your hand. Dad gave us a hard time for catching all these small fry. Dad is not against catching crappie, just not this small. He prefers big bass. A few years ago he caught one that weighed over 10 pounds.

This picture is of the biggest bass I ever caught. It was just over 8 pounds. I caught it on Easter morning 1987 around 10 AM (We went to the Sunrise Service with Maw-Maw). I was fishing with my uncle Mike on Dr. Ellis' lake in Mt. Pleasant. I had an 1/8 oz. redheaded white Roadrunner. I was using very light tackle, a Shimano spinning real with 8 pound test. I fought him for several minutes to get him over to the boat where Mike netted him for me.

My favorite bait, I love to cast is a Yellow and Blue Houston Model Spinner Bait (Dad calls it a Bushwacker) with Uncle Josh's No. 11 (green with white dots) Pork Chunk. But I would have to say, the best all-around bait I have used for years is a Redheaded Roadrunner. You can catch any type and size of fish with this bait. I have caught bass, crappie, bream, and catfish on this bait. My favorite professional fisherman, Jimmy Houston, used to endorse Roadrunners. In his commercial, he would always say, "you can't fish it wrong as long as you fish it slow."