A Lazy Fisherman's Hole

May 23, 2019, 4:09 PM

One of the best fishing spots near Belle Glade, FL., was at the exit gate from Lake Okeechobee to the canal that runs through Belle Glade. It was strictly bank fishing, a perfect spot for a lazy fisherman like me. A cooler, bait bucket and everything in arm's reach and, if I so desired, I could have taken my easy chair with me.

I don't know about you guys that can't go fishing unless you have a forty foot boat, $3,738.00 worth of fishing gear and a $498.00 camera that takes a picture of your catch sideways or upside down, but to me fun is fishing with a cane pole. I always took a cane pole along with my rod and reel when I wanted to have some fun. This spot I'm writing about is no secret spot,. everyone in South Florida knew it was a "hot hole" and on this particular day, just about everyone was there.

The first thing I did was put a nice fat juicy worm on the hook of my cane pole and before anyone could say, "the Tigers beat the stuffing out of Alabama" I had a one pound crappie. I re-wormed the hook and as soon as it hit the water, I had another crappie. Those crappie were not giving the bream a chance to take my bait. If this kept up, I would never have a chance to use my rod and reel so after catching a couple more crappie, I laid the cane pole aside and began to cast. Several casts yielded nothing, not even a bite, and then it happened, the dreaded back lash. I truly believe those old reels came with a guarantee of 1,472 back lashes. I probably said, "to heck with it" and laid my rod and reel aside.

Went back to my trusty cane pole and caught a few more crappie and then decided to call it a day. I just don't get the joy of cleaning fish that I do in the catching. Now back to the rod and reel. I had to take care of the back lash. When That task was finished, I wanted to make another cast to be sure to see if I had solved the problem. I was slowly reeling it in when suddenly there was a big jerk on my line and I knew it was not a one pound crappie. It jumped out of the water and I was bug-eyed. That was the biggest lunker I had ever snagged and I had not yet reeled it in. Most of the other fishermen came up to see what was on my line.

When I finally got it out of the water all of the other fishermen were guessing how much it weighed. Some were guessing it's weight as being between ten to twelve pounds. In the past,I had caught several in the six pound range and this one was much larger. No one had a scale so we never did get an actual weight but I've always said it was an eight pounder. Well, I made a few more casts but no luck. Decided to stay a little longer and went back to my cane pole and caught a couple more crappie, all being about one pound.

I had put my catch on a straight stringer. When I got home and was showing my wife my catch, I had a difficult time trying to get the bass off the stringer, Finally, I saw the problem. The first crappie I caught after catching the bass was in the mouth of the bass and that one pound crappie didn't even fill up it's mouth.

Happiness is when a fisherman forgets all the times when he didn't even get so much as a bite.

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aluminum boat on that Watershed in Williamston, SC some time back. The boy is 31 tomorrow. We were fishing with 6# test monofilament line and hooking the tip of a nightcrawler on a #6 baithook. No sinker.

The boy was beating the side out of that little boat casting and laying the rod down to swig coke out of a 2 ltr bottle intermittently stuffing potato chips in his face. I was scolding him for the third time about being quiet when I noticed his line twitch. According to my directive he had the bail open on an ultralite spinning reel so when the line moved slowly away it peeled off the reel one loop at a time.

He'd been fishing with me since he was about five so he was well aware of how to deal with that activity. He lifted the rod gently and caught the line between the reel and the first eye with two fingers then lifted the rod a bit higher to see which way the fish was going.

It was headed out away from the ###. He worked the line around the close end of the boat, closed the bail on the reel and pointed the rod straight at the fish. As the line tightened he set the hook. His rod bent more than he'd every seen it bend before and he freaked a bit.

I calmed him down by lifting the anchor and putting it in the boat while telling him the fish would eventually tire and turn toward us which would let him get back some of the 30 or so yards which the fish took.

The fish came back twice but turned away and recaptured yard after yard of the boy's line. It made a loop around the boat once and that eight year old kid lifted his arms high about his head to let the line clear the ends of the boat. The last run was slower because we'd taken up the anchor on the other end of the boat and it was pulling the boat.

He played that fish as well as anyone could have with that gear. The fish finally came home exhausted from the 26 minutes of pulling against that six foot rod and a fairly set drag.

We weighed in after it had been out of the water about three hours on one of those large scales with the metal weights and it balanced out at just over 12 lbs. It cost me 180 bucks to get that fish on a wall. The engraved plaque beneath it just says, "FISHING WITH DAD"

fixed a typo
Message was edited by: ClemsonTiger1988®

A Lazy Fisherman's Hole

Re: A Lazy Fisherman's Hole

I'm still trying to forget a few expensive boat rides***

This is NOT what I was expecting.

I had my 8 yr/o son and his 14 yr/o sister in a 12'...

Re: I had my 8 yr/o son and his 14 yr/o sister in a 12'...

Re: I had my 8 yr/o son and his 14 yr/o sister in a 12'...

All my children fished with me regularly until they...

Re: A Lazy Fisherman's Hole

Re: A Lazy Fisherman's Hole

Re: A Lazy Fisherman's Hole

I only take the 40 footer when I am fishing off shore,

Re: I only take the 40 footer when I am fishing off shore,

Re: A Lazy Fisherman's Hole

I really love the many heartfelt stories fishing always....

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