When I was a kid growing up, most of the people I knew went fishing at least every once in a while. Fishing was just one of the recreational activities in the rotation, and it wasn’t unusual to see fishing poles sticking out of a back seat car window while traveling down the road.
These days, sights like that are rare, and over the past few decades, the number of people taking part in recreational fishing has plummeted. Either parents don’t know how to teach their kids to fish or they’re too busy doing other things, but whatever the reason, the fact is that while there’s a dedicated bunch of anglers out there — especially in places like Central Texas — recruitment of new participants is failing.
It takes know-how, equipment, accessible locations, and time to teach newcomers how to fish and to spark the fire to make them want to go back again. There are groups and individuals who are doing their part, like Fish On Texas, that recently hosted a group of kids from Mentor Waco for a fishing trip and cast net workshop. The kids all went home with some newfound knowledge, fishing gear, and a cast net so they can get out and catch their own bait.
The late Charlie Pack used to host an annual fishing party for thousands of kids at an area ranch where they’d be treated to a day of fishing and all the food and drinks they could manage. I know more folks than I have space to list here who take kids and their families out to show them how to catch fish and have a good time in the outdoors. With more effort and time like these people invest, the numbers can turn around and the future of recreational fishing can brighten.
The trouble with teaching somebody to do something is that without practice, the skills fade, followed by the interest. Teaching somebody how to throw a curve ball doesn’t do them any good for very long if you don’t send them home with a baseball to practice with. I know that the cost of fishing gear isn’t cheap, and with a lot of people struggling economically, buying a dozen fishing rods for strangers isn’t a possibility for many. But if you can’t help a dozen, maybe you can help one.
That weren’t no crappie
Speaking of Charlie Pack, catfishing legend Danny King (Danny King’s Catfish Punch Bait) mentioned something on Saturday that reminded me of a fishing trip I took with Pack back in 2005. We were taping an episode of his television show “Fishing Country” at Lake Waco, fishing for crappie on some brush piles, when a fish suddenly made my slip cork disappear.
I knew right away that it probably wasn’t a crappie — there hadn’t been the typical song-and-dance back and forth bobber movement that crappie are known for. So I set the hook with a little more force than I would’ve for a crappie, which has a paper-thin mouth.
As I started to lift the Pack’s Pole — an improvement on the old-style cane pole that he developed and marketed — I thought the fish had tangled my line around a limb of the massive brush pile beneath us. I continued to pull up to see if the hook would straighten and release, when I felt the weight of a fish still swimming with my bait.
I had hooked myself a whopper catfish that would’ve been my personal best — and possibly a lake record. (Every big fish that gets away would’ve probably been a new record.) Since the pole didn’t have a reel, there was no way to adjust the drag to release line as the fish fought back, and within about ten seconds, the excitement was over. I don’t remember what Charlie was yelling as he watched the pole bend double toward the water, but I imagine some of the words had to be edited out for broadcast.
King said that while the crappie have moved shallow to spawn, a lot of people don’t realize that blue catfish will move into the area as well to take advantage of the easy prey.
“How many times have you hung something that just took off with your jig or minnow and broke your line?” he asked. King often has a catfish rig in the water while he’s crappie fishing, and he says it usually pays off. “It’s kind of hard to crappie fish and catfish at the same time since crappie fishing involves moving around from place to place, but if you stay in one spot for a while and have some of my punch bait in the water, well, just see for yourself.”
Ice storm aftermath
If you’re heading to the coast for some salt therapy, be aware that the ice storm we experienced back in February also impacted the Texas coast, and biologists estimate that roughly 4 million fish were killed because of the extreme temperatures.
More than 90% of the fish killed are considered non-recreational, but those perch, mullet, and others serve as a food source for game fish, and also as bait for catching them. Of the remaining fish killed, nearly half were spotted seatrout, which prompted officials to implement harvest restrictions in an attempt to mitigate the impact on the trout population.
The 120-day order puts a limit of three fish per day from the JFK Causeway in Corpus southward. To legally keep a fish, it’s got to measure between 17 and 23 inches in length.
There are plenty of other species to go after, though, and recent reports say anglers are finding pompano, redfish, sheepshead, and black drum, in addition to trout, biting up and down the coast.
April 04, 2021 at 07:35AM
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Outdoors: Passing on the fishing skills to the next generation - Waco Tribune-Herald
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