Wow! Whoever said that you can't teach an old dog new tricks didn't know about Blogger. It took me an hour to set up, and now I'm blogging! Last week I had not even heard the term.

For my first blog, I'm posting the press release that was printed in the Muskogee Phoenix on August 18. Please post your comments or your stories of "Fisherman's Rage"

Fishing Ethics and Etiquette

In the past few weeks of the dog days of summer with vacationers aplenty, I have seen a great number of cases of "fisherman’s rage"… a close cousin of "road rage" on our rivers and lakes in eastern Oklahoma. In every case, if all parties practiced the ethics and etiquette on other fishermen that we want to be treated by, all would be well with the world and everyone would be happy.

• Instead of practicing your cast net technique right on top of my lines, spooking the bait away and the catfish with it, practice on your lawn or on a nice deserted spot in the lake away from fishermen.
• If there are crowded conditions on a particularly popular spot, don’t fish an unweighted bait free to drift through other fishermens’ lines and cause tangles.
• I don’t care how many beers you bring with you… pick up the cans and take them home with you. Don’t forget your burrito wrappers and discarded line.
• To those who think it handy to net a few shad and dump them on the ground for easy access, then get another netfull for fresh baits after the first have died and begun to stink, do us all a favor… carry some ice in your bucket. Shad dropped on ice will stay fresh for hours. You won’t have to throw your net over my lines as often and you’ll be conserving a finite natural resource. On top of that, when you quit fishing and go home, there won’t be the smell of rotting shad and piles of maggots to greet the next fisherman.
• When you do get ready to go home, please re-count your catch and make sure that your stringer is within the letter of the law. Don’t keep a flathead that’s 17 ¾" long just because you don’t see the Game Ranger… He might be watching with field glasses! Know the law and regulations and stay well within them.

My last complaint is to those folks that bring their unruly, uncontrollable, noisy kids to the fishing hole with them. If the kids won’t mind, and continually bother other fishermen, chunk rocks in the water and make a nuisance of themselves, take them home.
More than a few old fishermen would rather fish in peace and quiet than have to put up with rude, uncaring and unethical people. These same fishermen would like to practice immersion baptism without benefit of clergy! I’ve seen it done… and not just once!

So I’ll leave you, the reader, with these hints on order to promote harmony and ethical behavior on the water. May you fish and enjoy the Great Outdoors for the rest of your days.

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From April of 2005, I resurrect a story that I wrote for the Muskogee Phoenix. It deserves retelling for the humor and information it contains.

I confess... I got some lines wet last weekend. I managed to drown several shad in the process of boating (and releasing) over 100 male channelcat. The females had not yet moved up to the nesting areas, and the males were aggressively protecting their individual nest sites from all comers. Not one blue showed up in my boat while fishing in the shallows of Dirty Creek on Kerr Lake.

Out of frustration, I moved below L&D 16 for some ballooning. While letting my first balloon out, my clicker began screaming as a solid strike began peeling line from my 70-year old Ocean City reel. I already had let out over 200 yards of line, and this fish took all of the rest, clear down to the bare spool.

I'm glad I had that old reel mounted to a good rod. They really built those old reels with a lot of guts. With arthritic shoulders and elbow throbbing from the give and take, the fish suddenly blasted to the surface in a rolling leap. To my eternal dismay and disappointment, it was a gar.

All of my hopes and expectations of fame, pictures in the paper and my name in the record book evaporated. I resisted the temptation to cut the line and continued to drag the belligerent beast to the boat. I didn't risk ruining my landing net on such a toothy critter, so I led his head with the rod and grabbed the fish by the tail with one hand, dropped the rod into the bottom of the boat and wrestled him aboard.

Big mistake... he wasn't tired out yet!He managed to slam himself toward my open tacklebox and turn it over, scattering hooks, sinkers and swivels in all directions underfoot. After that, he flipped my cooler of iced sodas into the river and proceeded to inflict bruises on my shinbones.

Enough was enough!I started looking around for something to use as a club... There was nothing that would work except the aluminum handle of the landing net, and it was too long. All I could do was get rid of the problem before he completely wrecked my boat and broke my legs. I cut the line with my bait knife and grabbed the prehistoric throwback by the tail and unceremoniously wrestled him back over the side into the river with a resounding splash.

That gar had to be over eight feet long and weigh nearly 500 pounds. Well, maybe in reality it was closer to six feet and 100 pounds… who’s to argue the point? It’s my story and I’ll tell it like I want to! The only eyewitnesses were over a quarter mile away.

Since then I’ve made a gar tranquilizer from a short, lead-filled copper pipe for future encounters of the third kind since it’s against the law to carry a loaded gun in the boat.

That brings to mind another story from my youth…

Some few years ago… longer than I care to remember or admit to, my Boy Scout buddies and I decided to drive to Fort Cobb Lake for a week of summer fishing and camping. We had a trio of aluminum canoes and enough enthusiasm to serve twice our number. We had set a trotline and several limb lines up a creek that was decorated with lots of overhanging trees. We were running the lines, removing fish and dropping them in the bottom of the canoe.

I was in the front seat, and my best friend Ricky was in the back seat. Suddenly, a very large water snake dropped from an overhanging limb and landed in the boat between Ricky and me. Being the levelheaded and brave fellow that I was, I gave the boat to the snake, bailing out into the waist deep water.

Ricky, being the fast thinker and fearless fellow he was, picked up his stainless steel .410 Snake Charmer and dispatched the snake… and the canoe sank due to the rather large window opened in it’s bottom.

That was a long walk back to camp, dragging that damaged canoe full of live fish through the mud and weeds. Maybe that’s why there’s a law against carrying a gun on a boat.

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