Those of you who read the last “Words of Wisdom” and did not sleep through high school English  will no doubt notice the foreshadowing of this review.  Lest you should be surprised by the appearance of such a sophisticated literary device, bear in mind the many times I have told you there is nothing short about this operation. – Ed.

Anyone passingly familiar with hook-and-bullet literature has read the first-hand account of a peerless sportsman who has performed some amazing feat of outdoor prowess.  Perhaps he hiked alone into Montana’s Bitterroot Range, lasered a bull elk at 400 yards with a custom rifle based on a wildcat cartridge of his own design, quartered the animal and packed it back to base camp, and then lit a campfire by striking a match on the stubble of his grizzled chin.  Or maybe he caught a 1,000-pound marlin from a kayak on a hand-tied fly dangled from an 8-weight rod he built himself.  Who are these demi-gods of the outdoors?  Not Bill Heavey.

Heavey, an editor at large who writes the humor column for Field & Stream, is more recognizable to us ordinary mortals.  As fellow F&S editor David Petzal writes in the foreword, “Bill is a everyman who may be the most inept sportsman ever to grace the magazine’s pages.  On the other hand, he may simply be the most honest . . . In short, his boneheaded mistakes are our boneheaded mistakes.”

The quote in “Words of Wisdom” epitomizes Heavey’s writing.  Note that he does not expect to see a deer.  Note also that like many of us late in the season, he is out there freezing anyway.  He begins the same chapter with, “I never expected to say this, but here  goes:  I’m glad the season is almost over.”  This combination of enthusiasm and fatalism is the essence of why we do it.  We are disappointed when we don’t succeed, but not overly much, because we really didn’t expect this time to be any different than the last.  But next time, just maybe, next time . . .

Heavey’s misery is not confined to hunting season.  Of fishing, he writes, “Did you ever have one of those days on the water when you happened to be in exactly the right place at exactly the right time and caught fish until you were sick of it?  Me neither.”  Instead of a demi-god, we find in Heavey an actual human being.  We find ourselves, which is what we really seek in all literature if you believe certain critical analysis.  “Like many ineffectual people, I am addicted to the transitory endorphin buzz that comes from impressing somebody besides my own mother.”  Folks, that’s me, that’s probably you, and that’s certainly armchair.

Should you wonder for a moment whether Heavey has the true humor writer’s faculty of gently  ripping your guts out with a serious tale, read the shattering “Lilyfish,” an account of the passing of his baby daughter.  If weeping openly before others bothers you, maybe save this one for a private moment.

In short, Field & Stream continues its tradition of disgustingly good writing and Heavey makes his own mark on a publication that’s been around longer than all of us have been alive.  That in itself is no mean feat, Mr. Heavey.  Your mother and the rest of us are impressed.

Well, maybe not a miracle, but a nice fat doe that sure felt like a miracle after days of hard hunting in the rain over Thanksgiving break.  I was on the stand at 6:30 A.M. the first day of my Christmas vacation and I shot this porky deer at 6:55 A.M.  She weighed around 100 pounds, and thanks to Uncle Gary and Cousin Tim, it was a happy holiday.

46,382,971.6 grains?

On a recent work trip to Montgomery, AL, I walked out of my hotel to see this bad ride idling under the canopy.  My brothers and sisters, I was tempted beyond all reason.  I have had my eye on a 3500 HD Duramax for some time, and the Federal Premium graphics would have been a nice bonus.  Fortunately, what Lincoln would have called the better angels of my nature prevailed, and I remain at large.  I guess I spent enough time at the county jail during my nine years of criminal trial practice.  I did loiter though, in hopes of meeting the lucky driver, but I neither made contact nor received a citation.

You may not know his name if you don’t live on the Gulf Coast, but you know his work if you’ve ever seen one of us wearing “the uniform.”  You know, Costa del Mar sunglasses, cargo shorts, shirt with a fish on the back, Crocs or flip flops, optional sun hat.  It may have occurred to you to wonder, “Who’s the guy painting all these fish?”  He’s that guy on the right in the photo, Guy Harvey.

While he does paint fish wonderfully well, his other pursuits also benefit those of us who love the sea and its inhabitants as Dr. Harvey obviously does.  The Guy Harvey Ocean Foundation funds research and educational programs to encourage marine conservation and best management practices.  Although I prefer linking  based solely on payola, if you’d like to learn more, here’s Dr. Harvey’s website:  http://www.guyharvey.com/  No promotional consideration was provided in exchange for this link.  Dang it.

This June, the Sporting Wife and I met Dr. Harvey at our local Bass Pro Shops in Spanish Fort, AL.  He was gracious enough to autograph and personalize pretty much anything for a long line of people, and the Guy Harvey Ocean Foundation pledged $1 for every sale of a Guy Harvey licensed product at our Bass Pro Shops that day to fund research and educational programs at the Dauphin Island Sea Lab.  I appreciate that the money stays right down the road, and I admire anyone who has so many irons in so many fires and still gives his time to a worthy cause.

In order to launch the bait, you have to “load” the rod.  Fly fishers will recognize load immediately as the appropriate fancy-pants way of saying ya’ gotta’ put a bend in it.  The one-armed wrist flick you use with bass gear is just not an option with a rod longer than most vehicles.  You can Google the terms “pendulum cast” and “off the ground cast” or “off the beach cast” for some good videos explaining the mechanics, but here’s my basic technique in a series of photos.

I begin with my back  to the surf and a good length of line lying on the sand.  Half to two-thirds of the rod length is about right, although at first this feels extremely awkward.  You want that rod moving and dragging the weight along for a good distance to induce the required flex.

Note that my right hand is close to my body and my left had is kicked out as far on the rod butt as I can get it.  In turning to face the surf, I have swept the rod around in an arc and lifted the bait off the beach.  It’s already moving along and the rod is beginning to load.

As the rod comes up and around, I step into the cast and use a push-pull motion with my hands.  The left had comes back sharply while I drive forward with the right.  If all goes according to plan, the end result is a 4 oz. pyramid sinker and a live shrimp on a circle hook headed for Mexico.  The force you can generate with a cast like this is amazing.  More than once I’ve had a cast spoiled by the line slipping out from under my fingers too soon with spinning gear even though I use two fingers and grip the line for all I’m worth.  I have not tried it, but I understand some folks use a golf glove to prevent line burns.

The timing takes a while to master, but the cast doesn’t require nearly the speed one might think to achieve distance.  You must feel the weight all the way through the cast.  Any hitch in the cast which allows the weight to catch up with the rod or get ahead of it will unload the rod and induce vibration that will destroy the cast.  Give it a whirl and you might surprise yourself as half the spool plays out into the breeze.

The last thing I expected on a business trip to Chicago was to see anything related to big game hunting.  Imagine my surprise when I stumbled upon the dreaded Man-Eaters of Tsavo at the Field Museum of Natural History.  These are the lions immortalized in the 1907 novel of the same name by Lt. Col. J.H. Patterson and later depicted in the movie adaptation, The Ghost and the Darkness.  The 1996 film with Val Kilmer and Michael Douglas is not the only film version of Patterson’s story.  Bwana Devil is considered the first American color feature shot in 3-D.  Starring Robert Stack and Barbara Britton, the 1952 movie promised:  “A LION in your lap! A LOVER in your arms!”

The most striking difference between the real-life lions and the cinematic versions is their lack of manes.  Apparently due to the extreme heat in Tsavo, lions there are often maneless.  The hides were trimmed down for display as trophy rugs, so the live specimens were even larger than they are as displayed at the Field Museum.  Nonetheless, taxidermist Julius Friesser did an excellent job restoring the skins and patching bullet holes considering the quarter-century or so the lions spent as carpeting.  Patterson sold the hides and skulls to the museum in 1924 for the considerable sum of $5,000.

This is patently untrue, as she has caught fish on most of the trips we have taken when she has actually deigned to fish.  She is correct only in that when she comes with me as a spectator, does not buy a license, and does not hold a rod for the entire trip, she does not catch any fish.  I love fishing as much as anyone, but I imagine if I were forced to watch someone else catch fish while I remained idle, it would be about as much fun for me as a root canal.

Her usual tactic to avoid fishing is to impose a series of contradictory conditions during the planning phase:

“I don’t want to get up too early; I can’t stay out all night.”

“I can’t stay out in the heat all day; I don’t want to get out in bad weather.”

“It’s not worth dragging all that stuff out for a few hours; I don’t want to board the dog and cat.”

You get the idea.  The only day for fishing, apparently, is one between 70 and 74 degrees, with low to moderate humidity, and with willing fish biting during the late morning to early afternoon hours.  How many such days have you ever had on the water?  Yeah, me neither.  We went out in the midday heat to catch the one good redfish pictured in the last article just before dark, and it was pretty chilly by then.  Supper that night after filleting and a shower was at about 22:00. (10:00 P.M. for you twelve-hour types.)

What am I to do?  I’m already to the point that I dread asking her to go.  I know if the trip does not come off perfectly, it will be an “I told you so” moment, but if I never take her with me, her pronouncement about not catching anything is a self-fulfilling prophecy.  She won’t fish because she never catches anything, and she never catches anything because she won’t fish.  The chicken and the egg.

photo by Amy N.

Some of you may be wondering what has kept me away from the site for so long.  It’s called a job, and for the time being, I am happy to have one.  All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, but all play and no work makes Jack a jerk.  Nevertheless, I do find time to slip away on occasion.  The Sporting Wife’s family came down for a visit the weekend of March 19, 2011.  In lieu of the traditional family activity, or as the Sporting Wife calls it, “sitting around looking at each other funny,” Uncle Gary, Cousin Tim, and I decided to get in some fishing.

This was the first trip for me since the oil spill, and things at Gulf State Park pier in the afternoon were pretty bleak.  It was the only time fishing salt water I’ve ever changed a shrimp for a fresh one.  I think the little bugger just gave up hope.  I made an executive decision and we lit a shuck for one of my favorite spots, Alabama Point.  We piddled with some saltwater catfish, locally known as hardheads, until evening.  We were about ready to leave, but I said that if our hard work were to pay off at all, it would either be in the 45 minutes before sunset or the 45 minutes after dark.

This redfish made me really look like I knew what I was doing by hammering my shrimp shortly after I announced my prediction.   I applied as much pressure as the 17-pound Momoi Diamond Line would take and turned him away from a concrete bridge piling.  He quickly responded by crossing my line with Uncle Gary’s.  I thought he was gone by the time we had untangled.  Reeling up the slack, I felt a powerful surge, and he put the best bow in my 15-foot surf rod I have seen to date.  It was touch and go until I slid him up onto the wet sand.  Then when I tried to lip him, he bit down on the three fingers I had in his mouth.  The hook popped free at the crucial juncture, but I shovel-passed him about 5 yards onto the beach.  Gary couldn’t stop laughing.  He suggested that I slosh the fish around in the water to rinse off some of the sand that was sticking to him.  “Oh no,” I said.  “He’s not getting near water again until he’s stone dead.”

We called the family to meet us at the pier for pictures, and we went back to the cleaning station to get him ready for the table.  He weighed 8 1/4 pounds and was 30 inches long.  Filleting him under the pier lights, I noticed many small parasites attached to his skin.  These pennelid copepods can be a sign of stress in marine fish, but they can also be a cause of stress.  It’s a chicken-egg issue, so I can’t make any generalizations from their presence about the health of the Gulf.  They are unsightly, but I removed them with the skin, and the resulting fillets provided a late dinner for our fishing party.