Looking back over my four decades of writing about the outdoors in newspapers and magazines, I have come to realize that the friendships I’ve made are the most satisfying, lasting reward of all those words I’ve had published. My career began while I was working as a surveyor. Back in those days with a young family, when I had a bit of free time from my job I was out on the water or in the woods, gathering material for an article; to be perfectly honest, doing what I would have been doing anyway; spending time in the great outdoors. My ‘off time” out of the rat race of traffic and duties of my job were treasured and I found little time to devote to originations devoted to my craft as a writer.
When I was able to retire at age 51 from my career of finding property corners and surveying bridges and roads, I found myself somewhat a ‘lone wolf’ in the outdoor writing field. Oh, I had a few great friends that were outdoor writers such as Bob Hood, the outdoor editor for the newspaper in Ft. Worth but because of my absence from the social scene as a member or writing originations, I was and probably still am considered a ‘lone wolf’ when it comes to my career as an outdoor writer. But that’s fine with me, it’s a decision I chose long ago and it’s worked for me. As a result, you won’t see a long list of awards associated with my name but I’ve had some prestigious writing assignments such as covering the outdoors for the Texas Almanac and author and co author of several books.
I tell you all this so that you will understand my opening words in this week’s column. Oh, writing has helped pay the bills through the years but my real reward is the many friends I’ve made along the way. Most of the guys and gals that have contacted me through this column were obviously birds of a feather; they loved the outdoors and hopefully felt the connection with me through my writing.
Mr. Glenn Miller is my most recent “Outdoor Award”! Glenn emailed me through my website and after a lengthy phone conversation; I learned he had been reading my columns a long time, about forty years which dated back to my very early years covering the outdoors. Glenn is an avid fisherman and loves catching catfish at Fork. He’s actually one of the few anglers I know that is adept at catching the lakes elusive blue catfish.
Our conversation went something like this, “Luke, we can do some drift fishing and probably catch a blue catfish or two but the water we would be fishing is pretty off color. How about we put the blue cats on the backburner and go for channel catfish? I can guarantee we can catch limits to fry at that outing you have coming up in Greenville on March 1 at the Top Rail Cowboy Church. What’s it called, “The Luke Clayton outdoor Ron-de- Voux?
Glenn has read enough of my articles to know that given the opportunity I’d rather catch a ‘bunch’ of eater size catfish rather than one big one. “YES” I answered and asked if my buddy Jeff Rice could come along to fish and film a segment of our weekly TV show, “A Sportsmans Life”. “Certainly” replies Glenn if I can bring my fishing partner Casey Martz who owns Angler’s Paradise at Lake Fork. The four of us planned a time to meet at Casey’s tackle shop and thirty minutes later, we had #6 treble hooks baited with punch bait positioned just up from bottom in water ten feet deep, right on the edge of a submerged creek channel. With a couple coffee cans of soured grain in the water, we were ready to do a bit of catfish procurement!
As is often the case when fishing over a hole baited with soured grain, the bite can be slow at first but get increasingly better as the scent from the grain pulls the catfish in under the boat. Such was the case on this day. During the first half hour of fishing, we had boated only a couple of catfish but soon we began to see a pattern develop. The bite was as ‘soft’ as I have ever experienced. Rather that actually feel a tug on the line to indicate a hungry whiskerfish was taking the bait, we would often feel the line load up or possibly twitch slightly, very often we would see the line move a tiny bit. We quickly learned to rear back and set the hook at the slightest indication of a bite.
After that initial thirty minute lull in the action, channel catfish moved in to devour the grain and our baits in large numbers. A glance at the graph plotted a second bottom to the lake-solid catfish! There was seldom a minute that went by without one or more of us putting a catfish in the box. After a couple hours, a head count on the fish tallied one-hundred which would equate to 200 catfish fillets for our fish fry at the upcoming event in Greenville.
Back at Angler’s Paradise bait shop, with three fillet knives going nonstop, we made short work dressing all the catfish. This was a winter fishing trip I won’t soon forget. The catching was as good as it gets and I was able to mark up a couple more “Awards”, the friendship of a long time reader and the owner of a Lake Fork tackle shop that I believe will be an excellent source of fishing information on bass and crappie. May this lifestyle go on forever!
Jeff Rice filmed all the action which will become a segment of our TV show, “A Sportsmans Life” soon to air on Carton TV (www.carbontv.com) and YouTube.
Contact Luke through his website www.catfishradio.org. Details for the March 1 event are on the opening page.
