Indiana Ice Fun

I met Doug Sikora at a writer event at Lake Chickamauga last summer. He was there on behalf of Bobby Garland Crappie Baits. I was there to get photos and story material. While together, we got to talking about fishing -- as fishermen tend to do -- and realized we had a common fondness for ice-fishing.

"You should come up and fish with me this winter," Doug said.

I agreed that I should.

A lot of conversations like that happen in boats, but despite good intentions on both sides most don't ever amount to anything. Doug remembered that conversation, though, and when the bite got good he called his contact at Bobby Garland to see about connecting with me.

That was a week ago yesterday. Today, Doug, a friend of his and I spent the day on Doug's home lake in Indiana and probably caught a triple-digit tally of fish, including about 30 keeper crappie. Best I can recall, we caught seven species. The first white crappie I caught this morning was both my first ever fish from Indiana and my first white crappie for 2015. Before the day was over, I also added white bass and yellow bass to my 2015 list, bringing the year tally to an even dozen.

Probably my single favorite quality a fishing trip can have is someone sharing a kind of fishing they really love -- especially on home waters. That described today. Doug is passionate about ice-fishing, and his favorite approach is to travel light and walk as far as is needed to get to the best spots and then drill a lot of holes. He is a tournament crappie fisherman, but he fishes for and catches everything that swims, and he especially enjoys the multi-species approach. Today's plan matched his favorite kind of plan, and the fish chose to cooperate. My kind of combination.

I appreciate Doug following up on that summer conversation, and I'm guessing today was the first of many outings together. I also appreciate friends at Bobby Garland connecting the dots!

Fishing Around the Clock

Photo courtesy of Recycled Fish

Have you ever fished 24 hours straight? Ever thought about it? Right now would be a great time to think much more seriously about the idea.

Here's the deal:

Every year, Recycled Fish conducts a 24 Hour Fish-a-Thon, where anglers all over the country fish 24 hours straight to raise awareness about and funds to assist with problems facing local fisheries. The Fish-a-Thon, which is presented by Berkley, is sort of like a a walkathon, except instead of walking miles, you fish hours (which is a lot more fun), and folks pledge money to support a your local cause.

Teams, which can be any pre-registered group of two or more anglers, log and photograph their catches as they go and then send in the photos and catch details soon after, so everyone can compare notes about who was catching what at the same time. There are also prizes (really good ones) for fundraising and awareness efforts and catches, and cathes are tallied using a unique points system that takes into account the varying sizes of different species of fish.

The folks at Recycled Fish hope to get at least one team fishing in every state in the country. They have a quite a few already and a wide geographic mix, but there are still a lot of holes to fill.

Fish-a-Thon days are Sept. 7,8, but if you're even kind of interested, check out the details right now because the entry deadline is this Sunday, August 12. And if you can't fish, check out the causes other teams are fishing for and make a support pledge

The Mission Statement of Recycled Fish says: Recycled Fish is the non-profit organization of anglers living a lifestyle of stewardship both on and off the water because our lifestyle runs downstream.