Simpson's nephews, Andrew (left) and Nic (right) duplicating the carpfest routine.

During a trip to my hometown, my good friend Paul Schamber and I stopped in at one of the local establishments for a beverage and to visit. After our conversation recalling a few stories from our childhood, Paul said, “Sometimes I wish things wouldn’t have changed. That catching fish, seining minnows, trapping crawfish, and shooting carp with our bows was still our number-one priority in life.”
An idealistic thought, though not a bad idea. Back in those days, our only stress was being home in time for dinner and wondering what we were going to do tomorrow. During summer, we spent our days catching walleyes, pike, perch, bass, and bluegills, and countless hours cranking in bullheads until our stringers were full. And if we weren’t fishing, we were seining gallons of minnows or trapping dozens of crawdads. During fall, we hunted doves, ducks, and pheasants with our shotguns and whitetails with our bows. In winter, we ice fished almost daily, and by the time the ice melted we were back wading for walleyes. It was a well-balanced year-round circle of activity.
We honed some of our skills in and along a small creek a short bike ride from home. There always seemed to be some fish biting, and it was a prime spot to load up on minnows and crawdads. Spring rain and runoff often kept the creek running for most of the year, which attracted hordes of huge carp upstream—far too tempting a target for young men armed with bows and carp arrows.

Simpson's friend Paul Schamber with a typical stringer of walleyes from one of many wadable lakes in South Dakota.

It only took one carpfest to learn that we needed to practice selective harvest. Although there’s no limit on carp in South Dakota, we once kept a 10-foot cable stringer of 10-plus pounders. The end result of tying the 10-foot stringer between the handlebars of two dirt bikes was a pendulum of swinging carp and a major bike wreck. After that, we set our benchmark at 20 pounds or bigger, a weight Shirley Blankley—an outdoorswoman who agreed to take our carp and smoke the fillets—agreed on. She checked on us up to three times daily. Some days she seemed relieved that the carp weren’t running.
Times change. College drove us away from the creek and our daily routine of doing something together in the outdoors. Our careers have, somewhat limited our time together in the outdoors, too. Paul remains in South Dakota and continues to set his own standards when it comes to hunting and fishing, believing you can never have enough decoys, that expensive duck and goose calls work better, that obtaining a new bow at least every two years only stands to reason, and that owning a fast, seaworthy walleye boat makes sense in a life where you only live once.
A whitetail buck inevitably falls victim to my friend’s arrow the second or third week in November, walleyes still bite nearly every place he goes fishing, and he averages over 4,000 miles annually scouting for waterfowl in a three-county area. Between Paul and his Labrador Creo, flushing and shooting pheasants seems to have evolved into an at-will activity. Pretty good livin’.

Through my career, I’ve been blessed to travel on adventures throughout North America. I’ve discovered that ducks and geese are just as fun and challenging to hunt in Canada as they are in Louisiana and that North America is full of big fish. It seems nearly every walleye you catch in Lake Erie has a good chance of weighing more than the one you just caught. Northern pike in Canada are big, mean, and abundant. In Minnesota, I’m haunted and taunted by the muskies that pass through my thoughts and trail just behind my lures. And I’m quite convinced that the mouths of the largemouth bass in Mexico are much bigger than they need to be.
Memories of the good old days with family and good friends have been with me since I was 10 years old. They’re all great experiences, but spending time fishing or hunting with my family and good friends is better. The memories created by mixing fishing and hunting with family or a good friend is a recipe that can’t be duplicated. What can be duplicated, however, is spending more time with your friends and family in the outdoors. And like most good recipes, the result is almost always something good.

]]> http://www.in-fisherman.com/2011/12/07/one-recipe-worth-duplicating/feed/ 0 http://www.in-fisherman.com/2011/12/01/an-angler%e2%80%99s-evolution/ http://www.in-fisherman.com/2011/12/01/an-angler%e2%80%99s-evolution/#comments Thu, 01 Dec 2011 16:40:58 +0000 Jeff Simpson http://www.in-fisherman.com/?p=10471 ...»]]> Knowledge acquired over time is essential for gaining the necessary wisdom to evolve as an angler. Although wisdom can be linked to age and time, experience is the main ingredient.
I began my quest for walleyes over 35 years ago. In my early years, I spent quality time daydreaming and hoping that some day a big fish would bite my bait. I often envisioned the event, imagining how the big walleye would fight and how I would land the beast. It took several years, but eventually a big fish bit.
The walleye took the bait like most do, but the rod bowed deep when I set the hook. The drag clicked as I reeled and zinged when the big fish surged. My heart was pounding so fast, so loudly that I could barely hear my dad’s fish-landing instructions. I’m guessing the battle only lasted a few minutes, but the demanding incident wore me out. Once the fish was finally nestled deep in the net, a sudden private rush of shock, pride, and relief flooded my mind.
After a congratulatory handshake and a few photos, my dad asked, “Do you want to keep it or release it?”
Release it? I had spent most of my short life waiting for the right bite, fight, and fish, but I’d never once envisioned tossing it back in the lake. “Keep it,” I said with excitement.
“Okay,” he said, “It’s your fish and you can do whatever it is you want to do with it.”
For the rest of the day, I took several breaks to admire the quarantined beast in the livewell. I also spent time thinking about the next phase of catching a trophy walleye, which was telling my mother, brother, sister, and friends about my catch. I also pondered mounting it for my bedroom wall.
“Dad, how much would it cost to stuff my walleye?” I asked.
Taking a few seconds, he replied, “Oh, I could get you a deal with a guy I know in Pierre [South Dakota], but it’s still going to cost you around $250 to $300.”
“Really?” I questioned. That was a pile of money for a kid on a paper-route salary. Saving $300 had taken me just about as long as it did to finally catch a fish worthy of hanging on my wall.
“Yes, really,” he explained. “The taxidermist charges by the inch. You can mount that fish if you want to, Jeff; it’s your fish and money. Of course, someday you may catch a bigger one. You have all day to think about it, but you’ll have to decide when we get home.”
The day finally ended. After loading the boat, Dad put our catch in a cooler full of ice before we headed for home. I could hardly wait to tell my family and friends about our day of fishing and, most importantly, about my big fish.
“Wow,” my brother said, obviously impressed. “Are you going to mount it?”
“I’d like to,” I said. “But I guess it would cost like 300 bucks, so I don’t know, yet. Maybe.”
My dad always cleaned the fish right when we got home. While I was twisting my big-fish tale, he was cleaning, and soon only my fish remained in the cooler. “Well, Jeff,” Dad said, “it’s time for you to make your decision.”
I opened the cooler and gazed at my big walleye. It was definitely the biggest fish I’d ever caught, although the life had disappeared from her eyes and her fins were now limp, colorless and decaying. She was dead and lacked the elegant luster she’d once displayed so naturally—before I decided to kill her.
“I’ve decided I don’t want to mount this one, Dad.”
“Okay,” he said. “It’s your fish, your money, and your decision. Are you sure you don’t want to mount it?”
“Yes, I’m sure.”
He then said, as he handed me his bloodstained fillet knife, “I think that’s a good decision, Jeff. Someday you’ll probably catch a bigger one. But since this is your fish, and you decided to keep it, I think it’s important that you be the one who cleans it.”
No problem, I thought, unaware of the lesson being taught. I hoisted the limp beast out of the cooler and onto the cleaning table. I gripped the wooden handle of the knife and inserted the tip of the blade just behind the gill plate. The initial cut was more physically challenging than anticipated. The scales were large, the skin was thick and the meat was deep. As I turned the blade toward her rib cage, I had to use most of my strength to force the knife through each oversized rib bone. The other side of the fish took just as much time and effort. Eventually, though, two oversized fillets lay next to the long lifeless carcass and the big head. The scene is imprinted in my memory.
In one day, thanks to my dad and that big fish, I matured as an angler. The experience not only gave me wisdom, but I also gained a personal respect and admiration for all fish. Oh, like a young boy, I still daydream about catching the big ones, but today the dream always ends with releasing them. Truth is, we all need experience to evolve as anglers—aging is part of living and the time we have to learn.

Whenever the daily grind wears on me, I stop to think about three things: birth, life and death. I think about how fortunate I am even to be breathing. It’s amazing how many billions of people were born, lived, and died prior to my existence. And I’m betting billions of individuals are going to live and die long after I’m gone. For reasons unknown, our numbers (my twin brother John and I) were finally drawn in 1971—birth is quite the winning lottery ticket. Of course, every ticket of life often lasts less than 100 years, which is a small window of opportunity in the overall scheme of things.

Taking life for granted is a human flaw and, for whatever reason, most of us struggle to live to our full potential. By definition, potential is the capacity or ability for future development or achievement. One of the worst things anyone can say about you is that you had potential—which means you don’t have it anymore.

I’ve yet to meet anyone who didn’t have it; in fact, I believe we all have potential—it’s the gift of being human. But I’ve also met plenty of people who failed to capitalize on it. Certain hardships and losses are obstacles that can get in your way and stifle your life, if you let them. The death of a close friend or loved one, losing a good job, bankruptcy, divorce, tough childhood, serious injury, or enduring a severe sickness are things people around the world experience. They’re all experiences the opposite of easy, but they’re also a fact of life, and it’s our own responsibility as individuals to work through and overcome them. Don’t, and you won’t tap into your own personal potential here on earth.

Putting forth effort to achieve your goals is part of maximizing your potential. It’s completely healthy to work hard to achieve great things in your career. Maybe you want to be the best walleye angler in the world. Great, go for it. Maybe you’ve dedicated most of your life trying to leave your mark in the fishing industry. Or maybe you’ve worked all your life striving to make millions of dollars. All impressive accomplishments, but there’s more to life than being a hard worker, great angler, millionaire, or a television star.

Most of us struggle to dedicate time and effort to what’s really important. We put off spending time with our family and friends because we’re too focused on a select few aspects of life. Some of us put off the most important things we know we should do today until tomorrow, next week, or even next year. Yet, we fail to consider that we could die at any moment.

I have to drive home from work today and there’s a chance I could get killed in a serious car accident two hours after I write this column. Sad to think about, especially when I consider all the things I still want to do. I want to spend more time trying to catch more and bigger fish than I’ve ever caught. I want to spend more time hunting and enjoying the outdoors with family and good friends. And I want to become a better outdoor writer and photographer. But I also want to be the best son, grandson, brother, uncle, husband, friend, and the best dad in town according to my children. I want to help people—big, small, young or old—whenever the opportunity presents itself. And I want to call an old friend and catch up on his life.

Use your next free moment to consider making an inventory of what you want to do, what you’ve been doing, and what you’re capable of accomplishing with the time you have left. You may have to reprioritize your life a bit, but you’ll likely still have time to fish, maybe even with an old friend.

Drop-shotting involves setting a weight at the end of the line, with a hook and bait set some distance above, which keeps your bait
a set distance from bottom — basically suspending your bait near bottom where perch tend to roam. The weight allows full control of the working depth and also allows for bouncing the bait on bottom — a classic trick for attracting and getting perch active.

In most states during the ice season, two to four lines or lures are legal. Consider rigging a double drop-shot rig, positioning one bait about 6 inches from bottom and one anywhere from 2 to 3 feet. Active fish more likely will rise up and take the bait, but the bait close to bottom allows for presenting a bait to perch not willing to rise off bottom.

Use a palomar knot to position the bait on the main line. When tying the palomar, insert the tag end of the line through the eye from the hook point side, and form the loop on the bend side. When you tighten the knot, the hook sticks straight out, positioning the bait correctly. The length of the tag end of line determines the distance from bait to weight. Adding 2- to 3-inch dropper lines allows you to position your bait away from your main line. Simply create a loop (overhand knot) in the main line where you want to position the bait; then tie a uni-knot to the loop before tightening the loop knot.