Notes From The Dockside

Mike Yurk

Description

These seventy four stores in Notes From Dockside explores the world of fishing through adventures and memories, making time on the water exciting and unforgettable.
Notes From The Dockside Volume IV will take you from lessons in life to the joys of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Join Mike Yurk as he explores the adventures of fishing. Meet his beloved Bass Queen, his buddy The Commissioner, his faithful mechanic The Boat Doctor along with other friends and family who join him on the water. The seventy- four stories found in this volume will take you to Panama and the Bahamas, to a rainy day in France, as well as the many lakes in Northwestern Wisconsin where Mike lives and fishes. Find the wonder of the outdoors in Northern Minnesota were the last of the original, old pine trees remain from before the days of logging and a Viking relic which could be the first fishing story carved in stone. Equipment, baits, lures all playing an integral part to fishing are part of the stories too. Through these stories Mike explores the many sides of fishing from good luck to bad luck, small and big fish and sometimes few fish. There is much more to fishing than just catching fish as Mike explores new and old lakes, good weather and bad, memories of old friends now gone and young fisher people who are just beginning to find the love of angling. Spend a day on the water with Mike and his fishing buddies, young and old, and experience the passion and excitement which comes with fishing and what makes it so special.
“Mike Yurk is a seasoned angler and author who has filled his stringer with stores on water near and far. Pull up a seat and let him share his tales in Notes From The Dockside one pleasing nugget at a time.” Paul Smith, Outdoor Editor, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.

Sujets

• Bateaux
• Bateau
• Fiction
• Récréation
• Adventure
• Mike York
• Recreation
• Boating
• Adventure (Guyana)
• Sports
• Water Sports

Informations

• Publié par: AuthorHouse
• Date de parution: 31 juillet 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9798823011624
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Mores Books by Mike Yurk from AuthorHouse:
The Mallalieu Lake Chronicles
A View From The Lake
Notes From The Dockside
Once Upon The water
Mores Notes From The Dockside
Hunter’s Moon, Fisherman’s Sun
Notes From The Dockside, Volume III
Going Back To Key West
Other Waters
Notes From The Dockside
 
VOLUME IV
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Mike Yurk
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
AuthorHouse™
1663 Liberty Drive
Bloomington, IN 47403
www.authorhouse.com
Phone: [phone]
 
 
 
 
 
 
© 2023 Mike Yurk. All rights reserved.
 
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.
 
Published by AuthorHouse   07/29/2023
 
ISBN: 979-8-8230-1163-1 (sc)
ISBN: 979-8-8230-1162-4 (e)
 
 
 
 
 
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.
 
 
 
Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.
DEDICATED TO
Ryan Blodgett
Drake Castaneda
John Jacobson
Jack Johnson
David Rakovszky, Silas and Helena
Tony Turner and Eric Marquez
Mike Valleau
Andre Virden
CONTENTS
Introduction
 
Life Lessons
The Bayou Boogie And The Dancing Eel
Losing The Fillet Knife
Panama’s Peacock Bass
Making Tip-Ups
An Old Spinning Rod And A Muskie
A Lake Rediscovered
When Winter Came To The Bahamas
Easter Traditions
The World Of SOS
One Of Those Days
A Rainy Night
Robert’s Rig
Breaking The Code
What A Day
A Conflict Of Interest
Written In Stone
Good To Get Out
A Hot Summer Night
Father Daughter Fishing
Not A Bass Queen Day
Jay Reed
A Perfect Bass Queen Day
Girls Got To Fish
Two Buddies
Rainy Day Muskie
No More Pork
For The Stories You Hear
Strange Times On The River
The Oh-My-Gosh Fish
Someplace Warm
My Life With Spam
The Anchor
Really Cold
Too Warm
Happy Birthday Jack
The Lost Forty
The Smelt Fry
Big Sturgeon
A Golden Evening
Ken Zylla
Metal Rods
Ice Fishing In May
Disappointment Lakes
Just A Little Tick
We Waited All Winter For This
Late Summer
A Rainy Day In France
Before School
A Change In Traditiion
Black Friday
Long Ago Day On Poygan
Cane Poles And Canned Corn
Spring Storm
Watch Your Line
The Joys Of Peanut Butter And Jelly
Taking A Crappie Break
Stuff Happens
Fishing On Halloween
A Good Night For Chili
The Search For The Ultimate Ice Jig
My Life With Tackle Boxes
The Big Apple And Lake Of The Woods
Don’t Give Up On March
First Fishing Trip Of The Year
A Litte Bit Of Everything
A Lake Recovered
Fishing A Cold Front
When It All Comes Together
The Pork Frog Returns
The Greedy Muskie
Rudy
A Very Pleasant Day In November
Getting Ready For Winter
INTRODUCTION
T HIS IS THE FOURTH collection of my column, The Notes From The Dockside. This column has always been fun to write and I look forward every month to sitting down at my desk to write these short fishing tales and stories about the outdoors. One of the fun parts of these stories is I have always tried to keep the stories less than a thousand words. Once or twice, I might have gone beyond that but I try to maintain a sense of writing discipline in keeping the stories short.
As far as I am concerned, fishing is a social sport. I don’t care to fish alone. I enjoy the company of other fishermen and fishing is not the same without someone to share the day with. I have been blessed to have a number of fishing buddies willing to share a boat with me. Sometimes, I think they just come along to see what crazy stuff I am going to get us into. I do know all of them have enriched my life, added to the adventure and I am lucky to call them fishing buddies.
And my wife Becky, The Bass Queen. She couldn’t spell fish when we first met thirty years ago but now is an accomplished angler in her own right. She has brought great joy to any day on the water. She is also my first editor and reads these stories first. Her insight and comments have made me a better writer.
I also must acknowledge The Boat Doctor. Warner’s Dock in New Richmond, Wisconsin is my Boat Doctor. I bought my last four boats from them. As well, they manage to fix my boat so I can get back on the water as quick as possible, no matter how broke my boat might be.
The young people we take fishing are the future of our sport and passion so this book is dedicated to some of the young anglers who have joined me over the years. Some of them are no longer young and have grown up to have careers and families but they were young when we first went fishing.
Most of the stories in the first half of the book were published in my local town newspaper, The Hudson Star-Observer. The other half were printed in Mid West Outdoors, who I have been writing for almost forty five years. I thank the publishers, editors and staff of both of those publications for their support.
Especially, I want to thank the readers of both publications for reading Notes From The Dockside. Your support, occasional comments and readership make writing these stories all worthwhile.
LIFE LESSONS
T HERE IS MUCH MORE to fishing than just catching fish. There are times when you become exposed to life lessons and there are a couple which are especially poignant to me.
Earlier last summer my buddy Doug and I were fishing a lake in Polk County. It was a day of dark clouds and light winds. We started in shallow water, hoping to find bass there. We thought with overcast skies the fish would be shallow. They weren’t.
We moved into deeper water. The boat was sitting in about twelve feet of water. I was using a ChatterBait and on my first cast my bait came to a jolting stop. I pulled back although the fish hit hard enough I didn’t need to set the hook. The fish took off and after a short but spectacular fight I got the fish next to the boat and hoisted it. It was a foot long bass. It seemed like a good start and now we knew where the fish were.
We fished for the next hour and Doug caught two more bass and I picked up another. Following the deep water, we moved to end of the lake. Here we found more deep water close to the bank and a shoreline of docks and boat lifts. It looked perfect.
Within a few casts a fish slammed my bait and when I set the hook I knew the fish was bigger than the other fish I caught so far. The drag gave out line and my spinning rod was doubled over as the fish raced off. I turned the fish and got it coming back but it tore off again. The fish kept pulling away but slowly I got the fish next to the boat where Doug grabbed it, pulling it in. The fish was a fat sixteen inch fish probably weighting about three pounds. Once again things were looking up.
In the next forty five minutes as we fished back to the landing Doug picked up another foot long bass and a northern pike. As we looked back to where we started, we covered a good body of water with only seven fish to show for it. We were disappointed and decided to leave this lake to search for more productive waters.
As we pulled up to the dock, I saw a young man in waders fishing nearby. He had fish on as we approached but it flipped out of water, throwing the hook. I stood on the dock while Doug went to get the van to back in the trailer. I asked how he had done and he told me he just started and lost his first fish. He asked me how we did and I told him it was slow, we only had seven fish. He looked over to me and said “that’s pretty good.”
Then it hit me. He was right. Seven fish is good. What am I complaining about? There have been a lot of days in my past, especially when I was young, when seven fish would have been a great day of fishing. Have I become so jaded I fail to appreciate whatever I catch. I thought for a minute and realized I need to be happy with what I have because there have been plenty of days I had only a few fish and there have been days when I didn’t catch anything. Besides, what is wrong with seven fish? There is more to fishing then just catching fish. As I look back there have been many times I don’t remember the numbers of fish I caught but rather the fun I had. That is what fishing is really all about.
Some years earlier The Bass Queen and I were fishing on Opening Day. We passed a boat with three fishermen anchored in a bay and asked how they were doing. They said they were doing well and caught some nice fish. I asked them what they were using and one of the guys told me they were using leeches as he held up a stringer of bass hanging over the side of their boat. It looked like they had three bass measuring probably fifteen to seventeen inches.
Egad! How could they do that? Why would anyone use live bait for bass and keep them? How could they do this? This was distressing. I said good bye to them without wishing them good luck and just moved away down the bank, shaking my head.
A few minutes later as I was turning this over in my mind, I realized I had become a snob. Those fishermen were not doing anything illegal or actually unethical. They were fishing with a b