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There are professional fishermen among us. Here in the Heartland, especially Northwest Tennessee, there are more professional crappie and catfishermen per capita than anywhere else in the country. Most anglers, however, are just your average, everyday fisherman, but there’s something to be said for that. The first rule to being an everyday fisherman, is not fishing every day. Actually, only fishing about one day out of seven is normal, and even that is sometimes a stretch. This rule applies unless you’re retired and you do fish every day, in which case who cares what you’re called, you’ve earned the right to fish every day, which by most accounts makes you a success story that we all strive towards. The everyday

May 16 is the date for the biggest fishing event of the year, as far as I am concerned. That is the date of the annual Southeast Missouri Sportsmen’s Association’s Fish and Fun Day. This is the big event of the year for the association. The SEMO organization is the second oldest conservation organization in the state of Missouri. This organization started more than 70 years ago by a few men who felt that the area needed an organization devoted to the conservation efforts for the region. I believe that John McMullin senior was the first president and the annual membership dues was set at $1 per year. The fee was used for conservation efforts such as planting food plots

Time sure flies when you are having fun. It’s time again to warm up the typewriter and get out another column. My turkey hunting has ground to a halt as I just don’t get too interested in anything where the game and fish fail to cooperate at least a little bit. I have heard quite a few interviews lately (particularly sports) and most of them get turned off real quick as I don’t like interviews by sports or newscasters of people that don’t know how to speak properly. The phrases that bug me in particular are “you know” and “I mean”. When they are combined with each other sounds very silly to me and tells me that they don’t know

I was back on the “Foot” this past week, where the weather was hot and the fishing was slow, at least for my target species, the majestic crappie! Now every other type of fish in the lake was jumping in the boat, and a less stubborn man would have altered his tactics and target to attain success, but while I may not be very patient, I am bull-headed! I always see the weather-folks warning people of the heat, “stay inside,” “carry plenty of water,” “avoid the midday sun,” and so on. Being a moderately young and extremely tough (it’s my column, and I can describe myself how I see fit) outdoorsman, I pay no attention to such trivial warnings.

Well, my rampant abroad-ness has been continued yet another week, and so brings another action-packed adventure from just outside the Heartland, kind of. I spent the last three days on the “big water”, which of course is Kentucky Lake. Stretching 184 miles and covering 160,000 acres, Kentucky Lake is the largest manmade lake in the Eastern United States. The Tennessee River runs through the lake and is controlled at the 1-mile-long Kentucky Dam. Oddly enough, I had never fished the lake before Thursday, but when something else fell through and I had the chance to go fish the Crappie Master’s Tennessee State Championship, I called up my old fishing buddy/stepdad Perry Jackson and made plans in a hurry! Chippy was