The Name Game


�Hey Wayne, could you hand me a jig head?� I can hear Macon�s wife, Heather, enlightening him of the fact that the guide�s name is actually Lane, and that he probably would like to be called by his name. Overhearing Heather�s polite gesture, I give a slight chuckle, and assure Macon that I�ve been called much worse. If I would�ve known then what I know now, I would�ve just stuck with Wayne.

It�s Tuesday afternoon, and it very well could be the most beautiful day of 2013. We�re laughing, and the fish are picky but still biting. Life is good. Getting to know the Justiss family, I�ve found that in its roots have grown a couple of comedians, who since my new christening as Wayne, have found a way to call me every variation of -ane found in the English language. I�ve heard Crane, Plane, Cain, Mane (probably inspired by my long flowing locks) Rain, Pain, ... It�s not fishing if you�re not having fun, right?

Laying in bed, reflecting on this afternoon�s forty-one crappie, and how much fun we had catching them, I�m looking forward to taking out the same family again tomorrow. We�ve already elected to chase surfacing whites and hybrids, with a grand finale of crappie after the morning rush plays out. I�m excited, but I am also starting to understand what David Allan Coe meant when he said �they never even call me by name.� Looks like �ol Laner is going to have to start playing the name game if he wants to survive tomorrow morning, and you better believe he�s got some ammo.

Macon, Wes and Heather, or shall I say Bacon, Mess, and Pleather, are all still upstairs when I arrive at the family�s lake house to pick everyone up for their fishing trip. Brad, or shall I say Vlad, is already walking across the neatly trimmed St. Augustine, enjoying the cool air in the still gray morning. �Mornin� Wayne,� he says with a half smirk. My hammer already cocked, anticipating an early shot, I fire back with �Mornin� Vlad.� Mr. Justiss not being a man with whom I care to make enemies, I am reassured when I see a hearty grin on his face. By now the rest of the group have single-filed their way down to the bank, and we are quickly headed south to the rhythm of the bow slapping the waves.

Upon arrival, we discover the fishing to be as expected: good. This time of year offers big payloads to anglers who settle in on wind blown points. Hybrid stripers and white bass pile in by the thousands, as acres of jumping shad give way to huge explosions of hungry fish. I love to crappie fish, but there�s very few things in this world that can compare to the high octane runs a striped bass can deliver. Catching sandies almost every single cast isn�t exactly bad either. An hour and a half goes by, and we�ve got roughly forty whites that we�ve hand selected from the hundred or so that we�ve landed. Not a bad way to start the day. Characteristic of a blue bird day, the surface action stops early this morning, and we�re ready to re-prioritize our game plan. It�s time for crappie.

There is practically no wind this morning, and I�m racking my brain to figure out where we need to fish. What a great problem to have. Picking up the trolling motor and looking back, I ask the family �if y�all would please, reel in, and let�s take ourselves a 10-minute ride down the lake.� Knowing what�s in store, and running out of precious crappie catching time, they reel in and it�s south bound and down on Cedar Creek.

Our first stop is one of my favorite piles on the lake. Measuring out to around forty feet wide, and twelve feet tall, this pile has seen many of its inhabitants disappear over the last few years. It probably also looks like a jig covered Christmas tree, if I had to guess. Glad, Feather, Less, and Shakin are all at the front of the boat, ready and waiting as their captain positions himself over the Minn Kota. �Hey Plane, how are we going to fish this pile?� �Well Vlad, I�d start with about eight feet of line under your rod tip, and pitch it towards that marker buoy. Watch your line, and when you see it twitch, or feel that thump, you know what to do.� Almost in unison, we pitch our jigs. Double!

From six feet under the surface, down to almost twelve, there are more crappie than I�ve seen on brush all year. For the first forty five minutes to an hour, there are very few seconds that have ticked by that there hasn�t been a crappie coming in the boat. We�re pitching, vertical jigging, casting, and it�s all working. There�s enough crappie stacked on top of the sandies that the cooler looks like flapping jaws every time a fish tries to move around. Weather asks a question that I love to answer, as she reels in another nice slab. �Where are we going to start putting these fish now that the cooler is full?� �We can put them in the live well, ma�am.� �Ok, but what happens when that gets full?� Laughing, I reply �stick �em in your pockets.�

Pulling up to our next brush pile, it�s now 9:30 a.m., and we�ve got to have close to 50 crappie. This is awesome fishing in every sense of the word, and I wish we didn�t have to head back to the dock in an hour. �Hey Vlad, what do y�all have going on this afternoon?� �Not a thing, Mane.� �Ya�ll want to make this a full day?� The crappie in the cooler pretty much answered that question for them. �Let�s do it!� �Sounds like a plan to me, let�s get back to catching.�

The marker has barely stopped unraveling itself when Mess, who is quite the crappie fishermen, has already tagged his first fish on our second pile. Apparently, that fish was part of a black crappie family reunion, who had just sat down for a catered lunch of 1/16th ounce jigs, with a side of chartreuse. This pile, much like the previous one, is tall in stature and wide in girth. To say it is loaded with crappie is an understatement, almost offensive. I�m on top of the pile catching keepers suspended in three feet of water, as Achin, Less, Pleather, and Mad aret running wind sprints to the live well. Again, it doesn�t hardly seem to matter the presentation. These fish want to eat, and they want to eat now. It�s not supposed to be this easy, but you can bet I�ll take it.

I�m trying to catch my breath and doing what I can to take it all in, as two thoughts have started to grow in the back of my mind. First, I need to count fish here very quickly. Which naturally begs the second question, are we going to get a four man limit today? I treat the answer as a baseball team treats a �No-No.� Don�t talk about it, don�t push it, just keep catching fish until it happens. We�re now down to catching a few stragglers here and there, which eventually leads to the bite being slow enough it�s time to move. �Ya�ll, before we leave, I really need to count fish. This is getting ridiculous.� The total after two piles: 73.

I look at my phone, which reads 11:07am. �You folks hungry?� This is the first time we�ve really slowed down today, and as it turns out, yeah, we are all kind of hungry. I came unprepared, thinking I would be cleaning fish by now. Fortunately, they came loaded for bear and are more than happy to share a meat loaf sandwich, an armadillo egg, and one great tasting cookie. This is one happy captain.

So now what? We�ve got a real shot at putting this thing together, and even though nobody has said the word, we�re all thinking triple digits. I idle the boat to a nice slab of concrete laid up next to a ledge that drops from nine to 13 feet. It�s not loaded, but it ought to at least hold a few. Wrong. The fish that were there must�ve heard about the Justiss family, because they just weren�t having it. Three minutes go by with nothing, signaling it�s time to roll.

Our shadows have gotten skinny, as we tick through the noon hour. The wind has picked up a few knots, and I silently whisper to it, asking to hold back just a couple more hours. Just a couple will do. I know of a pile of willow branches between two humps, that are practically in no man�s land as far as wind protection goes. A side scan glimpse has already shown me it�s loaded, and if I can just hold us still, we ought to see some fireworks. Fingers crossed, we pull up to the downwind side of the buoy.

The very fist pitch over the pile sinks all of about two seconds, before a line twitch signals that the fuse is lit. I set the hook only to feel a very heavy head shake. Good fish, no doubt. We�ve been shoveling through dinks all day, but this pile wasn�t playing games. I�ve been blessed enough to see some good brush pile bites, but this particular pile, in this particular moment, is a top three. In the next thirty minutes, we don�t pull a fish under twelve inches, and we don�t get a break from the action. In fact, the fish are coming in the boat so quickly that the live well lid is now left permanently open, and Macon has volunteered to run fish back and forth. I�ll never forget the moment that we had a quadruple hook up, and everybody was trying to get each other�s attention, but we�ve called each other by the wrong name so much that it ends up just being a mumble of laughter and random words that rhyme.

We see the 100th fish get put in the live well, which is now also full, and I can�t wipe the smile off my face. Putting the four-man limit aside, life still just doesn�t get any better than this. The sky is blue, we are all grinning from ear to ear, and nobody can believe what just happened.

I didn�t do anything special, I just had great fishermen and some really hungry fish today. What I did do was have the time of my life, and I can only hope that when Brad, Macon, Heather, and Wes look back on this trip, they too can agree that we brought the crappie to absolute Justiss.


100 crappie and 34 white bass

very, very impressive.. ;cheers:

Wow, awesome score. Everyone gets to eat tons of Crappie. Awesome.

Thank ya'll for the kind words. That day was full of memories that'll be hard to forget anytime soon.

Good times!