Special Places part 2

We arrived in Georgia when I was 12. I soon found a small creek about 2 blocks from my house that was loaded with sunfish.

Although the sunnies were plentiful and bit freely, they just didn't measure up to the bass fishing I had enjoyed in Oklahoma. I decided to try the plastic eel that had caught so many bass for me in OK. This was a very small creek , that was not more than twenty five feet across and not more than knee deep anywhere except in a few places.

I soon found that in the places where it was four to five feet deep bass could be caught, not in the

numbers or sizes of my special place in Ok. but enough action to keep me interested and most especially, keep me learning! I soon learned that if I skipped the eel back under overhanging brush or trees bass could be caught in water as shallow as one foot.

I spent many happy days the first couple of months in Georgia wading down the little creek throwing the eel around brush and trees. I learned to always fish the outside of the brush first as the bass if hooked on the outside were less likely to get tangled in the tree, and less likely to tear my precious eels up. A pack- age was only 89 cents, but this was when gas was 15 cents a gallon and bread was 12 cents a loaf. I made my fishing money by cutting neighbors lawns, sometimes I had to push my lawnmower 3 miles to make my two bucks for two hours work, but it paid for my fishing tackle.

After 3 months we moved to a less expensive house on the outskirts of town, WHAT A DIFFERENCE! We had a small two acre pond on our property that was full of bass, not like the pond in Ok., but great fishing just the same. This was the time I started fly fishing, for my 13th birthday my dad gave me a cheap fly rod and an asst. of flys for pan fish.

Tomorrow: The next step in a boys fishing education

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Special Places part 1

I was very lucky as a young man, my Dad loved to fish and hunt, and our family was always going fishing. My dad was in the army and we lived in many different places, we lived in Lawton Oklahoma, when I was 10 to 12 yrs old.

There were many places to fish on the Army Reservation, it had many small ponds or tanks as they were called there, and they were full of fish. Near our home there were many small creeks and a couple of small ponds. This was the first time in my life that my parents let me go fishing by myself ( though I had to go with someone for safety's sake as there were lots of snakes ).

My next door neighbor was a boy my age named Jimmy Tucker, and we spent many a day fishing a little creek about a block from my house for catfish and bluegill. One day while riding our bicycles we discovered a small farm pond, and by agreeing to cut the owners lawn twice a month, we got permission to fish in the pond. This pond was about five acres and totally full of fish, as the owners didn't fish much, and it very seldom got fished. We were in heaven! At first we just fished for the bluegills, shellcrackers, and asst. sunfish that were so abundant.

One day while reading a copy of my fathers Field and Stream magazine, I read an article on bass fishing, and it was talking about the hot new lures called plastic eels. The next day we went to a nearby tackle store and bought several packages. They came pre-rigged on a harness with three hooks, a couple of beads and a little spinner in front. It looked goofy, but BOYDID IT CATCH BASS! A whole new fishing experience opened up to us, a virgin lake chock full of bass, that had never seen a plastic eel before. We litterly caught fish till we got tired, NOT!!

Most of the bass we caught were 1/2 to 2 pounds, and most days we caught 50 to 75 fish, the onlyproblem we had was the three exposed hooks hung up so often we lost lots of them. We solved the problem by taking the eels off the harness and put a weedless hook in them, and putting a split shot in front we could cast right into the brush piles without getting hung up. Now that we could fish the brushy areas we started catching much larger fish, up to five lbs.

When I was twelve my father got transferred to Ft Benning Georgia, I was really unhappy that we had to move, and leave my little spot of heavenly fishing. Little did I know about the fishing bonanza I was about to become part of. If Oklahoma was heaven, Georgia was the seventh Heaven!
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Life Lesson 4: Laughter shall fuel your spirit's engine

When things get slow during the day as they usually do at some point, I find myself looking for someone to pick on. When my friend Terry G. is on the boat, he is usually my victim.

One day I had a near shore trip and Terry was helping me out, as my deckhand was sick. He was up in the front of the boat helping someone with a large backlash ( when you cast too hard and the spool is revolving faster than the line, and you get an awful tangle of line on your reel ). His rod was in a rod holder, dragging a sardine across the bottom, hoping a big halibut would eat it. (HEH, HEH, HEH, the perfect scenario for a "GOTCHA")

Running inside the cabin I notice a 5 pound Rock cod sinker, ( this is a 5 lb. lead weight used in fishing 500 to 900 feet deep.) Yes, that's the same as three football fields, stacked end to end. Attaching it to his line with a snap swivel, and letting it slide down his line to the bottom, I quickly loosened his drag a little and yelled, "Terry you have a big fish on!!" He ran back and picked up the now bent double rod. You've got light line, play him carefully! Terry would reel the weight up about 20 feet when the loose drag would start to slip and the sinker would pull 15 or 20 ft of line off the reel ( this is how some halibut feel, just a very heavy weight on the end of the line, sometimes making short runs and pulling line off the reel ).

No one else had seen me do this dastardly deed and everyone else thought he had a reel fish. After about 20 minutes Terry's face was beginning to show signs of strain, so I said, " He's getting tired, tighten up your drag," several times during the "fight" heh, heh, heh, he looked at me and whispered, "W R?" Meaning "world record".

I had already helped Terry catch two world record Bonita, on a fly rod, and his wife, Diane, catch a thirty seven lb. halibut, also a women's world record. I could see it was getting closer to the surface, so I yelled to everyone, "GET BACK!"

It was huge, so I swung the net down and hollered, "It must be a world record, "SINKER"!"- as it hit the deck with a loud THUNK! For a moment everyone just stood there stunned, then every one burst into laughter, EXCEPT TERRY! But he was a good sport and after a couple of months he actually started talking to me again. ( Just kidding, this was just one of the many jokes we were always playing on each other )

Life lesson # 4 Laughter shall fuel your spirit's engine

A thirty seven pound halibut, also a world record!
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Boat Captain pt 2

You come in after a charter, You still have to clean up the boat after every one else goes home, not just dried blood. I've had people go below and lay down in my bed and lift the covers and throw up in my blankets. Some hours later when I had finished cleaning, was very tired and needed to go to sleep, because I had an early charter the next day, I got in bed and found the " little present " they left me.

Now I still have to go to the laundry.

You need to be a good mechanic, in the summer it takes weeks to get into a boat shop. If you can't fix it yourself, you will lose 1000's of dollars!

You need to be good with children, people bring their children and you have to bait their hook, cast their rod, hook the fish, help them reel it in, take the fish of the hook, re-bait etc. Some people have three kids, who needs a gym? But, know what? I LOVE IT!! Kids are so cool, and they are the future of sport fishing!

You need to be the school nurse, I've never had a serious problem aboard my boat other than a few hooks stuck in fingers, but you need to know how to take care of medical emergencies just in case one happens.

You need to be an entertainer, fish don't bite all day, and during the slow times you need a vast joke library to keep people laughing.

I could go on and on, but I'll give you a break and end this here.
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Boat Captain pt 1

Lots of people tell me they would love to be a charter captain, "BOY, you have the greatest job in the world!" Getting paid for taking people fishing!! That's like saying the president gets paid for signing a few bills. They don't see the other 18 hrs a day he spends running the good ole USA.

My job entails being the guide and finding fish for you. Fish don't stay in the same place all the time, anytime there is a place where the fish hang out in the same place, fishermen quickly find out about it and quickly fish it out. I have some secret spots, but the other charter guys know my boat, and when they see me in a spot for more than a few minutes,they will wait for me to leave, then move over it to check it out with their electronics. Later they will come back and fish it, now it's not secret anymore.

For the past 25 yrs I have been insisting that my customers release all bass over 5 lbs. These are special fish, it takes 8 to 12 yrs to grow to this size. I have caught the same fish many times in a season, ( I mark them with a tag, then I can keep track of that fish, sometimes for years. )

People don't realize how hard it is to keep a boat in shape for chartering, You usually drive them for two days and work on them for three days. My wife thinks its just an excuse to get out of the house. The salt air is constantly eating up your wiring and generally causing havoc with anything metal ( your motor ). During the charter season the boat is kept in a slip in Marina del Rey, the rest of the year the boat is kept on the trailer in dry storage. Salt water is hell on a boat!!
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Life Lesson 3 (2/2) : Being pulled over by a policeman is not necessarily a bad thing!

I couldn't believe this, I had tried to be so sneaky, and here I was busted! Guess my Momma done raised a fool after all! Seems like every time I didn't play by the rules I got bit in the ass. And why did I think this would be any different, does the word DUMMY come to mind?So I pull into a gas station across the street, and got out my drivers license.

The police officer walks up beside my van, ticket book in hand, as he gets near the drivers door, he notices the sign "ROY LAWSON'S FISHING ADVENTURES" on the side of my van. He looks at the sign for a moment then comes to the window, and asks me," Are you the Roy Lawson with 40 IGFA world fishing records that was in the recent Sea Magazine article, IN SEARCH of WORLD RECORDS?"

That's me, I answered. What a coincidence! He said, since I read that article, I really wanted to go fishing with you, but there was no phone number in the article. Then he asked me a few questions about shark fishing, and I mentioned I just happened to have my shark photo album with me. After seeing my pictures, he said, " My buddies will flip over these, I'm going to call them over." While waiting for his friends to show up, he asked why I was driving with a expired registration? I told him the story of either the boat payment or truck registration, next day charter and broken water pump. He chuckled, I'm going to give you a little break, just get your pump, go straight back to the boat and don't drive till you get it registered. Thank you so much officer, I said.

By now three or four other police cruisers had pulled up next to my van. There was quite a crowd of onlookers probably expecting to see me put in handcuffs and taken away to meet Bubba. I guess they were really surprised. I showed the group of officers my shark pictures and they set up a charter on the spot for the next weekend. Then they all shook my hand, got in their patrol cars and left. Three days later I got a deposit check from one of them for $300.00 for the shark charter.

Usually you get stopped by a policeman, get a ticket, and mail money to the city. I got stopped, and the officer sent ME money! How rare is that!?
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Life Lesson 3 (1/2) : Being pulled over by a policeman is not necessarily a bad thing!

It had been a slow winter for fishing, and I had a few unexpected breakdowns on my 45 foot charter boat, the Sea King. Money was short and when I had to decide whether to register the truck or make my boat payment, I made the boat payment.

I knew I had several charters coming up and I just would not use the truck until I paid the registration. The best laid plans of mice and men seldom work as planned. The water pump went out on my generator the day before a charter and I had to go get a new one.

I took only side streets, but had to cross one main street. I was nervous as I sat waiting for the light to change, come on, I said, as it seemed like I had been waiting for 14 or 40 minutes. ( I stole this from my little brother, in the early 50's milkmen still delivered milk. One day my Mom was away when the milkman came and as there were no bottles on the porch he asked my 5 yr old brother how many bottles of milk his mother wanted, without a moments hesitation he answered " Oh 14 or 40!" It was so funny at the time!! )

Finally the light for the cross traffic turned orange. Far Out! I'm going to make it, I thought as I glanced in my rearview mirror. What the hell!! All I could see was the top of a black and white police cruiser, with its red lights on. Dang it!! What else could go wrong?
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The Outhouse

When I was four we lived in a small town in rural Kentucky, no electricity, no radio, no TV , no running water / indoor bathrooms. Our bathroom was an outhouse, a small wooden shed over a six to eight foot deep hole with a bench inside that had one or two circular holes that you would sit over to do your business, it had a wooden door for privacy, and was generally dark and smelly inside.

To a four year old it was one of the scariest places in the world you had to go, probably for adults too.

You just knew there were giant spiders or monsters down there just waiting to pull you down in their lair.

Our next door neighbor was an older man with a weird sense of humor. He ran a small rope from his kitchen to the back of his outhouse, and had it rigged in such a way that when he pulled on the rope it pulled down on a stick that had a rubber glove on one end, and the end with the glove would go up and smack the part of the person using the outhouse right on the part sitting over the hole in the board. This was followed by a loud scream and a person exiting the outhouse at maximum speed.

No one ever took time to pull up their pants before running for their life. With no other entertainment to be had, it was always a break in the boredom when our neighbor had a visitor that did not know the secrets of the outhouse !
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Life lesson 2: "No matter where you are or what you are doing, you are exactly where you are supposed to be, doing what you are supposed to do"

I have worn many hats in my life, fishing guide and charterboat captain are the principal ones.

Some years due to lack of fish or a bad economy I have had other jobs.I worked in a grocery warehouse, I worked for the BLM fighting forest fires when I first arrived in Alaska. I sold ATM machines when they first came out, I had Christmas tree lots for many years in December when nobody goes fishing ( Trees R US ).

One year I became a driving instructor, teaching people to drive. I think this was the scariest job I ever had! All day long people were trying to wreck my car or kill me, many was the time I thought to myself," What the hell am I doing here?! This is insane! I must
be crazy!" This went on for a year and a half, then one day I had a student who would change my life. The very first time I laid eyes on her, I knew she was to be my wife. Five years later we were married.

Life lesson number two: No matter where you are or what you are doing, you are exactly where you are supposed to be, doing what you are supposed to do. God works in strange, wonderful ways!
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