Fishing Report Archives

Hey Folks from the Excel Storm Cat “Fishful Thinking”.

First I want to thank my readers and fishing trip clients for all the well wishes, get well soon, and thinking about you calls, cards, e-mails and texts. On Sept 30, I had my right hip replaced. It is something that needed to be done a year ago but due to circumstances had to be put off. The main thing that pushed the date back was my wonderful surgeon, Dr. Derek Morgan, at MCCH.

He evaluated my situation in very early spring and said Yes, it needed to be replaced but my overweight condition made the surgery much more likely for blood clots and complications. He refused to do the surgery until I lost a considerable amount of weight. I knew he was 100% correct and I limped out of his office, resigned to losing a considerable amount of weight.

Enter Covid-19. I had to cancel all my trips in late March thru April. Vicki and I were resigned to staying at home and cooking for ourselves. We both used that time to first start counting calories, then a modified Atkins diet that had me limiting my carbohydrates to 24 carbs per day! A regular size hamburger from a fast-food place has twice that many carbs!

The weight came off a few pounds at a time but over the summer, I ended up losing 50 pounds. To say it was easy would be wrong. It took encouragement from my wife and family. I love sweets, all sorts of beans, breads and all kinds of high carb foods. I learned to do without all of those.

When September got here, my schedule was full, but I was having serious pain issues after my guide trips. By this time, Dr Morgan had scheduled my hip surgery for November 2nd, so I could get my trips and 3 crappie tournaments behind me. The constant pain changed everything. Once Dr Morgan evaluated my hip by x-ray, he said the surgery had to be done sooner. Sept 30th was the closest it could be scheduled.

Fast forward to now. My pain is gone, I’m walking much more like normal than I have in years, and I’m getting restless to get back on the water. I can’t drive for a couple more weeks, but Vicki has become a much better driver with me in the co-pilot seat.

I plan on spending my fall and winter developing some tactics where I can use my Garmin Livescope to help multiple fishermen benefit from it. Most of my trips are for 2 or more fishermen and I want every one in the boat to be able to benefit. I’ll still be longlining and pulling crankbaits when conditions warrant. Hopefully my new tactics help my clients to go back to their home lakes and catch crappie there.

I’ll be riding to Branson late this week with Ed Moes, owner of Crappie.com. The Crappie Expo is in Branson and the crappie tournament is on Table Rock Lake on October 29-31. Ed and I will be manning the Crappie.com booth and I’ll be helping Mitch and crew in the Pico Lures booth when I can. This is all subject to change with Covid regulations.

The boat shows are starting to be scheduled and I’ve been approached to do seminars at the Murray Boat Show on January 8-10, 2021. I’m urging my readers to let me know if there is something crappie fishing related that you would like to see me cover in the seminars. I’ve been honored to do the show that last two years and attendance has been great for my talks.

So, there it is. I’m away from the lake and haven’t been keeping up with fishing. That would just make me want to go even more and right now I just have to concentrate on my physical therapy and keeping my weight at its new level. I will have to start upgrading my wardrobe since nothing I’ve been wearing for a few years, fits.

Be careful out there and keep an eye out for the Storm Cat. I’ll be doing some catch-up when I get back out there.