Welcome to this Country Life. I'm your host, Brent Reaves. From Coon Hutton to
Trot Line and in just general country living, I want you to stay a while as I share
my stories and country skills that will help you beat the system. This Country
Life is proudly presented as part of Meet Eaters podcast network bringing
you the best outdoor podcast the airways have to offer. All right friends, pull
you up a chair or drop that tailgate. I think I got a thing or two to teach you.
Brim fishing.
Brim fishing is an absolute hoot and when you're done fishing the best part is
still ahead. When I'm shooting ducks even after I've shot a limit I always
want one more group to work in the decoys. 15 minutes after the goblers
stopped flopping I want to do it all over again. A successful elk deer or
bear hunt is the same. I'm kind of sad it's over. I love it and eating all those
critters is a definite reward but catching a mess of brim man while it is as
fun as a butcher basket full of puppies catching brim and eating a mess of
those jokers is my absolute favorite. I'm going to tell you how easy it is for
you to enjoy this and it's one of the best ways to spend time with your family
and friends and you get to eat but first I'm going to tell you a story located in
South Central Cleveland County Arkansas and four miles north northeast of our
house was Crane's Lake. A small oxbow lake formed eons ago when the platets
aligned and the heavens gave birth to the perfect blue-gill brim factory and
the canary hole oh well it was the perfect spot on the perfect lake. We named it
after the small brightly colored yellow birds that we called canaries. They lived
all over that lake during the summer. Later I would learn their real name is
Protonetary Warbler. Ben Batten would call them Protonetaria Citria. Ben's my
friend and the assistant director of the Arkansas game and feast. He's got a
master's degree in animal smartology. He's handier than a pocket on a shirt
and he's always grading my pronunciations at the Latin names for animals.
Last week he scored me eight out of ten on the bullfrog. Anyway these pretty
little pride yellow birds with a dark wings spend their summers mostly in the
eastern half of the United States and the winter in Mexico Cuba and South America.
If I had wings I'd believe I would too. Well that summer in 1978 they're
same like a jillion of them around the edge of the lake concentrated
particularly on the east side. It was with an easy paddling distance of the dirt
boat ramp where we'd launch our boat and always the starting point of where we
like to fish. Our plan was to fill our brim basket with supper armed with
nothing more than a John boat a couple of fly rods and two buckets of crickets.
Spring rains had caused an overflow of water from the slain river that filled
the slews and bows beyond capacity. Now when the water goes down that rich
fertile bottom land and the soil and the nutrients found within them all
wakes to make the summer lake fishing better by boosting the growth of all the
critters and what they fed on within the confines of the lake especially blue
geos. I sat in the back of the boat and watched my dad paddle us across that lake
and the air was slapped full of those yellow birds and the sweet sounds that
they were singing. As we fish down the east bank the bites were few far between
until we reached the area that would be remembered and talked about for the
rest of my father's life. There were four or five dead sweetgum trees that stood
at the water's edge. The trees have been dead for several years making some real
good fish structure. The snags that were left standing had been the home of countless
woodpeckers over the years and the canaries had taken advantage of it and were
nesting in every available hole. They were everywhere and buzzing all around us.
Dad dropped his cricket near one of the tree tops and his cork disappeared
immediately. He pulled him in and we were surprised at how big he was. He tied his
into the boat, rebated and caught another one before I could get my end tied.
He pulled in his third fish before I finally got my hook in the water and no
center had the slack going out of my line. I was taking the line back in and
catching my own big blue gill. The canaries sang and flew around our
boat and huge brim continued to bite. With every fish we pulled down the water
another one would take its place. It was like they were fighting amongst themselves
for a chance to eat crickets. Taking them off the hook and dropping them in the
brim basket that hung over the side of the boat was repeated until fish
would no longer fit in that basket. It was constant and it didn't last an hour.
All the brim we'd caught seemed to have been made from the same old.
They were the biggest asset he'd ever seen and it only took 55 to fill that basket.
Putting my thumb on his back keeping that dorsal feeling locked down in my fingers under his
belly I could barely hold one secure enough to take off the hook. That's how big they were.
Now I don't know how many we could have caught that day. There's no telling.
But with number 55 hit and filled that basket they were still biting as hard and fast as they had
when number one went in there. We went home clean fish froze what we wasn't going to eat that night
and had one more good supper. Fish fried taters fresh onion and hushpuff is man I can taste it
right now. The next day we went back to the canary hole but it wasn't nearly as good as it was
the first day. It never is. Sequals seldom surpass or even equal the original.
It's hard to catch lightning in a bottle twice and even though the original cast of canary hole
Brent and Buddy Reeves had returned for canary hole too it just wasn't the same.
Instead of filling the basket with 55 it took 56 and that's just how that happened.
Now I've run into a few folks through the years that like to fish a whole bunch of folks I'd
had to say and we'd get to talking about what we like to fish for and I like to fish for just about
anything that swims. That asked me what my favorite was and I tell them to bring them fishing.
Some but never had the opportunity to bring them fish and others were somewhat dismissive of it
like it was a waste of their time or or beneath them and I don't know that I'd let those folks
bar a drink of water. I could you look down on the greatest tasting fish that ever swam a swim.
Name something that you like to eat and give me the choice of that or fried brim and I'm going to
pick brim every time I can eat it every day but before we eat them let's talk a little more in
depth about what we're fishing for. Bluegill brim green sunfish also known as rice padded
slicks red ear sunfish that's the government brim they didn't invent them but they were
preferred in early stocking efforts around the south and earned that moniker. The last one is
the brightly orange coated long eared sunfish known as the pumpkin seeds. They're all sunfish
and in the centrarchity family of fish. Locally we call them all brim and our favorites that we
target to catch and eat are bluegills and pumpkin seeds. Now red ears they grow the biggest
fall about bluegills and then the slicks and then the pumpkin seeds. The pumpkin seeds they are
the absolute fiercest seeders. They nearly always hit your bait like they're starving and pull
way beyond what you think. I've always said that if they weigh the pound they'd crawl out on the
bank and take over the world. Get a little current in the river when you catch them and you'll think
you're about to set some kind of record and then you pull up a fish that you could lay in one hand
and cover it up with the other. They're fighters and they take so good. Now during the early
summer here in Arkansas you'll find them bedding up to lay eggs in groups called brim beds or
colonies. The male fish will go to the bottom and dig out a divot about the size of a fat hit
pitching wedge. The female will swim by checking out the new digs and hang around for a little light
cordon. With love figuratively in the air and literally in the water she'll drop off anywhere
from 12 to 60,000 eggs and bamboos leaving the house and the youngest for paper to look after.
That have for ought to be ashamed. The good thing is all his single dad and next door
neighbors are doing the same thing literally next door. The whole cul de sac is a literal
donny brook of fisticuffs. That colony can host dozens of beds and all the fathers are in town
duking it out with anything and everything that tries to get in there and snatch the babies out
of the crib. Now that's when you find them bedding up and the bites are so aggressive. That's why
we're shaking down at the canary hole when me and dad were stacking fish in that brim basket
like cordwood. They don't cotton the trash passers and we'll square up with just about anything
until they run it off eat it or eat each them. I know a three ways to find them that are successful.
First let's narrow down where we're going to find our potential bedding areas. Go to the
shallows usually near the edge of the bank out to as much as 20 feet deep. My experience has found
that anywhere from 3 to 6 feet is pretty normal. Now I'll talk about the two old school methods
that we've used over the years. The third one is a cool way to do it and it will get you on
the fish quicker especially if you're fishing in a unfamiliar area or time is eliminated and
factor for your fishing trip. It's also more expensive by requiring some equipment that wasn't
issued to your birth. Old school way number one use your eyes. Just fish along until you find them.
If you come upon a spot and see that your cricket supply is going down add or near the same
rate your basket is filling up. Stop the boat for you have arrived. If you think back a few minutes
to that canary hole story that's how we did it. We started fishing down the edge of the lake and
weren't catching anything until all at once we started loading the boat. Number two is to use your
smeller your proboscis your nose. When conditions are optimal like little to no wind you can
actually smell and pinpoint a brown bed. It's much harder when there's a breeze but you'll
immediately know that you're in the right area. If the wind's blowing you'll just have to start
drying the crickets till you find them. The fragrance is aromatic subtle and it's not unpleasant at all.
Some folks describe it as having the fragrance of a fresh cut watermelon.
I can't argue against that description but I can't say I never thought to describe it that way.
It smells like we fish and eat fish to me. My dad pointed out to me several times when I was a kid
and I've never forgotten it. It's one of those things that if you ever get cataloged in your cranium
you'll immediately recognize it regardless of how long it is between encounters. It is there to
stay. Number three is one that I've never done but I've heard about it and watched some real
interesting videos on YouTube demonstrating the technique. Side, image, and so on are will give
you a real-time picture displayed on your depth finder that you can watch as you crew slowly
along the bank looking for the neighborhood of brim beds. The bottom will be slick as a whistle
and then all at once you'll see a brim bed that looks like little craters on your screen showing
you where they are. You can mark it as a GPS point or float close enough to drop off a marker
buoy. Then you need to back off a little bit and commence to send it in the quickest to see if any
single dads are down there looking to rumble. Sometimes you can even see the fish guarding the
nest. It's pretty cool. Coves and protected areas of lakes and slow moving portions of rivers are
good places to start looking for beds. The water temperature needs to be bumping close to
setting the degrees for the fish to start bedding and if you can add a full moon in that mix,
finding you better send somebody to the store for the corn meal because y'all about to load the boat.
Okay, we know what we're after, we know where and how to find them,
what we gonna catch them with. If you listen last week, you heard me say how inexpensive it was
to gig frogs or catching the brim is no different. You can cut your own pole, catch your own bait
and fashion your own hooks from wire. Hey, you could even make your own fishing line from thread.
You can catch brim from the bank or by waiting. You don't need a boat. You could turn this into an
amazingly fun DIY project with the kids this summer, teaching them survival skills that are
enjoyable. Have them make their own fishing rig, catch one and then show them how to cook it. They'd
love it and they would get them eyeballs off the video screen. Brimmer just about everywhere there's
water so accessibility can't be a reason not to go. You just heard me say that you don't need any
money to do this so what's stopping you. If you look hard enough, you can always find a reason
not to do something but brim fishing come on. Here's my setup and I have two. One I use most of the
time and that's my fly rod. It's a nine foot five weight made for fly fishing. Ideally a smaller
three or four weight rod is better. They're more limber and you can get a lot of good action playing
the fish after he's hooked. My setup has a real spoon with fly line that matches the weight of my rod.
If you're building your own rig, just look at the weight listed on your rod and match it with
the package of line that it's indicated for. It'll stay on there and believe it or not it makes
a difference. I like floating line and on the end where my hook goes, I'll tie a leader line that's
marked appropriate for my fly line and reel and then add a short length of smaller line. Maybe
two pound test and that's called tippet. Maybe I don't know three feet long and that's where I'll
tie my hook and place my spit shot. Now for years I used nothing but a small cork that had my leader
threaded through a hole in the middle and held in place with a separate peg inserted in the same
hole preventing the cork from moving up and down. There's lots of different styles of corks and
bobbers but they're all doing the same job of maintaining your bait at a constant depth
and giving you a visual clue that your daily limit is about to be reduced to number by one more
fish. I could do a whole podcast on different types and styles of corks and bobbers,
plastic, foam, porcupine, quills, turkey feathers, there's all kinds of items that folks use.
Also I don't want you fly fishing purish to be left out so I'll talk about strike indicators too.
Well guess what Mr. Fancypants fly fishermen? The difference between a cork and a strike indicator
is the same difference between a fiddle and a violin. It's the cat using it. However,
I have a new favorite that I was recently introduced to by my Bear Greece render brother and fly
fishing guide Josh Spielmaker. Y'all know Josh. It looks like he could do stunts for Yukon
Cornelius with that red beard and handlebar mustache so big it's got its own zip code.
But Joshua and I were fly fishing for trout recently and he handed me an in line strike
indicator that's cork for the rest of us made by the folks at Oros fly fishing. That's O-R-O-S
fly fishing. These folks are based out of Montana and as far as I'm concerned they have created
the world's most perfect cork. It's a two piece foam bobber that has a short threaded stud on
one side and a threaded hole on the other. The stud is slotted and his luck would have it.
You just lay your line in that slot. Put the two halves together and tighten the side with a
threaded hole keeping your line straight, unkinked and held in place with tension. Need to change
depth. Just loosen the hole side a bit and slide that unit to where you want it and re-tighten.
I'm convinced without a shadow of a doubt that if we hadn't already gone to the moon,
the O-R-O strike indicator design team could get us there. Good job folks.
Now hooks. My dad liked a long shank number eight wire hook and I do too. We fished around a lot
of old tree tops and structure and if you happen to snag a limb or something solid on the bottom,
nine times out of ten you could pull that hook and it was straight out enough to come loose.
Then all you had to do was re-bend it and keep on fishing. A stronger hook would dig in and
you'd break your line trying to free it up or require you to cuss it off losing your rigging.
And while I was retying, my dad would be catching fish and keeping score. You can't be in the
game setting on the bench. That long shank on the hook was easier to get a hold of and remove from
a fish than a shorter one too. Now all you need is a small split shot. Put it about two or three
inches above the hook and you're ready to get busy giving them brim the sawmill.
My other rig is an ultralight fishing rig with a spinning reel attached to a five foot rod.
It's easy to rig and cast accurately and it's fun to reel and fight those clowns to the boat.
Some folks will go with a jig pull that's up to nine feet. It's just whatever you want.
The advantage of being able to cast into a brim bed instead of setting over it,
especially if the fish are shallow, will keep your boat further away from where you're fishing so
you're not as likely to spook the fish off. Now the last method is the tried and true cane pole.
It's probably the image that most folks have when when brim fishing is mentioned.
And I could build a house on a good sized barn from all the cane poles I made and fished with
growing up. I felt I could use the two before if that's all he had. For that matter, you don't
even need a rod. Just chuck a line with a baited hook out of amongst them and well-rope their
little fan is in when they get the chomping on your bait. It's so easy to catch them. I wonder
sometimes how we didn't catch them all because we sure tried it. Now we got a rod rigged up
and we're ready to fish except for one thing. We need bait. You can use artificial or natural.
Artificial baits include brown flies, jigs, beetle spins, rooster tails, man the list just
goes on and on. They'll bite anything they think they can get the jaws around even more so
if it's trespassing in their bed during the spawn. Oh yeah, don't forget about gummy bears.
My son was six years old and him and my dad were setting on the pond bank fishing one evening
with a few crickets that was left over in the eating gummy bears. He didn't take them long to run
out of crickets but Hunter wasn't ready to quit fishing. So he handed his grandpa gummy bear and
said here Paul put this on the hook. Well, being a good grandpa, my dad did what Hunter asked and
they caught fish with gummy bears until they were gone. Dad said he didn't know who ate more of
them the brim or the boy. Baited tastes good to the fisherman too. Well, that's a bonus.
Few years later that boy and I were fishing on the white river with a guide. We were floating with
the current for a trout using cooked shrimp for bait that the guide had brought. Now after a
little bit the guide gets the grumbling and digging around in the boat looking for that second
bag of bowl shrimp and he can't find it. I started helping him look under boat seats in the
live well behind the tackle boxes everywhere. No luck. Finally, I told Hunter look under his seat
and see if that shrimp was there. Man, he looked at me like he'd just been sentenced to life in
front of a baby gun firing squad. When he stood up the missing bag of bowl shrimp was located
and it was empty. But natural bait, that's my favorite. Growing up here it was worms and crickets.
Some folks would raise the worms in old chest type freezers or a junked out ice box laid
on the side. My wife and kids and probably most of humanity would call that a refrigerator.
Anyway, you fill it with dirt and meal scraps and cut a double handful of worms loose in there
and they'll do their thing making more bait. Me, I prefer crickets. They're less messy than worms
and boil those brim will wear them out. We'd stop by the bait shop and get a couple tubes of
crickets that's a hundred crickets each and hit the lake of the river. There's a million ways to put
a cricket on hook but there's only one right way. Catch one cricket out of the bucket and looking
at his back job to point to that hook under his shirt collar. That's his thorax which is right
below his head and run it through his body. That's his abdomen and have the point just barely
poking out of his exhaust pipe. You know what that is. It's important that you only bring one
cricket out of the bucket at a time because it can get dangerous. Crickets? Dangerous?
Check this out. Dad and I were on a sling river one afternoon after fishing most of the day,
soaking crickets till they plum fell off the hook with very few bites. We were fishing for our
supper or we'd already quit. We were running low on bait and all of a sudden we started smashing
the brim. Those big fat rascals, squirters we call them, you know, big blue gills that pee when
you pull them out of the water. You know why they pee? A stream when you take a hold of them? Well
me neither. And I asked my friend Lee, neighborhood master's degree of animal smartology assistant
director Ben Batten and even he didn't know. Brim peen and stony inch two of life's greatest
mysteries. Anyway, back to the fishing. It was like they had flipped a switch. They started biting
like crazy so with only a few crickets each we had to make everyone up count. If one got out of the
bucket while you were grabbing another you had to catch the loose one and sticking back in the bucket
and then bait your hook. My dad was in a cricket and fish catching friends when he accidentally
grabbed two out of the bucket. He was like a wild man in front of the boat trying to run the hand
steer, troll the motor, get his hook baited and back in the water. I watched him stick that extra
cricket he'd caught in the corner of his mouth holding it gently but firmly like a mule would eat
in a cactus. And at the same time bait his hook and make a perfect roll cast between two cypress
trees and immediately catch a fish. It was a moment in time that stood still. When he set the hook
he slowly turned and looked at me one eye brow raised and I know it all smirk on his face.
All the while holding that cricket in the corner of his mouth like Clint Eastwood held a cigar.
One tick of the clock later and he was cussing and spitting the cricket out trying to get his fish
in the boat and wiping blood off his lip where that cricket bit of hole did. Don't try this at home kids.
You'll mess around and get a hole in your lip and a boat round named after you.
The only thing left to do is to clean them and cook.
Lay one of them fat rascals out on a table, grab yourself a table spoon and get this grape
and against the grain pulling all those scales off. The fishing partner can get his pocket knife
and start gutting and taking the heads off while you scrape. Be sure you get them all because
nothing looks nastier than a cooked fish with scales left on it.
Somebody's going to say oh just fill them and when they do I'm going to say oh they ought to be in
jail. Now shout not to pry Brent of the fried brim tail. What you should do is have the pocket knife
man making a cut along each side of that dorsal fin and removing it before you cook it.
Once you get it out of the hot grease and it gets cool enough to chow down on that's always my
first bite. Brim back strap. You can't beat it. We talked about how to cook fish back on the
catching catfish with trot lines episode and I shared our family recipe with the meal that we mix
up. Go back and give it a listen if you want to use that one but there's lots of pre-made mixes or
just about any grocery store have one and they're good too but really all you need is yellow corn
meal hot grease and salt and pepper those fish they got a flavor of their own that can't be beat.
The main thing is just get out and do it. Grab your youngins or your neighbors some old folks
get them involved whether it's catching them or just eating them. Catching and preparing your food
is a joy and it's multiplied when you share it just like sharing these stories. I can't tell y'all
how appreciative I am from all the encouraging messages and reviews we've been getting.
You folks just keep sharing it and posting those reviews and maybe someone that wouldn't
normally run across it will see it and I can enjoy it too. You ain't got to be from the country
to be country. This is Brent Reeves signing off y'all be careful.