The Future Of Fishing

As a card-carrying Redneck of long standing, I am, of course, an inveterate tinkerer.

Comes with the territory.

  Now, please notice I did not say “Tinker,” because it does not match up a’tall with Redneck. What tinkerers do—solely in the name of making things, uh, “better”—is tinker with stuff tinkers have already tinkered with.

So now you know.

And you can blame roaming around a bunch of impoundments:  Sinclair last month, Jackson this issue, Eufaula next. I’ve been blessed to blitz up and down these and numerous others around the South a time or two, and the changes in how we go about it are nothing short of astounding.

But things can always get, uh, better…

For instance, the nicest guy I ever met in the world of professional fishing was a former Arkansas River guide whose boat wouldn’t do what he wanted it to when he wanted it to. So he went to tinkering…

Which is how the late Forrest Lee Wood came up with the Ranger boat. And flipped the world of bass fishing forever upside-down.

But things didn’t stop there. Next came electronics. Remember the early ones?

My first little screen flashed a scraggly brown bottom with a floating blip here and there. When an audible ping came my way, it was time to get busy.

Always looked like a snorkeling Sasquatch, speargun in hand, gurgling his way right along…

Now? LiveScope. With which you see the fish, watch the lure make its way to it, gaze with bated breath as said lure is inhaled…

Tinker time!

Who wants to put himself through all the toil of actually having to drag a fish in with rod and reel? Even chancing that, it may throw the hook!

There’s got to be a better way. So I went directly to my backyard shop and began searching for it.

Only one possible but highly likely problem with that…

He could be midnight harpooning for walrus in Outer Mongolia—or Inner Mongolia, for that matter—and should the single dangling bulb in my shop go suddenly aglow, Jake The Hermit will have a “Beam me up, Scotty,” moment and bump into my elbow in a trice.

His usual greeting goes something like, “Whatcha done tore up now?”

By the way, don’t fear for no walrus. Jake’s never even been outside the county except for that time Gertie Giddens—all 417 lusciously dimpled pounds of her—set her sights on making him Mister Gertie. Besides, he wouldn’t know a harpoon from a hippo.

(No inference intended, Gertie…)

My plans for revolutionizing sonar technology are simple: Siren or Shriek!

(Still in Research and Development, located on my back porch. Next to Marketing. Patio.)

See, I don’t want to go to the fish; my amazing new product, available only from Yours Tinkeringly, will bring them to me! And you! For the amazing low price of only… well, that’s being worked out on the patio…

Now, Ol’ Homer put me onto the whole Siren thing with them mythological maidens what could coo and sigh and bat their eyes so to draw a sailor right onto the rocks. Which didn’t turn out too good…

I’m thinking if I can get that sound underwater, an old bass will jump right into the boat! Or a catfish, crappie, striper, shellcracker… maybe even Flipper! The possibilities are limitless.

Know any Sirens? Well, if that don’t work, we’ll go to Shriek.

Well now, what would it take to put enough fear into a 10-pounder that he plumb cleared the side of the boat and fell google-eyed and paralyzed in the bottom?

Maybe if I told Gertie where Jake was and taped her reaction…

I feel kind of bad considering there’ll no longer be a need for rods to step on and break in the boat bottom, not to mention reels, line, lures…

On the other hand, a good long, strong dip net will be a must-have, since fish are going to be flying in all directions…

Manufacturers can simply retool plants to come up with the latest and greatest net out there…

Only a few hours into things, I’ve pretty much emptied my shop of “spare parts” and other assorted junk, and find myself with a rudimentary black box only slightly larger than a rear-projection television, circa 1990.

Should only require a dozen or so installers—assuming they’re right hefty—but the overall size is of no real concern. After all, have you seen a Ranger lately? Family of four can live comfortably.

With but little tinkering left to do, thoughts turn to Marketing. As in, what are we going to call this thing? Simple enough. I’ll get four or five of my Redneck buddies, buy ’em a case of beer, then sit back sober and savvy as they solve the problem.

Trust me: they’ll come up with something!

My new creation was humming right placidly, when out of nowhere a gnarled finger slipped past even as I hollered, “Don’t touch that… BzzzzzzzttPOP!!! … wire!”

“Jiminy Cricket, ye done blowed my bunions off!” Jake howled, amidst the ugliest Charleston rendition ever performed.

“Well that’s what you get for slipping up on a technological mastermind in the middle of the night!” I yelled right back.

But then noticed that the hum had become a gasp and then a lurch… lastly silence. Oh well; back to the drawing board.