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Closets
can hold the strangest people
I am taking a very big risk right now. There is some personal news I believe is important to share with you. You have been loyal readers over the years, and through your letters, calls, and personal greetings, you have let me know that you have been firmly behind me. But nothing in life is as it appears to be. I must now come clean. Another group is slowly coming out of the closet--slowly mind you! We have been hiding in the darkness for a long time and were afraid to come out into the light because of possible scorn and ridicule from others. Many years ago we used to be in the majority. Political correctness took care of that. Changing times foisted a spectre of uncertainty upon us. Our majority soon became a minority, and even that has dwindled. We had no alternative except to go underground. I am a live bait angler. Alright, I said it. I belong to that group who are the ones who get down, deep, in the trenches of life, getting our hands and boat floors dirty with nightcrawler slime, minnow guts, crawfish juice, and various other and sundry pieces of nature’s fertilizers and cast-asides. We have terrible self-esteem, and we’re always worried that some hooked-on-treble, extremist groups will attack us, in print, or in person. If you care to, you can see us out there--early in the morning at Montrose--with our faces and heads covered. You’ll see my brethren at the Grass Lake Rd. Bridge at C.J.Smith’s, on the Spring Lake Channel. You’ll find us at Busse Lake, Tampier, Axehead, Maple, West Branch and a jillion other spots--doing our own little private thing. We hang out together at our special diners, bars, coffee shops. We’re often viewed as a secret clan, all because the fishing society has gone the way of Michigan Avenue and Rodeo Drive. There were times when we used to cringe when other anglers would ask---"What--no big tackle box for all your lures?" We couldn’t face any of those other fishermen. We would look down in shame as we fished from shore, while being confronted by walleye and bass anglers in their glitzy boats on the Fox Chain. I almost disintegrated into freeze-dried coffee one time when some bass super-star discovered I was using a live nightcrawler and a Lindy Rig! Can you imagine how difficult it must have been for us dedicated nightcrawler secrets fans? We spend countless hours in our dank, dark basements, sorting through hundreds of golf-course beauties--and working our fingers to the bone trying to condition the load so they could transform into junior snakes? Can you imagine how horrible it was for us to keep this secret to ourselves? We carried this burden for years, without any therapists telling us we were OK and worthy of acceptance. We wouldn’t dare tell any outsiders what we were doing. We couldn’t risk the chance of being discovered by an uncle, an aunt--or god-forbid--a parent! No way. We could not go fishing with acquaintances who didn’t understand us. Believe me when I tell you, there are scattered groups of us live-bait, true believers who have banded together with secret oaths, handshakes, pass words, special jackets, and hats. And now, because it’s the 90's, we’re bold enough to sport a special stud-diamond earring that we wear in our shirt collars certain times every month. Those are the only visible clues as to our persuasion. Otherwise, you would never be able to tell us apart from the rest of the artificial world. Now if you shook hands with some of us, or sat around a table, having a cup of coffee, a beer and shot the breeze, you would discover another tip-off. Check the finger nails for flecks of dirt, mud, worm bedding, and other assorted remnants of earth’s precious debris. Some of my live-bait colleagues and closet live-baiters also smell a bit differently than a Thundersticker or Rapala chunker as well. Cats follow some of them home on side streets when they’re on foot. The feline attraction is generated from the wafting aroma of fatheads and shiner minnows--the real chicken of the sea. Wives notice a strange musty smell on some of their husbands’s bodies. Pretty soon a wife or two will start to smell like her man. Ambrosia! Must be from all that contact with worms and nightcrawlers. And the bottom line there is that some of the wives never take these smelly guys anywhere, like to the movies or for a bite to eat, because they are embarrassed of them. I wonder why the general public has never accepted us for what we are--basic human beings, just like anyone else? Well, almost like anyone else. If you really want to see an every-day, true coming out party without the cakes, candles, whistles, spin-doctoring public relations types, feast your eyes on the likes of the regulars who show up 7 days a week at places like Vet’s Bait Shop off of 95th Street in Chicago, or Henry’s on 31st Street. You’ll get your money’s worth. It’s right there in those bait joints and in many other old-time bait shops, that you will come face-to-face with the real salt-of-the-earth types. Spend a moment or two with these gentle souls and discover their is more to life than doing lunch or having your machine call someone else’s machine to make an appointment for a $30 hair styling. I’ll bet you also didn’t know that we never ask the government for any hand outs. We don’t have our own parade. The only time we’re on State Street in any numbers is when we’re short-cutting it over to Burnham Harbor. I know my friends would be happy to tell you that the only things left in our closets, now that we have come out, are the old worn out fishing clothes and a few cans of 10 year old sardines. This is real life at its best.
©copyright 1997, Mike Jackson Outdoors
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