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First Boat Trip of 2005

Met my brother at boat ramp around 11 in morning. It was first time he got his boat in water this season. I was very surprised by how clear river was compared to week before. When we powered away from ramp we started planning where to start fishing. It was then I noticed fish finder was not in boat. That meant we had to fish spots we knew about and hoped fish would be there. I had intended to use fish finder to pinpoint fish to increase our odds of landing more fish than usual for us.

My brother got all 6 rods baited up as we motored to fist spot. He used large chunks of frozen skipjack as bait on all rods. He has an array of 6 rod holders that allows a wide area to be fished at same time. We settled back once all lines were in water at our first stop. One of my brother’s rods got a good bite. The fish hit it hard some more. My brother did not get very concerned; he said he would just let fish hook himself. The rod did not move any after he said that. We started to wind in our lines to move to our next spot. He picked up rod that had bite that is when he realized fish was still on line. When he got it to top of water he saw catfish had wrapped line around its body. There was no way it could use tail section of its body at all to swim off with line. My brother had to cut line so fish could be free of mess so he could take a couple pictures. The Channel cat was in 6 pound range and good shape as he was returned to Licking River.

Well, they can talk about pro baseball all they want to in terms of skill, but it runs a far distant second to a real man’s sport - its cousin and derivative, “burr ball.”

For those of you out there who don’t know what burr ball is, its a game we played in my backyard in suburban Juliette back when I was growing up. Ed Jr. was originator, and no game I’ve ever played, before or since, has proved as challenging as burr ball.

For burr ball, you played a one-on-one match-up. There was a hitter and pitcher, and that was it. An axe handle served as bat, and hitter was stationed about twenty-five feet behind our house in backyard, pointed at house. The rules were simple - each side had three outs, games were nine innings long, if you hit one over roof it was a home run, if you hit one on roof it was an out if pitcher caught it before it touched ground. If he dropped it when it rolled off roof, you had a hit and a runner on base.

Hitting wasn’t what made burr ball challenging, though - it was pitching, and what was pitched, that accomplished that. What was pitched was one of three items:

Dried up sweet gum burrs that were placed in a pail of water.

Dried up hickory nut shell quarters.

Full, green hickory nuts.

Think hitting those items wasn’t a challenge? That was only half of it, cause man that pitched them to me, Ed Jr., was recognized Greg Maddux of burr ball.