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Home again with memories of seafood and sausage

We’re having fun now, four shows in the can and we’re gearing up our gig next month in Minnesota.

But it is good to be home. Out on the road, you tend to long for home not only because you miss loved ones, but also to “catch up.” Once home, that catching up looses its luster. Law-mowing doesn’t seem like such an arduous chore until you crank that engine.

Without me around the house to distract her, my wife is able to fully develop that list of things “we” need to take care of while I’m home. As I’m sure you all realize, I am more than thrilled to jump right on all of that, except for the fact that I have so much Bass Edge stuff on my plate. I can’t just write these fishing stories without doing the field research.

There are a lot of things that have to be taken care of like haircuts, dentist visits and so on. I like to get my hair cut a couple of times a year whether it needs it or not.

It strikes me as a bad idea for the dentist to have remodeling done during business hours, especially if they are knocking out walls. The anxiety level rises a bit in the waiting room when they crank up that industrial drill … sorry, I got a bit off track there.

Out on the road, it was a little bit of the good the bad and the ugly. Now I know that many of you might think to yourselves that there can’t be a whole lot of bad about traveling around making a fishing show. And I know that’s really true, but we have faced a few challenges.

One of the shows I had most been looking forward to had potential for disaster. Based out of Morgan City, La., we had planned to fish the Atchafalaya Basin. Fishing legend Denny Brauer was our guest. I could just see the master of jig flipping hauling tons of fish from the cypress roots.

Well, as has been the case everywhere thus far this season, the water was at flood stage; we couldn’t even fish the Basin. Instead, we fished in some of the swamps and bayous that were less affected by the flood water, but still extremely high. The locals told us to look for current to find fish. Geez, there was current in the ditch next to the hotel. As we sat around a table full of fried seafood the night before, we bemoaned our luck.

The ugly reared its head in the back of some breezeless bayou with temperatures in the 90s and humidity you could slice and stack. It served as sort of a crash weight-loss program that was balanced by huge seafood feasts at night. I doubt that folks who offer all-you-can-eat crawfish specials consider the Bass Edge crew in their business plan.

But you’ll be proud when you see the show. Denny and Aaron figure out how to catch fish in the toughest conditions we have faced, and you get to watch it in air-conditioned comfort … plenty of good gator footage.

We travel quite a bit in the south, and have become accustomed to southern hospitality. But we’ve hit a new high. Reporter Kori Standsbury, who wanted to do a piece on us for the Lafayette FOX affiliate, said her family insisted that we stop by for breakfast. “You guys need a home-cooked meal,” she said. Of course she had not yet seen me or she would have seen that I wasn’t suffering in the meal department. My goodness, eggs, bacon, sausage, hash browns, grits, biscuits, gravy, fruit, juices … maybe they had seen a picture of me somewhere. We may even put some meat on Aaron’s bones if we keep that up.

Kori’s dad Scott was the cook, and his wife Donna and Kori’s sister Erin were charming hosts, all insisting that we return one day. Be careful what you ask for, I have a hand in planning where we shoot our shows.

Yes sir, I sure like Louisiana and hope to get back there very soon. I just hope it is during one of the cooler months.

Man, I sure have a hankering for a crawfish omelet and some boudin.