 |
On the water with...Dwayne E. Cooper |
|
|
Table of Contents Learning to find water on my own Information on the 99' fishkill on the White River Have fun...but don't get your feet wet!
My dad with some nice bass... Favorite Links
Indiana lawyer - Cooper Legal Services
Hoosierwebsites.com - Indiana's premier website design, promotion and hosting service
Hoosiertradingpost.com - The web home of Indiana's finest products and services
Home - On the water with Dwayne Cooper
|
Growing up...Growing up on a small lake in Vincennes, Indiana, I was fortunate enough to have a father (Ralph "Sonny" Cooper Jr.) that taught me the fundamentals of the sport of fishing at a young age... I was told that I caught my first bass at age 3 with a flyrod. While a youngster, I circled our small 12 acre lake daily in search of bluegill, redear, crappie, catfish and anything else that would bite my hook. When I ran out of bait, I'd go around the neighborhood looking under rocks and wood to find more worms and crickets. Sometimes I resorted to grasshoppers and small frogs. I once caught more huge redear than you can imagine on Cheerios! Sometimes I caught things that I didn't expect... Believe it or not, I once hooked a duck. And my younger brother (Andrew Cooper) fondly remembers me hooking his ear while I was flyfishing! Growing up, I remember watching my dad very carefully... studying his every cast and twitch of the rod when he was fishing. Plain and simple, no one caught more fish than my dad... My dad didn't have to ask me twice if I wanted to go out in the boat with him. However, the rules were strict. The boat was not a place to make a lot of noise and bang the tackleboxes around. My dad had a certain spot out in the middle of the lake called "the tree" and it held big bass. Many a time, my dad caught large bass off of the limbs of this ol' tree that was hidden several feet below the surface. For the most part, we used Johnson spincast reels back then. My dad gave me a reliable Johnson reel and a stout fiberglass rod that matched it. However, it was my job to keep the rod n' reel in good working order and keep line on the reel. Now, when I walked the bank, it was hard to carry two rods. So whenever, I wanted to throw a plastic spider that was meant for the flyrod...I often used my spincasting outfit. Of course, I would retie my lures often. Line was expensive and I had a tendency to "cut it close" when it came to having enough line on my reel. I remember one time when my dad asked if I wanted to go out in the boat. I jumped at the opportunity and quickly grabbed my rod n' reel and tacklebox looking forward to fishing "the tree." Well, we got out there in the middle of the lake and I cast out my line toward the tree and the line stopped just a short distance out from the boat and a long distance from the tree! I felt like I could cry... Here I was in the middle of the lake (sitting in 10 to 14 foot of water) and I didn't have enough line on my reel to get my worm where them big bass were... With 10 foot of line on my reel, I decided I could do nothing else than rig my rod up with a crappie jig and fish as deep as I could. So I did just that and proceeded to watch my cork bounce up and down next to the small jon boat. Much to my surprise, my bobber went down and I caught a super-large crappie! I was a happy fisherman... |
Some of my favorite topwater baits... 1. Rebel Pop-R in 1/4 oz. chrome/blue 2. Normark floating Rapala #13 in black/silver 3. Nipididee in 1/2 oz. chrome/blue 4. Smithwick Suspending Rogue in chrome/black and bream 5. Bagley Bang-O-Lure in chrome/black
Look at them fish!
|
Got a fish
story to share? Send email to Dwayne at