Apr 12, 2015 4 min read

I was out of commission for a few weeks, but as Schwarzenegger might say, ‘I’m back.’

Thanks to the good people at Washington Hospital who put up with this old curmudgeon, I can walk again, which means the trout are in trouble. When I say wonderful people, I mean it, and while I know it is their job, every one of them went overboard with care.

I might not be able to fish as far from the car as I did when 20, but I certainly am thankful that, again, I will be found somewhere tossing and retrieving a spinner or drowning a nice, juicy night crawler.

A purest I am not, and I like to catch fish. I learned a long time ago to do whatever it takes.

All too often, an angler gets locked into a favorite bait and has difficulty changing. Since 90 percent of his fishing is done with a Mepps, he catches most of his fish on that lure.

I also learned early on there are days when trout will not hit a favorite lure and we should try something else. It resembles a good deer stand that goes sour. It’s hard to walk away from what worked in the past.

The yellow flowers are blooming, so the crappie can’t be far behind. As most anglers know, these good-eating panfish are minnow eaters and the minnow is a standard bait to use.

However, any lure that resembles a small minnow will result in catching crappie. Tiny spinners or spoons make for fine crappie lures.

Streamer flies also work, as do those small plastic grubs with the curled tail.

The trick in catching crappie is locating the school. Sometimes, casting within five feet of the school is not close enough, and on other days, they chase the lure a good distance.

We are not only talking horizontal distance but depth. Try different depths as well moving from spot to spot.

If you see someone hooking crappie, don’t be afraid to watch what they are using and, just as importantly, how they are using the lure or bait. I have a couple of friends who catch fish at Cross Creek Lake when no one else is hooking anything but sticks. I stop to talk with them, but I really am spying on them.

What are they hitting on? How deep, and how far out?

• While recuperating from surgery, I had the chance to spend time with my grandson, James. Now that boy is smart and might be smarter than me. He has a degree in biology and we were discussing some of the unusual behavior in wildlife when the subject turned to animals that team up for survival.

The partnership sometimes makes for strange bedfellows. I have heard of birds that feed on debris in a crocodiles’ mouth and birds that groom African beasts like the rhino.

James told me of one I never heard – a story that wolves and crows will work together to get a meal.

The crow is good at finding an animal carcass but has trouble getting it open. Through its action, it leads the wolf to the potential meal and the wolf tears it open and the animals feed together, neither bothering the other. This a good example of two different animals benefitting each other.

While the squirrel may act as an early warning system, it is not quite the same as a symbiotic partnership between two separate species. If you sat in the woods and listened to the chatter of chipmunks and squirrels and suddenly everything went quiet, it is a sign of danger nearby. Usually, the danger is in the sky in the form of a hawk and many woodland creatures take the squirrel’s sudden silence as a reason to shut up. But this is a general behavior, not a partnership.

Another example that is unproven but close to home is the wild turkey and the whitetail deer. Have you ever noticed how often they are found together?

The turkey, with its keen eyesight, and the deer with a great sense of hearing and smell would make a great partnership. It makes me think.

George H. Block writes a Sunday Outdoors column for the Observer-Reporter.