Friday, October 21, 2011

Fisherman's Elbow

For the last 3 or 4 months, my elbow has been hurting like hell. I've had this before, but not for a long time. Back then they called it tennis elbow (Lateral Epicondylitis - you try to pronounce it, I can't). I've only played tennis a couple of times in my 65 years so to call my problem "tennis elbow" is a bunch of hoke.



So I had this brilliant idea that I'd call it Fisherman's elbow and in doing so, I had to give it some really unpronouncable latin name. With that in mind, I went to Google and did a search for fisherman's elbow. What a crock, somebody had already idenitfied it, but they haven't given it a cool latin name. They'll probably use the same one as tennis elbow. Yeh, they did. I found it on another website.

I did come across an interesting article on a website called FishingBuddy.com and if you want to read it (there are some pretty funny parts), here's the link.


http://www.fishingbuddy.com/fishing_elbow_is_a_pain_in_the_angler

OK, so what do you do if you have this affliction? You can get one of these handy little things that wrap around your elbow (I have an Ace one) and press on the muscle so it keeps the pain away or you can do drugs. I vote for drugs.










OK, I thought it was a good idea when I started looking into it. So what does Shoreman do when he is afflicted? He goes fishing, of course. Not going to let a little thing like fisherman's elbow keep me down.

Pulled out of the house at 0730 and stopped for coffee at Cooks Station (tired of hearing this yet?) and got to Bear River Reservoir at 0815 (it's not very far). There were a lot of people fishing, but nobody in my usual spot. They must have known I was coming. Never mind, it's a fathead thing.

Put out one rod with PB and set the second one up with a gold Panther Martin just to see if anything would hit. Nothing did, so I put the seond one out with PB too. Somewhere around 0900 I caught one in the 10" range. After that, I didn't get much interest for the next 45 minutes, so I decided it was time to experiment. I'm the one who lives to the code of "give them what they want and they will come". On one rod I put on fresh PB and added some Pro-Cure Anise for a little licorice smell. On the other one I put fresh PB and added some Pro-Cure Corn smell.

Corn was the trick this morning. In the next 30 minutes, I put 4 more on the stringer for a limit and packed up. I walked up and down the shore to see what others were catching and it was one or two per stringer. I did what I could to help them, but without the Pro-Cure corn (today's key to Bear River) it was going to be a slow day.

When I stop for coffee I always talk about going fishing, but it never crossed my mind to ask them if they want any trout. This morning I did and since they said "sure" they'd love some, I dropped off the five for them.

That's it until the next adventure.

Mark


6 comments:

  1. I'm suffering from the same ailment. Left home at 5am, to go fishing at my favourite still water. Had to pack it in as I could hardly cast. Sitting here wearing an elbow guard. Having a can of my favourite brew to see if that won't ease the pain.

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  2. I have the same thing Mark, except mine is in my head, so fishing isn't the cure. Thanks for the inadvertent tip...peanut butter!

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  3. Had the same problem several years ago and learned to cast flies and spinners with a roll of the wrist. Decent of you to share your catch.

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  4. Yep, I got it too. I wear one of them there braces and like you I also turn to the drugs. Keeps me fishing.
    Tight lines

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  5. Hi Mark, been away from reading and commenting for a few days. Trying to catch up this evening. I think the best of the "Fishaletes" play through the pain. Looks like you did very well. Sharing the fish was pretty cool also. Maybe I need to stock up on some Pro-Cure.

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  6. Iget something like that but in my right shoulder and it gravitates to my elbow. This "golden age" thing is a bit tarnished.

    I like Pautzke Fire Bait, Fire Corn and Kokanee Fuel. I soak white Shoepeg corn in the Kokanee Fuel and use that quite a bit for still fishing and tip my trolling rigs with the stuff too.

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