Legendary musician Jimmy Buffett loved to wet the fishing line

September 07, 2023
Written by Lynn Burkhead

Doves are in the air, blue-winged teals are roaring south, and backyard grills are being spruced up after the last break of the summer season and the first big college football weekend. While the end of summer on the water is usually filled with smiles and laughter, this week’s edition of G&F Digest begins on a somber note as one of the world’s best musicians – and a skilled fisherman too – has sailed to a remote shore.

The late music legend loved hunting

Jimmy Buffett, the legendary musician who became a billionaire from “biting the sponge cake,” “hunting for his lost salt shaker” and lamenting the face-turning in his hit song “Margaritaville,” died Friday, September 1. , 2023 at his home in Sag Harbor, Long Island, New York, after a long battle with Merkel cell skin cancer.

The 76-year-old singer was surrounded by his family, friends and dogs when he passed away, and remains a music entertainment icon who had millions of “Parothead” fans and sold more than 20 million albums during his music career that began in 1964.

While Buffett suffered a quiet health battle that only family and friends knew about, he had to cancel some shows earlier this year after being hospitalized. When he told his fans in May, Buffett said he’d be home soon and then go fishing.

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“Thank you for the outpouring support and well wishes,” he wrote on Facebook according to People Magazine. “I’ll go home tomorrow for a while, then go fishing with old friends, canoeing and sailing to get in shape.”

Buffett loved fishing, and would go on countless fishing trips, some of them for deep-sea species, including the 500-pound tuna he once wrestled on the boat a few years ago in New England. Other times, he had a fly stick and a big fly reel in hand, battling everything from bony fish in the Bahamas and Christmas Island to striped bass along the northeast coast near Nantucket.

One of his closest friends on Nantucket was Capt. Tom Melczko, who spoke this week about the Nantucket Stream that Buffett felt right at home in a coastal Massachusetts village.

“I think he had a certain amount of anonymity here,” said Mleczko, owner of Captain Tom’s Charters in Nantucket. “Sure, people would recognize him here, but in places like Key West, he would go out on the street and he would recognize him.” is gathering. He had a lot of friends here who loved seeing him and being with him but never made that fact public. They let him be Jimmy and it wasn’t about the fame. The Nantucket people kind of understood that this was the reason he was here—anonymity—they respected that, and they let him have it.

One of the places Buffett — who was named a billion-dollar entertainer by Forbes earlier this year — was only Jimmy was on the Melczko boat. The first of many trips came with a phone call, the trawler captain recalls.

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“My wife handed it to me and said, ‘It’s yours,'” Melczko told the Nantucket news site. The guy on the other end says, “Captain, this is Jimmy.” ‘Jimmy Buffett’ I looked at the phone and said ‘Which of my good friends is pulling my leg?’ He said, ‘I want you to take me to Takernock and fish ‘in the sand – I hear there are some good fish there.’ I said, “Well, when do you want to do that?” And he said, “How about tomorrow?”

It was a rough ride with high winds and big waves, but Buffett caught a fish on his first cast, then chose to return. And that was the beginning of a great friendship — Buffett even bought the captain a boat once. The couple often fished together, learning how to fish on the sands near Nantucket.

Buffett was often aboard a SUP (stand-up paddle board) in tropical waters, casting flies for bony fish with his graphite rod and tibur reel. And in December 2022, he posted on social media a picture of himself paddling on a remote sandy flat in salt water with a fly rod in hand. The hashtag simply read #justafewfriends.

Buffett lived in a world filled with a few good friends, fishermen and otherwise. And today, they all think the same thing when they hit replays. Rest in peace Jimmy, and thanks for the music.

Minnesota Coho’s record two touchdowns in two days

The last time the Minnesota state record was set for coho salmon, Richard Nixon was the president. But that 53-year-old record seemed to have fallen on Labor Day when a 10.92-pound coho was pulled from the frigid waters of Lake Superior near Duluth, Minnesota, according to the Duluth News Tribune.

David Chichos of Wabasha, Minnesota, caught the big fish, 29 inches long, while fishing with Captain Kent Paulsen out of Duluth. The Minnesota DNR, which is said to be overhauling its fish registry system, has the paperwork and certification could be done as soon as this week.

As an overhaul of the state’s record-keeping system reclassifies all catches prior to 1980 as historic and uncertified, Minnesota’s long-standing record was apparently broken the day before on Sunday, September 3, 2023 when Capt. Brody Caldal pulled out a 7-Walter One-year-old Taylor and his dad in Superior, where the youngster caught a 10.06-pound fish that would have set the state record had it not been for a larger catch the next day.

For what it’s worth, a Minnesota State Record Historic/Now DNR-certified Coho salmon was pulled from the Baptism River area of ​​Lake Superior on November 7, 1970 and weighed 10 pounds, 6 ounces.

World Champion Squirrel Cook-off

Arkansas is a good place to hunt greenheads, snow geese, white-tailed deer, and squirrels. As for that last idea, after a three-year hiatus due to the pandemic, Natural State is once again making plans to host the World Champion Squirrel Cook Off later this month in Springdale. The event will have up to 40 three-person teams cooking, using everything from grills, smokers, and other cooking tools starting at 9am on the day of the event. Dishes will be presented to the judges at noon and award winners will be announced at 3:30pm. The rules are pretty simple, including that all cooking must take place on site and entries must contain at least 80 percent squirrel, which will be verified by competition officials before the cooking competition begins.

Bushtail’s return event will also include a squirrel-skinning contest, the world’s most exciting squirrel-wing-eating contest – where’s Joey Chestnut when you need him? — and a pellet gun shooting competition among other things.

For the first time, the press release from the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission notes that a nine-foot alligator will be on the grill for the event, along with five-time Memphis World Barbecue Champion Mark Lambert in May, bringing a 400-gallon pot to Cook the world’s largest batch of fried rabbit.

“You wouldn’t be able to swing a squirrel around here without finding something worth seeing or doing,” said Joe Wilson, event organizer. Wilson also added, “YouTube celebrity barbecue Malcolm Reed is one of our handpicked judges.” “We’re preparing for the cooking competition, as well as Brent Reaves from the popular Bear Grease show for the MeatEater Group,” Wilson said. “We’ll also have live music playing all day, and a celebration of all things outdoors. If you go out hungry or bored, I don’t know if it’s any help for you.”

Visit the event’s Facebook page for more information.

Short shots

The fishing world will be looking forward to the National Museum & Aquarium for Wildlife Wonders this weekend Saturday, September 9 as the International Fishing Association’s Hall of Fame presents the HOF Class of 2023. Honorees are in the sprawling museum next to the flagship store location of Johnny Morris’ Bass Pro Shops will include IGFA world record holder and tournament champion Roberta G. Arostegui; fly-fishing adventurer and pioneer, Kay Brodney; fly fishing and fly fishing master, captain and writer Dean Butler; Avalon Tuna Club Distinguished Member and Conservationist Gerald A. Jarrett; and marine resource champion and fishing gear pioneer Bill Shadd. … Early next month, the Bonefish & Tarpon Trust will host its 12th Annual Gala Dinner and Awards Gala in New York City in the Big Apple. The event is scheduled to take place on Tuesday, October 10, 2023 at the University Club, and will honor angler, conservationist, and longtime BTT friend Chad Pike, as the recipient of the 2023 Lefty Kreh Award for Lifetime Achievement in Conservation. Pike, retired Senior Managing Director of the Blackstone Group and founder of Eleven Experience, will be introduced by New York Times bestselling author Monty Burke, author of Sowbelly: The Obsessive Quest for the World-Record Largemouth Bass and Lords of the Fly: Madness, Obsession, and the Quest for the Record Universal Tarpon.