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| Written by Tom S. |
I really can't recall how I came upon that pier, how I came to know the people, tactics and more importantly, the regulations I now recite to others like scripture. But I came to know these things. I started that first night reacting to yellow perch hitting my minnows with onlookers smiles! At first they thought I might have actually had a crappie on before dark - ha! Then they realized I was just a green-horn crappie fisherman. It didn't take long for me to hang my lantern, craft a crappie board, and learn to conversate, and leave my minnows hanging well above the perch for awhile, before the biting of the target fish would really start.
 I started fishing for crappie after experiencing my first layoff. I was a graphic designer and was doing decent. The work was fun, the pay was good and I looked forward to each day. After 2001, and the year the country was going through, being laid off and in advertisement, was a bad place to be. I couldn't get a job in the field I was trained in, I couldn't do much but look for other work; which wasn't what I was prepared for only 5 years out of a technical school. So - along with doing tree work and having no boat - I started fishing for crappie on Bell's Pier, in North Carolina, on Jordan Lake. I was too worn out to play basketball after work, which was my past-time after hours in the beginning of my career; so I needed something to do for stress relief that was more relaxing! It was in the next two years, I learned not only to fish for the awesome, tasty crappie; but I learned to accept - that all things do change. The desires of we men can and will change. That money and status, will and should be replaced with humility, piece of mind and family. That catching a limit of palatable fish really does mean one can provide for his or herself. That even though as I did find jobs twice more in my field, after the economy seemed to rebound, and I was laid off from closing companies twice more; I was more prepared for the let down than I would have been had I continued to chase what I did not need. Going fishing with my wife and daughter; getting in a hard days work for my family, was much more rewarding than winning any number of ball games, or chasing a career that seemed to be just a bit snake-bitten. Now - I run my own landscaping company in Pittsboro, North Carolina, and I live ten miles from Jordan Lake. I work, I love my family, and I hunt and fish! We can provide for ourselves whether we garden, hunt, fish or work. My family loves to camp and ride around on our 16' alumacraft, whether we are chasing the mighty crappie, or the wind. But I do defy - those crappie, they are a slab of a good time! And if you listen very closely - you might just learn alot more than you would have ever imagined. Tom Sullivan
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