You think you’ve seen it all lately? Political insanity . . . Covid… Lake D’Arbonne freezing over and everything in between? Well, hold on to your pedestal seat and strap down your trolling motor.
Sasquatch has been spotted on Lake D’Arbonne.
No foolin’. I saw him. He was catching fish Tuesday. He even comes out in the daytime, talks and has his own fishing boat. In fact, I’ve got witnesses that are even more credible than an outdoor writer. He’s a very pleasant fellow, but then again, I didn’t tease him with the beef jerky!
He’s Wesley Miller, aka, “The Big Sasquatch” (check him out on Facebook at the Big Sasquatch Outdoors). He’s a Registered Nurse at Pathway Rehab Hospital in Bossier City and a fishing guide at six or seven area lakes. His favorite lake? The one where the fish are biting the best. He lives in Doyline.
Wesley Miller is one of many folks visiting the lake this week practicing for the upcoming Crappie Masters. He is no stranger to D’Arbonne, one of the spots that he guides regularly. And he won the regional North Louisiana Crappie Masters event on D’Arbonne Sunday, a fishing day he calls the “one of the toughest I ever saw”. He had seven fish weighing 11 pounds and was the only fishermen to break double digits. Of 29 teams, only four fishermen landed two-pound plus fish. This time of year it isn’t unusual to be pushing 14 pounds for a winning 7-fish stringer.
“The water was 35 degrees,” he said. “I’ve never fished water that cold. You could see fish on the LiveScope, but they would hardly move and usually when they did, that was just to swim away. I didn’t catch a fish until 11 a.m. and didn’t catch but 10 fish all day long. I finally took one of my small little hand-tied jigs and figured out that if I could hold it in front of their face long enough, some of them would bite.”
Miller says things should be better this weekend. The water is warming, but the size of the catch may depend on the rain that is coming in later in the week. Too much rain could send the fishing spiraling downward. Either way, he doesn’t think it will take 30 pounds to win like last year, but then he adds, “Hey, these are some of the best crappie fishermen in the country. They know how to do it.”
Wesley grew up fishing, the son of school teacher parents who carried their family around the country in a pop-up camper during their time off in the summer. Wesley was badly burned in a three-wheeler accident when he was five and never got to play much sports. Fishing was one thing he could do. His parents bought him a fly-tying kit when he was seven and he taught himself how. He used those to catch trout on his traveling camping trips and then switched over to making crappie jigs on the same vise when he started chasing the white perch. He still uses it today.
He has a very neat and effective way for storing his jigs, too. He keeps newly tied, unused jigs in amber colored medicine bottles where they stay dry and are protected from sunlight, which can cause them to fade. When he uses a jig, he then transfers it into his clear plastic jig box with the other used jigs, where it stays until it gets worn out or just doesn’t make the cut anymore.
You can learn more about “Sasquatch” and get in touch with him for a guided fishing trip by checking out his webpage at https://bigsasquatchoutdoors.com or his Facebook page, “Big Sasquatch Outdoors”. And keep your eyes on the leader board of top fishermen this weekend. You just might see his name up there.
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