You gotta beat the fish

Bain, Colley set to defend the Alabama Bass Trail Series title

Story by Paul South

Submitted photos

When it comes to fishing, Adam Bain and Kris Colley hold to a simple truth, the same flame that burned bright in classic literature and on classic TV.

Whether it’s Melville’s Ishmael, or Mayberry’s Andy and Opie Taylor, it’s not about victory over another angler. It’s man vs. fish.

“It’s kind of like a little puzzle. You have to figure out what the fish are doing and the time of the year, the depth they’re in and what they’re biting,” Bain says. “It’s just you and the fish. It’s not necessarily you against everybody else, it’s you against the fish. There’s as much competition there, as there is to figuring out if you can beat everybody else. You gotta beat the fish.”

Bain from Pell City and Colley of Ashville beat the fish and everybody else in 2018, capturing the Alabama Bass Trail Championship in their home county on Neely Henry Lake.

They’ve won twice on the ABT circuit over the years, once at Pickwick Lake on the Tennessee River, and the ABT title on Neely Henry last year. The pair finished second in 2017, narrowly missing the ABT title on Logan Martin, their day’s catch losing by slightly more than two pounds.

Sanctioned by the Bass Anglers Sportsman Society, the Alabama Bass Trail Tournament Series features two divisions. Each division –North and South – includes five tournaments on five different lakes. As many as 225 two-man boats can compete in each tournament.

Bain, a Realtor and Colley, who works in the railway industry, have made waves on the ABT circuit with their winning ways that combine old-school fishing techniques with high technology in the ever-evolving world of competitive angling.

While the ABT is considered an amateur circuit, each tournament champion wins a $10,000 grand prize, with $47,000 in prizes going to the top 40 teams. In recognition of Alabama’s Bicentennial in 2019, the 200th-place finisher will earn a $200 bonus. The total prize money for the 2019 ABT Series circuit is $568,000.

But for Colley and Bain, it’s not about the money. While they’ve knocked around the idea of moving to a higher level of competitive fishing, family comes first.

“There’s so much money at the local level now that you can stay around the house and win. But we don’t necessarily do it for the money, but for the competition. The money is an added bonus. The more money, the more competition.”

Colley agrees. The rush of the tug on a line is enough.

“We’re both competitive in that we always want to win. It’s not that we fish against each other, but we joke around and make fun of it. You know, fishing is fun. Between the both of us, we never take it to the point where it’s so serious that we take the fun out of it. Honestly, if it ever got to that point, I’d probably quit.”

That fun and love of fishing has helped hook a strong friendship. The two have fished together for about a decade. And their fishing style, forged since childhood on the stained Army-khaki waters of Weiss Lake, Logan Martin and Neely Henry complements each other.

“He’s probably a little more patient than I am. I like to throw stuff and wind it in, Bain says of his angling teammate. “I use a spinner bait or a crank bait. He will take a jig or a piece of plastic and flip it. He thinks that if I’m up there and catching fish that are active, he can fish maybe a different part of the water column.”

While most fishermen would probably never admit it, especially in the age of high-technology depth finders and trolling motors linked to smartphones and sonar-laced lures, luck takes a hand.

But when Colley is on his game, Bain has a simple strategy.

“When he’s on and when he’s getting bites and catching fish, I just stay out of his way. He’s kind of the same way with me. It may be his day a little more often than it is mine. He really does catch a lot of fish.”

Asked his own strengths on the team, Bain quips: “I run the dip net really well.”

While Colley can flip plastic lures into the tall grasses near the shoreline or under docks, Bain is the deep-water specialist, hooking big catches on spinner and crank baits. In the summertime, he generally does well because he catches them deep,” Colley says.

He adds, “We both kind of fish fast, but we do it different ways. When you have that and have two ways of looking at it, if one way’s not working, we’re really quick to switch to another. At the end of the day, you might fish the same, but it’s somewhat different.”

Like most kids who grow up near the lake, fishing has always been a simple pursuit. Joy can be had with a cane pole, a box of worms or a cage of crickets. But as with the rest of the world, technology snagged competitive fishing in its net.

The days of paper topographic maps of bodies of water are no more. Water temperature, depth, barometric pressure, the phases of the moon, all figure into fishing. And the new depth finders make learning an unfamiliar lake easier,

“They call it video game fishing,” Bain says. “As you’re trolling around, and you see a fish directly below you on your depth finder, you can drop a little worm straight down and watch the fish bite on the monitor. There are people who fish like that a lot. We’ve never gotten into that. Because we’re from and fish predominately on the Coosa River, which is shallow, the water stays kind of stained and the fish, most of the year live shallower than in other river systems. So, to fish competitively, you don’t necessarily have to fish out deep the majority of the year. Obviously, there are times you have to go out (deep) to win, even on Logan Martin and Neely Henry, but not as often (on those lakes) as some of the others.”

Colley is excited by the new technology.

“I think it’s great. It’s changed fishing. It’s sort of created a wide range of how to catch fish. You see people who fish on the bank and still win, and then you see people who grew up in the age of technology, and they know how to use it to their advantage, and they’re able to catch them offshore.

It’s changed the way that everybody fishes because at some point in time – we’re not the best in electronics – you’ve got to be able to read them to be competitive. Some of the lengths we go to, you have to know how to read them, or you’re going to get beat.”

Fishing, it seems, is booming. Bain, who learned angling from his father and grandfather, remembers fishing junior tournaments with only three competitive boats. Now fishing flourishes at the prep, amateur, collegiate and pro level. More than 200 boats compete on the ABT circuit, and some of the pros show up at those events. And amateurs compete in some of the professional “open” tourneys.

Bain believes the internet, technology advertising, money and media coverage have boosted the popularity of a sport that once seemed to be gasping for air on the rocks. And as a result, the competition is tough

“The fishermen have gotten good. Your average fisherman is a lot better now than he used to be. Whether that’s the depth finders or the material that’s he’s able to get to and read about and see the new techniques and all this stuff, the average fisherman has gotten much better than he was 20 years ago. It’s got to be the technology that’s doing that.”

Defending champs

Technology aside, Colley and Bain are philosophical as they begin the defense of their 2018 Alabama Bass Trail Series. Colley doesn’t see a bullseye on their backs as the new season began.

“It’s not. We look forward to being able to defend. We’re not going to change anything up. If we go out and do the best we can and if it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be.”

He adds, “We both have our strengths as far as what we like to do and how we do it. If it’s a bait or a certain thing he likes to do, he runs the boat. It just depends on crank or jerk bait like Adam does, or flipping a bait, that’s more my kind of deal. We try to keep each other up. You’re going to lose a big fish here and there, and when we do, we just try to make fun of it. We don’t really get down, we just make fun of and nag each other the rest of the day.”

Asked if the fishing friends are like an old married couple, Colley chuckles.

“Pretty much,” he says.

The pair calls the ABT championship their biggest thrill and their biggest victory in fishing. But even in these days of tournaments and tough competition, where anglers on the ABT try to land five fat keepers, the story always circles back to childhood and the thrill of that first big fish, fun and friendship

“We don’t do a whole lot different than anybody else,” Bain says. “Kris is an outstanding fisherman. I’m probably very lucky to be fishing with him. We’ve taken our lumps over the years, but we’ve put a lot of time in and worked really hard at it. We’ve paid our dues.

“Now that we do have families we aren’t able to fish all the time during the week, like we did growing up. But what success we have now, I can attribute to those days as a kid, fishing for hours, not knowing what you were doing, but just learning. Eventually, years down the road, that stuff does pay off.”

Lakefront Palace

Sunset views, family, unique ideas anchor palatial home

Story by Jackie Romine Walburn
Photos by Susan Wall

Building their home on Logan Martin Lake was a long-planned labor of love for Lori and Dave Elmore, who combined construction expertise, years of planning and distinctive ideas to create a one-of-a-kind home.

With a Rustic French style that mixes wood, stone and black angle iron, the 14,000 square foot home sits on 1.5 acres on the shore of Logan Martin Lake – next door to Lori’s parents and on the water where they’d always wanted to live.

Dave, a builder and owner of Crossings General Contracting, and Lori, an accountant, say planning, documentation and communication helped them work on the project together with ease. Inspired doses of design and do-it-yourself artistry also create a home with distinctive touches in every room and innovations throughout.

“Compiling ideas was somewhat a labor of love,” says Dave, who was the contractor for the building process that stretched to three years, from planning to move-in in mid-October of 2017. The building of their first home after 11 years together brought to life long-saved ideas. “Yes, there was a wish list,” Dave smiles, “and she got all of it.”

Arched entrances, hand-fluted columns, white pine floors, black iron railings plus spruce ceilings and accent walls tie together the home’s four floors of living space. The home is highlighted by three rock fireplaces, casement windows and multiple outdoor living spaces, including a towering “witches hat” screened area with an outdoor kitchen.

“We were very hands-on with the finishes,” Dave said. With similar tastes, a long-considered wish list and determination to make each room unique, the couple worked together to craft homemade and handmade solutions and features throughout the home.

The home was purposely planned with nine bedrooms and 12 bathrooms to accommodate their five grown children and their eventual families, friends and extended family.

“We both grew up close to our families,” says Lori, “and we love the idea of having a central location for everyone to gather.”

 One of the first have-to-haves on the design list was the placement of the kitchen’s cooktop to face southwest for great sunset views through the dining area’s large windows. The views and other perks of lake life, plus living next to her parents, retired Alabama Power Company President Elmer Harris and his wife, Glenda, make the location ideal for the Elmores.

The exterior of rock and wood has seven gables and cedar shake roofing. The main floor entranceway leads to a great room with a tall rock fireplace and towering windows allowing for the first of many views of the lake and entrance to one of several outdoor living areas. A rock archway leads to a custom kitchen with a copper farmhouse sink, made-from scratch kitchen cabinets with antique and Flor de les accents.

The home’s handmade-by-Dave custom items also include the 13-inch curved Cove top molding in the kitchen, lighting fixtures in the great room and several bathrooms that were made from candle holders bought from Hobby Lobby, the candelabra light fixture over the kitchen’s island that is hand crafted with black iron trivets, the full-size bed swing in the middle of the Witches Hat screened area and a cut-stone floor air vent solution between the great room and kitchen.

Dave also came up with the idea for leather walls in the powder room half bath by the kitchen area entrance and found the leather on clearance for $50. He built the head board and bed frame in the in-laws suite, engineered the pool waterfall, and converted rolled tin candles holders into lighting fixtures in the master bath, where a swinging metal-and-wood door that leads to master bath began as a wall hanging from Hobby Lobby.

The home’s nine bedrooms each have a water view, a bathroom and a name, to help keep up with them during construction. In addition to a bunk bed area on the top floor and the master bedroom suite with its own views, stone fireplace, outdoor areas and dreamed-of master bath and closet area, the home’s bedrooms are named:

  • The Lakeside Room, where “you feel like you are standing on the water’s edge.”
  • The Fireside Room that sits next to the outdoor fireside pit.
  • The Poolside Room next to the pool and its waterfall.
  • The Hole, a bedroom tucked into the foundation of the house.
  • The In-Laws Suite, “self-explanatory” and ready when it’s needed.
  • The Picture Frame Room with a window that looks like a picture frame.
  • The Drivetime Room that sits above the driveway.
  • The Bulldog Room that overlooks the street, Bulldog Circle.

Unique features also highlight each of the 12 bathrooms, including vanities made of log sections, stone slabs and antique dressers.

A full house automation system controls lights, security, heating and cooling plus music from surround sound speakers throughout the house – allowing different music in different areas. Other safety and convenience features include an elevator, a storm shelter, a laundry room on every floor, self-activating safety lighting in every hallway and a huge pantry area with a Cheyenne door.

For pure fun, there is a home theater, large patio areas with a pool, a natural gas-powered fire pit and a basement game room with two tri-fold doors that allow an 18-foot opening to the back deck. The game room also boasts an Auburn gumball machine with orange and blue gumballs, a birthday present to Lori. The couple met at an Auburn-Alabama football game in 2005. They’d both attended Berry High School in the Birmingham area but didn’t know each other then.

Asked for their top five favorite things about their new home, Lori and Dave’s lists cover a gamut of its custom features.

Lori’s five favorite areas are:

  1. The rear screened porch with its view of water, pool and boathouse.
  2. The pool waterfall.
  3. The master bath tub, a huge jetted Roman tub backed by waterfall window and a large double shower area with rainfall and several other shower heads next to 6 x 9-foot mirror-tinted windows that you can see out of but others cannot see in.
  4. Her closet, off the master bath, which has custom pull out storage and columns hand fluted on site.
  5. Big fireplace in the great room.

Dave’s five favorite areas are:

  1. Witches Hat area and ceiling. This screened outdoor area has a stone fireplace topped by a mantle made from an oak tree that fell on the property, two entrances, an outdoor kitchen and the Dave-made full bed size swing. But it’s the ceiling and towering cone made of one-by six-inch spruce that tops his list and required two painstaking months of carpentry work on a 60-foot man lift to line up the gently curved vertical spruce boards.
  2. The Game room – which is only missing the pool table Dave plans to build.
  3. The pool waterfall.
  4. Views from the kitchen and master bedroom.
  5. The log and stone vanities.

As the seemingly unending punch list on their home shrinks, soon to disappear, the Elmores look forward to a summer of lake life when their empty nest refills with their blended family. Their grown sons and daughter, all away pursuing degrees and careers, include Lori’s sons, Harrison King, 26, and Conner King, 22, and daughter Sarah King, 24, and Dave’s two sons, Houston Elmore, 21, and Cade Elmore, 19.

Family and friends already gathered, filling those bedrooms, in late March when the Elmore hosted a wedding reception for her niece, Carlyn Harris and her groom, Brent Tyree.

Vendors and contractors of note on the home building project include Traylon Ward, whose crew did the framing on the house and who was hired on by Dave as a key person “who can do anything.”

All the stone used inside and out came from Lamb Stone in Oneonta, the firm’s largest single order ever, and Warren Family Garden Center and Nursery in Leeds that supplied landscaping items, including unique plants and planters. Other items Lori chose from online vendors with successful finds at Wayfair and Houzz, and for the candle holders, trivets and doors turned into homemade accents, credit goes to Hobby Lobby and Dave’s imagination. 

Canoe Creek Park

New park haven for anglers, boaters, vacationers on Neely Henry

Story by Paul South
Photos by Carol Pappas

Though decades have sped by since Jeff Brown’s boyhood growing up near Neely Henry Lake, his memories are as fresh as a newly-baked biscuit, or freshly-caught crappie squirming on a line.

“It’s been a marina forever,” Brown said. “When I was a kid, I remember running home from school, jumping in the boat and trying to catch some fish,” Brown, now a St. Clair County commissioner, said. But fishing for crappie and striped bass were only part of what hooked Brown on Neely Henry.

His voice cracked with emotion as he recalled camping with family near the lake. “I still remember my Mama making gravy and biscuits when we would be in our camper out there,” Brown said. “I’ve got a lot of great memories there.”

After investing more than $1 million to build the new Canoe Creek Boat Launch on Neely Henry, St. Clair County hopes to create a new batch of precious memories for current and future generations.

For many years, the launch was owned by Tom Willard, who eventually sold the facility to the county. For years, the county maintained the facility, until it learned of some grant funding available from the Alabama Department of Fish and Wildlife. In 2008-09, the county was awarded a $750,000 grant. The county came up with the additional funds.

“That got the ball rolling,” Brown said. The refurbished launch was unveiled last year.

“It’s a great facility,” Brown said. “We’ve got about 80 parking places for truck and trailer, 85 boat slips, four handicapped accessible slips, a floating dock you can put boats under in inclement weather, two fantastic docks, three lanes wide, to launch a boat from… In 2019, they are going to lower the water some, and the state is going to come in and add another 30 feet to the existing ramps. You’ll be able to launch in any kind of water then, whether it’s up or down. It’s been a great project.

“There’s also room for fishing off the banks of the lake. You can carry the kids down there and sit on the rocks and fish. It’s a very productive place to fish,” Brown said.

That productivity – waters teeming with bass and crappie – won’t only lure beginning anglers, but the county hopes some of the best fishermen in the world will come to Neely Henry for competitive fishing tournaments. In fact, tournaments may be a part of life at the new launch as early as this summer.

“It’s one of the targets I’d like to see it reach,” Brown said. “I’ve had people contact me already about holding bass tournaments and crappie-thons. I think it’s coming together quickly.”

Public and private efforts on the waters of St. Clair County like the new launch, kayaking, camping and cycling areas, picnic areas and new lakefront residential development, are helping transform the county into a hotspot for environmental tourism, from Logan Martin to Neely Henry, from Canoe Creek to Chandler Mountain.

Gene Phifer, president of the Neely Henry Lake Association, said the new launch has created a positive buzz.

“We have been down there and kept track of the progress. As far as being a functional, nice boat launch, it’s fully functional. There is a lot of excitement about it. It’s a beautiful facility.”

Brown agrees. “It’s a tremendous draw. Pleasure boating is a big thing on our lake,” Brown said. “You can’t just put a pontoon in any water. You have to have a good ramp and good water.”

The Canoe Creek Boat Launch project is close to Brown’s heart. He hopes the place will become special to visitors and locals alike. His own family camped at Evans Marina, only three miles from the new launch.

“I’m teared-up now,” Brown said. “Good times are hard to beat. I have a lot of good memories. I remember waking up to my Mama’s breakfast cooking. And we had fried crappie for supper a lot of times.”

As for the future of the launch and Neely Henry Lake, Brown is optimistic.

“I just see it continuing to grow. Growth is great as long as it’s done right, and that’s been the case with the private sector and with the county commission and the store owners,” Brown said. “It’s got to help Etowah County and Ragland, too. That’s what I love about the launch. It’s reaching out to a lot of different areas.”

Kelley Taft, engineer on the project, couldn’t agree more. She noted that the design “highlights the quiet lake community as a fishing asset. The marina is ADA compliant and creates inclusive access for people with a range of abilities. County Engineer Dan Dahlke and his staff did an amazing job implementing the design with skilled county construction crews.”

Brown is as clear as the lake water when he talks about the growth on Neely Henry. It’s about being a good neighbor to locals and tourists alike.

 “I want to grow in a way that the neighbors are proud of it. I don’t want to be the new kid on the block that runs the neighbors off. I want the neighbors to say, ‘Wow, look at what we’ve got.’”

Gone Fishing

Expert anglers reveal their
favorite fishing spots

Story by Loyd McIntosh
Photos by Michael Callahan
Submitted Photos

Few things in life are as secretive as people who fish often. Seriously, getting a fisherman – or fisherwoman – to give their closely-guarded secrets is like trying to track the whereabouts of Jimmy Hoffa.

However, in this issue of Discover St. Clair, a handful of local fishing experts are divulging their secret fishing holes on Logan Martin, Henry Neely and the Coosa River for the first time in recorded history (may be an exaggeration, if only slight one). Many of them will even tell you about the gear they use to catch fish after fish in our area. Take notes, people.

Zeke Gossett

A former standout for the Pell City High School fishing team and current star on the Jefferson State team, Zeke Gossett is familiar with many areas of Logan Martin but finds particular success fishing the back half of Rabbit Branch Creek in the spring and early summer months.

“There’s just a great population out there. It has a lot of good clay points, with shallower banks,” says Gossett.

The area is really successful for him in April and May due to the abundance of docks. “There are a lot of fish coming off the bank, and they like to hang out around those floating peers, so I really like fishing close to the docks in April, especially when it’s sunny outside.”

Gossett also says he really enjoys fishing in the Shoal Creek area on Neely Henry Lake during the spring, especially on the lower end near the dam. However, he says he adjusts his approach depending on Alabama Power’s generator schedule.

“When the water is running on that lake, and I’m going to fish up the lake around the City Dock area up around Gadsden, I would like current toward the bottom end of the lake,” he explains. “It helps, but I don’t need it as much as I do up the river.

“When you go up the river, it turns into a skinnier river about 100 yards across and not even that in some areas,” he adds. “So, current is a big must up the river, that time of year especially.”

Hayden Bartee

Gossett’s partner on the Jefferson State fishing team, Hayden Bartee, is another young and talented competitive angler with loads of experience fishing on area lakes.

Discussing his favorite locations during the first warm stretch of the year in mid-February, Bartee says Cropwell Creek near the city baseball fields has been a productive spot for him as of late.

“It’s been pretty good here the past couple of weeks,” says Bartee. “I caught a big fish out there a couple of weeks ago, and there’s always a good population of bait fish as well as bass.”

Bartee says that area of Logan Martin is great for sight fishing when the water is clear. In this situation, he uses a bait by Big Bite Baits called the Warmouth on a 7’4 Heavy Duce rod. Bartee also says the grassy areas around Riverside can be productive and has a certain technique that he uses when fishing that area. “You can catch them on a swimming jig,” he explains. “I’ll throw a Big Bite Baits swimming crawl as a trailer for my swim jig with Vicious 60-pound no-fade braid on my 7’4 heavy Duce. That’s another good way to catch them, especially this time of year.”

Joey Nania

A fixture on the BASSMASTER professional angler circuit since 2011, Pell City resident Joey Nania is well-acquainted with the ins and outs of Logan Martin and Neely Henry. Nania also operates his own fishing guide service and has fished in almost every nook and cranny in the area, and says spring is a great time find fish in shallow spots on Neely Henry.

“The key in the spring is the fish are going to be shallow, and so fishing in the grass is important,” Nania says.

“Canoe Creek has a lot of fish that live in it,” he adds. “You go to the back of Canoe Creek, and there’s a ton of grass and a lot of docks, and that can be really good fishing in the backs of the shallow pockets.”

Nania says he prefers to fish in areas on Neely Henry that aren’t disturbed by the currents caused by the generators near the dam. “The backs of the creeks and the shallow fishing areas aren’t really affected as much if the water level stays stable, and they don’t suck the water out and drop the water out of the grass,” Nania says.

While he doesn’t want to give up too much information, Nania will say the hard bottom areas of Logan Martin are good spots to find bass. “A lot of those main lake bluffs are really good,” he says. “Finding hard bottom is really important, like roadbeds, gravel humps, that kind of thing.”

When operating his guide service, Nania takes people all over both Neely Henry and Logan Martin and says his clients are more successful when paying attention to fish behaviors rather than focusing on locations. “People want to learn different patterns, and learning patterns is really more important than individual spots,” Nania says.

Robbey Stanford

A member of the Iron City Kayak Anglers, Robbey Stanford gets a different view of the lakes, creeks and streams in the area. A resident of the Liberty Park community in Vestavia Hills, Stanford’s mother-in-law lives in Riverside, which is where he likes to take his kayak into places the big boats can’t reach.

“I love to fish a lot of the creeks that run into the Coosa River,” Stanford says. “I like to take my kayak up there and paddle into some of those back waters.

“The great thing about fishing in a kayak is you get to go where the bass boats aren’t,” adds Stanford. “It’s just a whole different angle of fishing.”

While fishing from a kayak provides anglers with an unprecedented level of maneuverability, Stanford cautions that safety must be a concern, especially for a newcomer to kayak fishing. “The main thing is always wear your life jacket. It’s not like regular fishing because you’re in a boat that can easily tip over and you can easily hit your head and drown,” he says. “I’ve seen it happen.”

Bre Wyatt

Former state champion with the Pell City High School fishing team and now a member of the Faulkner University Bass Fishing Team, Bre Wyatt is one of the first female anglers to earn a scholarship to fish in college. Whether fishing for fun or competition, Wyatt spends a lot of time on Neely Henry and Logan Martin and goes to those tried and true spots any time she’s fishing in the area.

I “have a stretch on Neely Henry about 800 yards long that’s like a rock with docks on it,” Wyatt says, “and we go there every time we fish.”

Wyatt says she likes to fish in the grassy areas around Riverside, as well as near docks and old concrete bridges. She also likes brush piles and finds them to be a good source of bass depending on the current.

“On Logan Martin, if they’re running water, we’ll go upriver and fish the current with spinner baits,” she says. “Downriver, we fish mainly brush piles, but they’re scattered around, but right there in front of Lakeside (Landing) is always good, although that’s pretty much a community hole,” Wyatt says.

Curtis Gossett

Well-known in town as the head coach of the Pell City High School fishing team, Curtis Gossett has taught many young people not only how to fish, but to recognize where the fish are biting. One of his favorite spots to toss in a line is Cropwell Creek on Logan Martin. “We fish it from spring to summer,” Gossett says. “It’s an area that always holds fish.”

Gossett says he ventures over into the Talladega County side of Logan Martin regularly, particularly in the Stemley Bridge area, although good luck finding out exactly where, since he’s not even sure what many of these holes are called. “There are a lot of sloughs up through there that we fish that don’t really have a name,” he says.

 One spot that Gossett can point to with certainty is Poorhouse Creek, which he says can be very successful in the spring. “The fish move up into that shallow water to spawn and, on the other hand, it has good creek channels where, if we have a cool snap, they can drop back off to those channels,” Gossett says. “All that together equals some good fishing.”

As for Neely Henry, Gossett does have one spot near the dam. But ever the competitor, he’s not tipping his hand as to exactly where that spot is. “That’s one we don’t talk about much because we don’t want people flooding up there,” he says.

On a serious note, Gossett says some of those areas near the dam can be dangerous for even the most experienced anglers. “There are shoals all up in there, and we have seen people run up and just ruin boats and their motors,” he says. “It’s really bad in there. You have to know where to run or you’re going to be in trouble.”


Editor’s Note: Congratulations to the Pell City Panthers Fishing team for winning the first ASABFA Regional Qualifier at Lake Jordan for the 2018 season!

Local Joe’s

Eclectic business living up to its name

Story by Elaine Hobson Miller
Photos by Michael Callahan

A man walked into Local Joe’s Trading Post near the Rainbow City/St. Clair County line one day and slammed his hand down on the countertop. “I just found out something about my wife,” he said, startling employees and customers alike. “For the past four years, she has not cooked turkey and dressing at Thanksgiving. She’s been buying it here. She even brings her own casserole dish for you to put the dressing in!”

While Jodie and Karen Stanfield, owners of Local Joe’s, don’t advocate trying to fool anyone, they are happy to supply smoked turkey breasts and all the accompanying fixings for Thanksgiving or Christmas. In fact, they serve smoked turkey, mouthwatering bakery goods, barbecue and four other meats, along with the traditional barbecue sides, all year ‘round. When you combine the food with all the locally-made items on their shelves, you come up with the smells and tastes of a barbecue joint and the feel of an old country store.

“We slow-smoke our turkey, chicken, ribs, pork butt, ham and sausage on site in cast iron smokers that were custom made by HBT Smokers in Guntersville,” says Jodie. “We do it Southern style, with no rotisserie, no fire beneath them and no additives.” He sells 500-600 four-pound turkey breasts every Thanksgiving to people like the anonymous wife above.

It will take all your willpower to pass by Local Joe’s without stopping for a bite when that pit smoke is floating on the breeze. If you could gain weight just by looking at sweets, you would be too big to waddle out after scanning the array of cookies, scones, cake balls and baked pies in the bakery case. While waiting on your order, you can browse through the general store section, with its wide-planked pine floors and walls covered in old-fashioned metal and wooden signs. That’s where you’ll find the local honey and produce, wine jellies and sauces, candles and kitchenware that gave Jodie the idea for the name of his store.

“We named it Local Joe’s because we buy from local-Joe farmers,” Jodie explains. “We buy their produce and homemade items. We also make some in-house products, like pimiento cheese from the hoop cheese we sell, and fried pork rinds.”

Karen rattles off a handful of local product examples, like the spiced peaches and hot crackers made by Smokehouse Crackers in Boaz, the Augustine Coffee that is ground in Etowah County, and the cheese straws made in Athens. They also buy seasonal plants such as poinsettias, mums and hanging baskets from the greenhouse of Rainbow Omega, a home for mentally and physically challenged adults in Talladega.

It becomes apparent that “locally” goes beyond the county line. Still, all except a few items are made in Alabama. Jodie likes to support small businesses, including Nancy’s Fudge Company in Meadows of Dan, Virginia.

Although the Stanfields opened Local Joe’s eight years ago, its history and general-store tradition date back to 1940. Henry Bowling built a two-bedroom house and operated a general merchandise store called H.D. Bowling’s Grocery out of it. He also had a barbershop there, charging 10 cents per haircut, and sold Shell gasoline at pumps in the front, according to his nephew, Henry Jester.

“My aunt told me that when they put the roof on the house, she had saved enough nickels in one year to pay for that roof,” Jester says. “My uncle also cut hair at Camp Siebert, a military base that was located down Pleasant Valley Road near Attalla during World War II. “His merchandise included barbed wire and nails.”

Jester says his uncle cut hair for many famous people at Camp Siebert, including boxer Joe Lewis and movie star Mickey Rooney. “Elvis stopped there at the store and drank a Coca-Cola when I was six or seven years old,” Jester recalls. “It was the year he got out of the army.”

Henry Bowling sold his business in the late 70s to Thomas Peterson, who renamed it Peterson’s. The Stanfields have their pecans cracked by Peterson’s widow. “We also buy from individual pecan orchards,” Jodie says.

Lead caterer Rebecca Killey and cashier Lori Shaw are responsible for the homey feel of Local Joe’s. Enamelware bowls and mugs, metal salt and pepper shakers, wire baskets and wooden signs with sayings such as “Sweet Home,” “Farm to Table” and “Farm Fresh Eggs” are displayed on shelves and hanging from the walls. Herbed soup and dip mixes are showcased in metal bins, and a photo of Lucile Ball as Lucy Ricardo rests on top of a Pepsi-Cola case. “We sell bottled soft drinks, and it’s cool watching a grandpa showing his grandchild how to open one,” says Jodie.

Two signs that bring on lots of giggles are, “Fanny’s Rest Stop, Eat Here and Get Gas,” along with a more modern proclamation, “What happens here will be posted on Facebook.” The large hoop cheese slicer is more than 100 years old and is still in use. Tshirts are sold bearing the outline of the state of Alabama, with the latitude and longitude of Rainbow City and Alexandria prominent, because there’s a Local Joe’s in each city.

The farmhouse decor includes a table lamp with an old-fashioned electric mixer and bowl at the base, and another one with a replica of a wringer washing machine. Everywhere you turn, there are iron pigs. A customer can buy anything off the walls or shelves, or Karen will refer them to its source. “All of our decor is for sale,” she says. “If it doesn’t sell, it remains as decor.”

The Stanfields employ 55 people at their two locations, including Executive Chef Damon Wynn, often found in the kitchen making Alabama Caviar (black-eyed peas and corn relish). Pit master and chef, Nathan Nolin, is Le Cordon Bleu Culinary-trained and is married to the baker, Hilary McMahon.

 McMahon bakes multiples of sweet treats almost every day, including Granny’s Baked Pies. Jodie’s Mom, aka Granny, used to bake the pies herself, and she helped Jodie establish the business. The recipes are a combination of Granny’s recipes and those of local customers. Flavors include apple, peach, blueberry, strawberry, coconut, pecan and s’mores. “They look and taste like the traditional Southern fried pies, but they are baked instead of fried,” Karen says. McMahon also makes a variety of scones, such as white chocolate, orange cranberry and chocolate chip, plus several types of cake balls.

“Damon prepares a Farm-to-Table Dinner using our facilities,” Jodie says. “He buys all his meat and produce locally, sells tickets, and holds them at different venues.” The next one will be at Local Joe’s on the new side porch that has just been built.

Along with adding the porch addition, the Stanfields have been knocking out walls for the past few months and making improvements to add to the customer experience. Most of the remodeling has been handled by Shane Elmore, aka Elmo, who owns S&K Home Improvement.

The tables where customers eat are made of barn wood by a friend, Steven Lang of Albertville, who also made the red planter boxes outside the store.

The former front bedroom of the old Bowling house is becoming a conference room with a six-foot diameter copper-topped table on a wrought-iron base that came from a former Greek restaurant in Homewood. Occasionally, you’ll find customers eating lunch in that room when a catering consultation is not in session.

As catering managers, Karen and JoAnna Duckett are responsible for the 60-plus weddings Local Joe’s caters each year. Because they have the use of the kitchens at both locations, it is not unusual for them to have three or four weddings or other large catering events per weekend.

Our highly experienced catering staff love what they do, and it shows each and every time they serve anywhere,” Karen says. In the past few years, they have also catered four large community events: The Mayor’s Ball, which benefits the Boys and Girls Clubs of America; The Mardi Gras Magic Party, which benefits the Family Success Center; The Paws for St. Paddy’s, which benefits the local Humane Society Pet Rescue & Adoption Center; and The Girlfriend Gala, which benefits the Success by Six program in coordination with Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library. “We cater at various large manufacturing plants, which employ from 100 to 1,700 people,” states Jodie.

Often Jodie and Karen will have their staff make extra goodies when they cater an event, and serve those extras on Sample Saturday, a special, un-advertised event they hold periodically for loyal customers.

All of these services led to Jodie being named Alabama’s Small Business Person of the Year in 2017, which garnered the couple a free trip to D.C. and a meet-and-greet with the other 53 state winners from across the nation, along with President’s Trump’s SBA Director Linda McMahon, Vice President Mike Pence and First Daughter Ivanka Trump. Local Joe’s also was named the 2017 Retailer of the Year by the Retail Association of Alabama.

“We honestly and truly know where our blessings come from – and we are thankful that God has continued to bless Local Joe’s and allows us to pass on those blessings to our employees and the community,” Karen says. “We are in the people business, but food is what we do.”

 

Big Head’s Bait Shop

A special store on the shore of Neely Henry

Story by Carol Pappas
Photos by Wallace Bromberg Jr.

The front door of a nondescript building fronting US 411 near Ashville on one side and Canoe Creek on Neely Henry Lake on the other doesn’t prepare you for what you’ll find on the other side. The door swings open, and “Boss, AKA Big Head,” sits patiently waiting for your response.

It may be a gasp at just how big his head is – he’s a mastiff – or if you’re a dog lover, the natural instinct kicks in, and petting is surely on its way. At least, Boss seems to hope so.

Welcome to Big Head’s Bait Shop. Amy Jean Pruett owns it. But make no mistake about it, Big Head is the Boss. He’s everywhere. He swaggers around on four legs, checking out the customers. His face (the shop’s logo) can be spotted in any direction on anything that advertises the business.

But the real story stands behind the counter, Boss just plays a role in it.

In another life, Amy was operations manager for an investment company for 18 years. “I loved my job and the people I worked with. That was the hardest thing about doing this,” she said, motioning around the cozy bait shop full of mementos – signs and fish-themed knick-knacks people have given her.

She had a dream to follow, though, and when the bait shop went up for sale, she couldn’t resist the lure.

“I have been dreaming about this since I was 4 years old,” she said. “I was in an out of bait shops as a young girl with my dad. I loved the bait shop atmosphere … the stories … they were right up my alley.”

To the little girl, the fishermen were “laid back. I loved talking to all those old fellas,” she said.

She caught her first fish on Neely Henry, said her father, Paul Pruett, who helps out around the shop and acts as a fishing guide. And now she’s back where she started, barely over the toddler stage.

Originally, she thought she would open a bait shop on the coast, but “this place in particular tugged at me.” She had promised herself that before she was 40, she would have a bait shop to call her own. “Forty came and went, and I made peace with it,” Amy said.

Then, she was going to work one day and stopped to get gas across the street from the bait shop and noticed the ‘for sale’ sign. “I worked out a month and a half notice at the investment company,” and she headed toward living out her dream.

“I signed the papers on my 44th birthday. I laughed thinking about my 4-year-old self” and the promise she made about age 40. “I thought, she wasn’t too far off.”

That was a year ago. Now, Amy said, “I feel like I’m aging in reverse. I still wake up looking for my business clothes. I can wear a bathing suit now if I want to.”

She spent the early days figuring everything out and getting used to a newfound calm that has overtaken her, the slow pace of just selling bait over the demands of the investment world. Her greatest challenge in her new life was figuring out how to keep the bait alive.

“I felt like the mad scientist.” She rounded up old deep freezers people had thrown out, rigged up a thermostat for each, and the minnows seemed quite content swimming in the chill of winter in their balmy, 70-degree water. Her friend, Scott, helped with the thermostats for the tanks.

That’s not the only bait she sells. Check out the chalk board out front, advertising everything from the usuals – Shiners, Toughies, Night Crawlers, Crickets – to Rooster Livers and Live Shad. Don’t be fooled by her petite look. She casts for and catches the shad herself.

And don’t be surprised that a ‘girl’ in a typically man’s world knows her fishing. She encounters a few male skeptics at first. But it doesn’t take them long to discover “I know what I’m talking about. I tell them what to fish for, where to go, what to use, and they come back over and over again. My nephews think I’m the coolest now. They think it’s the most awesome place in the world.”

Her advice for others living their dream? “Don’t let it consume you. Set hours and stick by them. Get your plan together and stick by it. Listen to your customers’ suggestions, but don’t feel like you have to have everything all at once. Every day is a learning experience—learn.

She’s quick to point out that she hasn’t done it all on her own. She talks about the help and encouragement from her dad who works with her, her friends – Shelby Little and Shane Moland — who help out on weekends – and then, there’s Boss.

“He really saved me,” she said. A friend had texted her the photo of this giant rescue who had been in a crate for six months, and she set out to Bardstown, Kentucky, to claim him. “When I saw his face, I just knew I had to have him.” She was going through a difficult time in her life, and “he motivated me. He got me out of my funk.”

Together, they run quite a booming bait business and seem to savor every minute of it.

What’s the next dream? “By 50, I want to catch an alligator with The Swamp People,” she said, noticing an episode flash across the TV. “I’ll be 45 this month. I guess I better get on the ball, huh?”