BlueWater Outriggers Fishing Report 1-31-2026
My dear readers and fellow fishing friends, it is my hope that if you’ve learned anything at all about me through these weekly articles, you’ll know that I’m always going to shoot straight with you. I could make up a believable fishing story you’d fall for hook, line and sinker. I have a degree in English Literature, so stories are kind of my thing. But I have made it a point not to do such things. Many times, people will send me photos of their “latest” catch not knowing that I check them for time stamps, and I refuse to tease you with fishing photos that are over a week old. I say all of that to say this; it’s been one hell of a week for me, and I’m coming to you practically empty-handed. You know, the old adage is true, “when it rains, it pours.” This last week has left me physically and mentally exhausted. My crazy schedule kept me and the boy out too late on several occasions. His exhaustion lead to some epic temper tantrums that sent my blood pressure through the roof. A little over a month ago, I had hesitantly decided to try my hand at love again, but that abruptly ended last night with the receipt of a “Dear John” letter. And sadly, I learned about the recent passing of a very dear friend of mine.
Mr. Bruce L. Schlauch (above) was much more than a friend of mine. He was more like a father figure to me in my coming-of-age years while living in the mountainous region of Northwest Montana. He looked like the Marlboro Man, but it was always a Camel he had tucked beneath his handlebar mustache. On the exterior, he looked rough, like a man who had been around the block a time or two, but he had a good soul and a heart of gold and was always there for me, through good times and bad. He took this once thoroughly confused 18-year-old and taught me how to work. He taught me how to ride horses and dress respectably. While my peers were out looking for parties, I was content riding shotgun with him in his white Chevy pickup truck. With no destination in mind, we’d drive the old dirt logging roads through the mountains listening to his favorite song, Pop-A-Top. He talked. I listened. I learned a lot from that man and will miss him dearly.
Bruce was never a heavy drinker but, on several occasions, he’d knock back a few Red Dogs, and he loved to tell people the story of him and me going fishing together. He was always enamored with my fishing skills. Granted, I could throw a fly like Paul Maclean in, A River Runs Through It. But his favorite story was when we went ice fishing together. There we were not two feet apart sitting in my ice hut on Rogers Lake. I couldn’t keep the trout off my line, and he watched dumbfoundedly as I pulled one after another through the trap door. We each had the same set-up, but for some reason all the fish chose mine. He loved that story so much, and I appreciate you letting me tell it one final time.
As I said earlier, I have no good fishing stories this week. Even the “Fish Whisperer,” as Bruce called me, couldn’t make anything happen. I thought I’d try for some whiting or stray trout at the canal, but the only thing biting was the cold. I have it on good authority that the whiting made a good run through there, but I must have missed it. Between moving, work and the weather Captain Jake didn’t make it offshore this week. He did inform me, however, that if he had gone, he would have slayed them.
You know folks, sometimes life just gets in the way of us doing what we love. Hopefully I’ll have another week to fish and present you with a better-informed report, but you never know what God has in store for us. Do yourself a favor. Pick up the phone and check in with that someone that means the world to you. As for you Bruce, go rest high on that mountain my friend, your work here on earth is done.
-Jeremiah Beasley