Nicknames

Nicknames
Fall Salmon Run 2009

How we got our nicknames and who are we. I do have a slogan I want to get burned on a piece of wood for fishing camp. It should look something like this. What do you think?

Fishing Camp in Operation
camp slogan
GOD IS GREAT, BEER IS GOOD and ZEE PEOPLE IS CRAZY

Crew:
Slammy the Salmon Slayer (Mark Mason)
Hook Up (Mark Ruehle)
Scissors or Snips for short (Jeremiah Operacz)

Nicknames
Fall Salmon Run 2009

You may wonder about the nicknames, the camp slogan and there origin. I had been fishing up in Baldwin Michigan on the Pierre Marquette for 13 years. I have decided on the 3rd week of September to be the best all around week to slay salmon. It was my 13th year and it was myself, brother-n-law (Mark Ruehle), and my 13 year old gradson Jeremiah Operacz. My grandson suggested we should all have nicknames, so mine was easy as for many years my faithful fishing partner Mr. Ruehle had nicknamed me Slammy, as it seemed no matter how bad the fishing was I always seemed to land those critters in good years and bad years. So as the fishing camp started out this year I already had my nickname.
Well in all actuality the slogan came next, there was a country and western song on the radio that was popular at the time and the chorus was “God is Great, Beer is Good, and People is Crazy”. Well I said it once in camp and that started it, everytime one of us hooked into a big old king we were saying “God is Great, Beer is Good, and People is Crazy” and it just kind of stuck.
Well as the week went on my grandson was catching quite a few of those kings we talked about and my brother-n-law had more hookups than any one. Well Jeremiah wanted to be called junior, he thought it would be our little secret, I said I thought we could come up with one better than that but for now he was nicknamed junior. Well finally our last day, I decided it would be fun to have a contest. Well I had gotten this real nice pocket knife from Cabelas as a 10 year anniversary gift. Well I got more knives than rivers have fish so I proposed that whoever could catch more Salmon that day then me would get the knife. We headed down to jiggers this fine day and started casting and it was a slow day for getting any hits as the sun was out and the fish were spotty. I mentioned to Junior that your fish had to be at least 12 inches long and no sooner had I said that and he had one on the line and up comes a nice german brown. He was all excited about being ahead and I said there ain’t no way that’s 12 inches, so we got out the tape measure and I’ll be darned, 12 inches to the tee. So Junior was ahead. Well as the night went on we headed back upstream to find Mark and he said this whole is hot, I have had a ton of hook-ups, haven’t landed any but a lot of hook-ups. Give it a try he says, and within five minutes I had one on and down the river we went. Well after about 150 yards and 34 inches later me and junior were tied.
Then bam. Junior had one on and he brought it in and now he was ahead. I was really sweating it at this point as it was starting to get late, but my instincts kicked in and bam, I had one on and 37” later we were tied again. Well as the sun was setting, and we had a good week, just a couple more cast, and we were going to call it. Bam! Junior had one on or so he thought. As he was working him in from the depths of the deep hole he was fishing he said “I guess I won grandpa” and all of the sudden that big old salmon surfaced, junior had caught him a real nice pair of fishing scissors, so from that time forward juniors new nickname became “scissors”.
Now Mark Ruehle had to have a nickname, he is the master nettman but also he has had more hook-ups than anyone so we decided on “Hookup” , he liked it and it stuck.
Oh yes and about the knife, it is up for grabs next year!!!

Scissors (Jeremiah Operacz)
Hook Up (Mark Ruehle)
Slammy the Salmon Slayer (Mark Mason)