Fishing: It's a Lot Like the Prize in a Box of Cracker Jacks

I still remember how excited I used to get as a kid when Mom and Pop would buy a couple boxes of Cracker Jacks for my brother and me. It always was so much fun working our way down to the prize in each box.

In some ways, that's how fishing is. From the moment you hook a fish until you get him to the boat or bank, you never can be totally sure what you're going to get. And, yes, there are times when you feel a little letdown with the "prize." Maybe it's not the species you wanted. Maybe it's smaller than you had hoped for. Or maybe it turns out to be a bit bizarre, as evidenced in the following photos of some rather weird-looking bass that people have actually caught:

My friend Ron caught this fish during an Oct. 5, 2016, trip to Beggars Bridge.

And I feel pretty sure most of us have caught a humpback or two like this one over the years.

How about this bass, whose deformed lips make it look like he's all puckered up for a big ol' kiss? Any takers?

Check out this head-on shot of a fish caught in Louisiana's lower Amite River, near Bayou Barbary.

Here's a side view of the same Louisiana fish. Makes you wonder if he might have had a near-death encounter with a gator.

A "golden oldie"...or, at least, golden. I can't be sure how old he is.

What about this strange specimen that Mark Menendez once hooked while practicing for an event on the Mississippi River in Wisconsin?

And finally, there's this spotted bass a fella caught while wiggling a tiny fluke. He had caught more than 20 bass before he hooked this one, and then he didn't have another hit. Reckon that's what they're talking about when they use the term "game changer."



Given the kinds of things parents buy their kids these days, I seriously doubt that any youths give a hoot about anything as mundane as the prize from a box of Cracker Jacks. That fact perhaps, in some small way, figures into why there basically is no recent growth in our sport, except for kayak fishing, which has seen double-digit growth. Maybe those folks still feed their kids Cracker Jacks. You reckon?

Get this--I just checked online and learned that there no longer is a toy prize in a box of Cracker Jacks. Instead, you now find a digital code, which allows families to enjoy their favorite baseball moments through a new one-of-a-kind mobile experience, leveraging digital technology to bring the iconic prize inside to life. This change isn't a total surprise, because I also learned that trinket prizes were replaced a while back by paper prizes containing riddles and jokes, and in 2013, the makers began rolling out codes for people to redeem on an app through Google Play. So, the days when you found everything from wagons to beer mugs to dice to trading cards and whistles in a box of Cracker Jacks are long gone--just like a lot of other fun things that were such a big part of my childhood. In some ways, changes like this really sadden me.