Our featured Angler for July is Region 8's Henry Davis

by Peter Robbins
(Who is Pete Robbins & what else has he written?)

Henry Davis is a river rat. According to one of his fellow members of Region 8’s Jamestown Bassmasters, Davis, who is known almost universally as "Pops" knows "every lay down, productive bank, grass bed and underwater structure (much of which he planted), on the James River, it tributaries, the Pamunkey, Mattaponi and a wide range of North Carolina Rivers." He’s on the water virtually every day and the results show in his strong finishes in Region 8 tournaments.

For me, Henry’s reputation preceded him. In May of 2001, I won a Region One tournament on the Chickahominy River, catching all of my fish in a single narrow creek. The area was big enough to support just two boats, and I shared it with Pop’s Marine owner Richard Addy and his partner, who placed highly in a separate tournament that day. Even though I caught enough fish to win, my catch was not particularly large, and I was worried that I wouldn’t have enough to win. There was one area of the creek that seemed to have serious big fish potential, but even after working it to death, I couldn’t make it pay off. A few weeks later I was at Addy’s shop, getting a part for my boat, and I asked him about whether he had ever experienced any success in that part of the creek. He responded that it looked great to him too, but that the only person he knew who could make it pay off was a customer named Henry Davis, who could patiently work magic with a worm in there. I needed to meet this Davis guy.

Coincidentally, my first meeting with Henry took place shortly thereafter. At that year’s Six Man tournament, my club, Fairfax Bass, drew out with the Jamestown club. After the meeting, I asked my fellow club member Duncan Maccubbin about his partner. He was a bit apprehensive about the older, soft-spoken man, but said he had a good feeling about the tournament. When he returned from fishing the next day, all Duncan could do was talk about his partner’s fishing prowess. They got along famously, and during the course of the remaining fishing season, they traded tips, tactics and practiced together occasionally.

In many ways, these experiences reflect many the characteristics that make Henry both universally feared and unanimously respected in Region 8, as well as among those who know him throughout the state.

Early History
The 72 year old Davis is a native of North Carolina. He came to Virginia in 1949, looking for work. He somehow wound up in Norfolk, then caught a ferry across to Newport News. Almost immediately, he got a job selling magazines, but quickly realized that his easygoing honesty did not lend itself well to a job that required slick salesmanship. He lasted one day on the job.

Newly re-unemployed, Henry dropped in to see a friend at Eastern State Hospital, and was somehow enlisted to show up for work early the next morning. He worked there for 2 years before being drafted into the military in 1951, where he served as both a military policeman and a medic before being discharged for medical reasons in 1953. AT that point, he returned to work at the hospital. In 1957, he joined the United States Postal Service, where he remained for 31 years.

During those years, he also got married and had four children, three sons and a daughter. The financial pressures attendant to raising a family led him to add a daily shift at the hospital to his full time job with the Postal Service, and for eighteen years, he averaged a 14 hour plus work day.

Fishing Experience Prior to the Federation
Although Henry had enjoyed fishing since childhood, working double digit hours every day and raising his family did not allow much time on the water. Furthermore, much of his early experience had been in saltwater. Nevertheless, his interest was piqued by the newly-impounded Buggs Island Lake, and he and his brother-in-law would frequently fish Big Bass Tournaments out of Henderson, NC. Quickly unlocking some of the lake’s secrets, Henry understates the truth when he says "we did pretty well." One year, they managed to finish third, and that got him even more excited about tournament fishing.

When Henry quit his second job in the early 1970s, the newly-found free time enabled him to join the Jamestown Bassmasters, one of the area’s earliest clubs, which still included most of its charter members. He soon started using all of his vacation time to fish. "I learned an awful lot in those early years," he says, "and when I started fishing the regions, I learned even more."

Soon after joining Jamestown, Henry bought his first bass boat, a 15’ Hydrasports with a 50 HP Mercury. He ran that boat for 2 or 3 years before trading up for a slightly larger Hydrasports with an 85 HP outboard. Still, his need for speed was not fully met. As fellow club member Bob Blackwell says, it’s well known that Henry "loves to drive his boat as fast as it will go." With that in mind, even though the boat was only rated for a 135, Davis traded in the 85 and mounted a 150 HP outboard on the back of his boat, making it an absolute rocket, virtually undriveable by anyone else.

By the late 70s, Henry decided that in addition to having the right boat, in order to further his fishing he needed to spend more time on the water. At that point he started fishing forty to fifty tournaments a year, mostly locally, including a B.A.S.S. Invitational on the Chickahominy in the early 80s, in which he didn’t meet his own expectations ("that 14 inch limit was tough," he says), but still helped one of his partners find enough fish to finish in the top 20.

Mentoring
Jamestown’s Phil Crockett, another one of Region 8’s top fishermen, calls Davis his mentor. He notes that when he first met Davis, "he was intimidating and appeared gruff, but my friend Dave Woodward assured me he was ok. As his license plate reads, ‘I’M OK.’"

When pressed, in a roundabout way Davis will admit that he has tutored and mentored several younger anglers. "I’m not going to volunteer information," he says, "and I don’t babysit ‘em," but if fishermen are willing to put in the time he’s happy to help.

Crockett says, "He’s willing to help anyone who’s wiling to expend the effort to do well. If you don’t prefish for a tournament ever and want to know something…rarely will you find out anything. His information is not free. But if he sees you truly want to improve and spend the effort trying to learn things he will help out in any way he can."

Still, Davis occasionally grows frustrated when his students don’t pick up his lessons as quickly as he thinks they should. Bob Blackwell says that one oft-heard phrase out of Henry’s mouth is "I try and tell you what to do but you just don’t listen." Blackwell makes it clear that when Davis opens his mouth, club members attempt to take in every word, since "Pops has won first place in our club for as many years as I can remember, and not just by a few pounds but usually multiples of what the second place guy catches."

Henry leads by example, spending close to two hundred days a year on the water, working as hard as he can to get better. He spends so much time on the water that Blackwell says Henry’s annual fuel tax rebate is more than what most Federation members spend on gas in a year. Henry’s advice to less-experienced fishermen is simple:

"They need to find their own fish instead of waiting for someone else to tell them where to go"
"People are too prone to follow things they read and to buy every bait known to man, rather than figure things out."
"People don’t pay enough attention, they’re going through the motions instead of trying to learn."

Despite these mild criticisms, Davis notes that people are learning more, and that the overall quality of fishermen in the state has improved during his time in the Federation.

Henry’s devotion to the Jamestown club is also legendary. One year, the club decided to raise funds by selling firewood. At one point they had 110 cords of wood stacked in the back of Crockett’s lot, at least 80 of which Henry had cut and split himself. Nearly every morning, Crockett would look out the window and see Pops driving in and splitting wood all by himself. As Crockett says, "We had to abandon the idea after the first year because it was just too much work (for Henry)!!"

Fishing Tactics
As noted by Richard Addy, much of Henry’s success is attributable to his skill with a plastic worm. Learning to fish a worm, "was one of the things I had to do," Henry says plainly. "Twenty some years ago I went to light line, and I still fish spinning gear with a worm or grub 99% of the time.

Despite being known mostly for his worming prowess, Henry makes clear that he is not a one trick pony. "I’ve caught lots of good fish on a spinnerbait and other lures," he says. "I’m pretty versatile. But if you want to catch fish all the time you need to catch ‘em on a worm."

He started worm fishing in his early bass club years with a small (now discontinued) Mr. Twister worm, but his success really started to increase with the advent of wide gap hooks and new styles of plastics. He prefers centipedes and slider worms, but says that any four inch worm will do. Despite a penchant for small baits, he still manages to catch more than his share of big fish. "If you catch as many fish as you can," he says, "you’re bound to catch some big ones."

Conservation
According to Blackwell, Henry "is as fit as most guys half has age and is as fit as any Marine I’ve ever met." Still, despite Henry’s tough and occasionally gruff exterior, Crockett says, "he has a monumental heart of gold."

Crockett mentions that Henry’s concern for wildlife is incredible: "He has a dozen squirrels in his backyard he has practically raised and feeds religiously. I’ve seen him take a wounded squirrel from the street to a vet and try to save it, and one time on Chippokes Creek he and I were fishing some cypress trees and all these young birds were learning to fly from their nests in the trees. Many hit the water and would have surely drowned yet we spent quite a while netting them and carrying them to safety."

His concern for nature certainly extends to fish as well. Blackwell says that Henry has few qualms about expressing his displeasure "when someone mistreats a fish, lets one die, or even if you gut hook one."

"There’s no reason for killing fish with modern livewells," Henry states absolutely. "People just don’t use them like they should. They use a timer. Once the first fish goes in, I turn on the livewell, and it stays on all day. That’s how to use it." Additionally, Henry is absolutely opposed to bed and sight fishing, and thinks it ought to be banned during at Mr. BASS and the Six Man Tournaments.

Our Changing Waters
As one of the limited numbers of Federation members who has fished Buggs Island since its inception, and one of the handful of members who has spent the most time on the Chickahominy, Henry is highly qualified to comment on the changing nature of our state’s fisheries.

Crockett states that "I doubt there is anyone around who knows the Chickahominy river any better than Henry and who can find a limit of fish there in nearly any situation." Henry notes that the river clearly is "not as productive as it was ten to fifteen years ago." The Chick used to be very clear, but it has become increasingly silted in. Additionally, it is Henry’s belief that high water conditions resulting from Hurricane Floyd produced conditions that wiped out much of the spawn for the next few years. This damage was compounded by more recent drought conditions, which have changed the salinity levels in the river. Henry states that in the past most saltwater species wouldn’t come closer than 6 miles downstream of the mouth of the Chick, but now he occasionally catches sea trout and croakers halfway to the dam.

At Buggs Island, Henry thinks that greatly increased fishing pressure has weakened the fishery somewhat. "In the early years, when I first started," he says, "it was not unusual for an eight, nine or ten pounder to be caught in a tournament." Now, though, while there are still "lots of decent fish, those big fish aren’t there. It’s been fished to death."

These days, Henry particularly enjoys fishing the waters of the eastern part of his native North Carolina, including the Chowan, Edenton Bay, Perquimans and Pasquotank. "They don’t get fished quite as hard," he says.

Roadmap to Success and Goals for the Future
Although he can’t remember for sure, Henry thinks he has won at least five or six Region 8 tournaments. Additionally, as Blackwell notes, he has fished the Mr. BASS and 6 Man Tournaments for at least twenty years running.

Pops attributes his success to a phenomenal memory: "I can remember every fish I’ve ever caught and every one my partners have ever caught. I don’t take notes, it just comes to me naturally."

He takes prefishing very seriously and his strategy for practicing is very simple. "I want to hit a hundred places in a prefishing day. If I catch one or two, I try someplace else. The real goal is to find ‘em." He also keeps an open mind. As former 6 Man partner Duncan Maccubbin notes, "Henry is not pushy. The times I fished with him he was always willing to try places I wanted to fish first."

Looking forward, Henry’s typically understated goal is to "fish as long as I can, as long as I can be competitive." He doesn’t express any desire to take his fishing beyond the local level: "It wouldn’t make a difference if I won Mr. BASS or the 6 Man," he says, "I probably wouldn’t go higher up at this point. I’m just gonna try to spend as much time as I can on the water and try to learn one thing every day."

If you’d like to contact Henry Davis, he can be reached at hfdavis@juno.com, or just look for him on your favorite secret spot on your home water….don’t worry, he’s been fishing that spot for twenty five years.