MIKE BRAUN Fishing is big part of man's life

The pleasure of catching a fish is usually enough to satisfy the most ardent of anglers.
But when you toss in an award for angling prowess, it makes the experience that much more pleasurable.
And, if you've spent a large part of your life fishing, finally getting the recognition that you are at the top of your angling game adds even more enjoyment to the sport.
That's the way it is for John T. Abbas Sr. of Youngstown, who has managed to garner not one but two such honors over the past few years.
Abbas, 81, of Flora Lane, has been fishing since the early 1950s.
Recently, he copped his second Ohio Master Angler Award since 1997.
In Ohio, anglers have a couple of state-sponsored award programs that they can apply for.
There is the Fish Ohio program, which recognizes anglers for exemplary catches in one or more of 19 species.
In 2003, there were 13,528 such recognitions for anglers from Ohio and 38 other states for catching Fish Ohio-listed fish. Recipients get a lapel pin and a certificate describing their catch.
Then there is the Master Angler program. Here, anglers who catch four & quot;Fish Ohio & quot; qualifying fish in a single year receive a gold lapel pin and a certificate.
Only about 400 such awards are handed out each year in Ohio, according to state officials.
Worth the time
For Abbas, his second Master Angler Award was worth every moment he spent angling.
He enjoys going out on Lake Erie with a friend, Randy Kerr of Austintown, on Kerr's 22-footer "Grass Cutter."
Erie is the main body of water he fishes and that's where he caught the 13.25-inch perch, 28.5-inch walleye and the 23-inch fresh-water drum -- also known as a sheephead -- portion of his award. The final link, a 9-inch sunfish, was caught at a private lake off Ellsworth Road.
His previous Master Angler Award was for a four-fish combo of bluegill, crappie, walleye and perch.
Abbas started fishing in 1952, the same year he stopped smoking.
He said the two events kind of go hand-in-hand. He actually stopped smoking to enhance his fishing ability, as he couldn't handle a cigarette, bait his line and unhook fish all at the same time, he said.
"You could say that fishing saved my life," Abbas chuckled.
Abbas said that before limits were placed on how many fish you could catch, he was a perch-fishing dervish, catching nearly 450 of the tasty Lake Erie species one time.
He's a Youngstowner through-and-through, born here in 1923 and spending 38 years at General Fireproofing before retiring in 1984.
He and his wife, the former Marie Dohar, were married in 1959 and have lived at their Flora Lane home since 1963.
Children, grandkids
The couple raised a brood of eight -- Johnny Jr., 44, of Youngstown; Christina Glotfelter, 43, of Houston; Thomas, 42, of Canal Winchester; Denise Simon, 41, of Youngstown; Zina Abbas-Hoeferlin, 39, of Canfield; Michelle Hochendoner, 38, of Poland; Gregory, 35, of Louisville; and Peter, 34, of Youngstown.
There are also 17 grandchildren, some of whom are almost always visiting with their grandparents.
Abbas' wife also used to go fishing with him, but that was before their family started to grow.
"She always caught more fish than I did," he said. "Now she just goes when we go with the grandkids."
Abbas enjoys fishing with the grandchildren and fondly recalls his days teaching his own kids how to fish.
"We used to get a tent and camp out at Berlin Reservoir," he said.
In the past 50-plus years he's been fishing he has a number of stories he remembers with an angler's clarity.
There was the time he landed a 31.5-inch walleye. "That was an exciting day," he said.
And he also recalls the day that he and his son, John, 8 at the time, spotted a capsized boat on Pymatuning Reservoir and helped rescue three anglers from Pittsburgh.
Aside from fishing, Abbas also has a green thumb, evidenced by the over 6-foot-tall sunflowers gracing his porch -- a few adorned with award ribbons from the recent Canfield Fair -- as well as the dozens of jars of peppers that he and his wife had just finished canning.
Will his two Master Angler awards be enough to satisfy Abbas' angling yearnings? Don't look for him to give up his fishing poles and lake trips anytime soon.
"I will keep on fishing as long as I can walk," he said.
braun@vindy.com