Thread: To make Brett feel better

I was not going to post this but I thought, what the heck, might make Brett feel better knowing there are other equally inept fisherman on here. I decided at the last minute to drag the boat down to Clark Hill Friday and put in at Baker Creek which is the closest landing to me and I figured if Butch was finding them up on the Ga side there should be some here, right??
I put in and ran up a good ways into Baker Creek, which I had never seen before, and set up to long line jigs back down the creek and out into the mouth of Little River. Not to far into this, I bumped a brush pile and when I lifted the rod, this fellow swallowed the Rooty Tooty that was on this line. Actually I was reeling it in to make sure it had not fouled on the brush when he hit it. Blind Hog right!
Did I mention it was raining??

He measured about 11" so I dropped him in the well to see if I could find him some company. Sorry about the crappy picture, this phone I have takes terrible pictures.
I continued on down the creek noticing fish were schooling all around the creek as it widened into the river. None were close enough to cast to and I never got within range pulling the jigs. I passed a fellow on a pontoon and he was casting what looked like a crappie jig and retrieving. I watched him make a dozen casts to the same spot without catching anything so I don't know what he was after.
Did I mention it was raining?
Anyway, after an empty pull all the way out into the river, I started back up the creek and a school of fish came up just off to my left so I grabbed my spinning rod and through a Rattle Trap into them and hooked up. After a good tussle, I boated a LM about 3 Lbs. I got a bit careless unhooking him and he managed to bury one of the trebles well past the barb into the tip of my middle finger.
Did I mention it was raining?????
I finally got him off and back into the water and now to deal with my finger. Faced with trying to get the boat out and find a Dr office or get this out myself I grabbed a pair of pliers and yanked. To my amazement it popped out and bled very little. Having had this experience before, I got out my antiseptic and band aids and patched it up.
Since the jigs were not working I switched to minnows and got about 100 feet and the Perch found me, all bout 8" long.
So now, with all that preceded this, I now had a wad of perch wanted to eat, so I decided enough was enough and I bailed.
I did return the lone crappie to the lake to grow a bit so Butch can catch him.
I chatted off line(PM) with Drill Instructor who fishes this side of the lake and he said he had not fished Baker this year, but had good luck in the past and may go Saturday. Hope he did and has a better report for us.
Did I mention it was raining? I must have put on and took off my poncho a dozen times and got run under a bridge once when a downpour came.
So this post is mainly to make Brett feel better.

There were several things I coulda/shoulda done different, including staying home. Also, I probably should have worked that brush pile and some others I saw. But the dumbest thing was to ignore all the schooling activity going on. Had I realized it was schools of nice size LM I would have worked them over. I probably could have caught 5 or 6 in that size range if I had pulled in the jigs and hit the schools. They were popping up all around the creek where it widen into Little River. Most were on points off the creek.
I am not above fishing for any type game fish if they are biting.
Live and learn, die and forget it all.