Thread: Barnett 3/10 - Lemonade

A nice Barnett limit to start off the trip home!

No minners were harmed this day. In fact, no boat was harmed either.

I got home all excited to get on the lake and find some fish. Fuel, batteries, mechanical systems....check. Wake up ready to go and the stupid garage door is busted... the one thing I didn't check... luckily the new door is still under warranty. Unluckily, he couldn't repair it until Monday(today) and I couldn't mess with it and "void" the warranty. Heart=broken! Boat is ready to go and stuck.

After pouting into my stiff Irish coffee for a while, I walked into the garage grabbed my custom 7'6" BGJP( really an eight footer than I broke the last tip section off and re tipped it)((it's actually a fantastic little rod for pitching corks and jigs)) stuffed a few handfuls of jig bodies in my pockets and decided to go old school. Back to my roots, growing up in Jackson wading and fishing the banks/walking the docks. Well wha'd'ya know, 2 hours later I was driving home with a limit. Now this stringer was no tournament winner, definitely not my largest! Just 30 10-14" crappie with bad attitudes. But man, if I had to rank it in terms of enjoyment, this one was up there. I entirely enjoy pushing jigs and minnows, and intend to work on pulling jigs and cranks this year too, but watching those fish snatch that cork under brought me back to my childhood. There was no question, no quivering bobber this time, you weren't having to detect the upbite or wage mental warfare over "did the line just tick or was it just my eyes?!" "Was that a bite or did I just blink". Nope, that cork was there one second and just ceased to exist the next. These fish didn't eat like they were just hungry. These fish utterly hated the fact that my lure existed in the same dimensional plane and were bent on maiming and destroying the evil enemy, Bobby Garland.

I visited an old standby from my primary years, waters I haven't fished in this manner since about the time my voice dropped and girls suddenly didn't seem so annoying. I never had to move again.

I picked off a few males single poling the first hour with no immediacy. One here, one there, leaving me to make all my snide remarks about how those big females were staging on that ledge out there just past my casting range and if only I had my boat... pressing my memory bank harder about this place I laughed out loud and as if talking to my old man again, I said "you remember that time we wore them out over there casting jigs under corks" and chuckled at the memory. Digging in a pocket of my fishing jacket, I produced a small cork and for old times sake, I threaded it on as I walked to the waters edge in that little pocket. First pitch was a fish almost immediately. Second pitch netted the same result. Then nothing for a quick spell of about ten minutes. Then as if Jesus himself commanded the fish to eat I caught 25 crappie in no more than 30 casts. The flood gates of crappie heaven were opened and I was anointed! My basket runneth over. I caught almost thirty crappie from a spot the size of a pickup truck's bed in a pocket of water 3' - 18" deep. I laughed till it hurt. No boat positioning, rod spacing, depth adjustments, electronics. Just pure D' catching fish. I was 10 years old again.

Boy, if that ain't living I don't know what is?

Wow, great read, thanks!