I traveled to AR last week to attend my grandfathe's funeral. It was a rare oppurtunity to just be with family for a week without a race to get to the next thing.

I talked my dad into taking me fishing fri and sat to lift his spirits. We really miss fishing together. My other grandpa went with us on Fri. to Lake Hogue. It was great to be there with both my dad and grandpa. Fishing was slow; we just drifted with the wind. I was able to put two nice crappie in the boat which my grandpa had for dinner that night. Those were the only two crappie we caught all day. One was a 15 incher and may have been the biggest crappie I've ever caught. I think we caught 10 fish total from 6:30 till about 11:30.

On Sat. it was like something happened and we couldn't get anything to bite. It was just my dad and I on Sat. We went to a lake he grew up fishing with his dad on, Mallard Lake. It looked like a great lake, the water seemed high but didn't look muddy or anything. We knew something was up when there wasn't another boat at the launch at 7 am that morning on memorial day weekend. We fished every way we knew how for 2 hrs and caught one stripped bass by complete accident. We left there and went to a burrow pit just north of Monette (where the water rushes across the road into a 2nd pit. I learned to crappie fish in the pit to the right. I guess you could say it was a day of sentimental fishing; we hit the spots that both my dad and I remember fishing in as a child. The water in the pit was too muddy and too high I think. We couldn't get anything to hit there either. We were at my grandmas by noon to spend the day with her and make sure she was adjusting as well as possible after losing her hubby of over 50 years.

It was a great day and we told a lot of stories and had a lot of laughs. I am so thankful for a couple of days on the water with those I love.