Another Fine Day

[skeetbum]

Early start today for my newly retired friend Ernie and I. A great sunrise to a cloudless sky. Having had no luck but getting some good info at Crescent recently, that's where we headed to. And it paid off. We started off spider rigging, covering every color and style I could come up with, and slow would have been a compliment. Just as we started reeling in a few of the rods, I heard one slap another and found it buried in the water and doubled over hard. Ernie grabbed it and it was clear, once again, that it was no Crappie. Pulling drag and following it back and forth with the 12' BGJP, it took a few minutes to get him to cooperate enough to get him in the net. About 4 to 5 lbs of catfish had Ernie saying he wanted more of that. But it worked out to be the only one of the day. So that done we changed the setup to longline to cover some more water than we had been and went from 2 to 10 fow in search mode. We found some over 10" and a few under but still never found what I thought I could find. Total so far was 9 crappie. Along the way Ernie was still digging up the odd catch to make the day interesting. A couple of green fish came to visit, one an early release and the other stayed long enough for a cameo appearance. Then the 8' rod doubled up hard again, and I figured it was another face full of whiskers. Wrong. Seems Ernie's jig had gotten caught in the left front foot of a river cooter (I think) about 16" long, and he didn't want to visit. Tangled in a few lines he went back to his normal thing none the worse for wear and glad to go. By this time we had gotten back into a lull and the heat was getting up. Stowed the rods and off we went, but not far. I spotted a piece of structure that just screamed at me and I dropped her off plane and grabbed a little rod, telling Ernie that I would know if they were there in 5 casts. It took 2. We spent about an hour and a half catching one after another. 2 crossed the 14" mark and 2 more were 13 plus, and 3 crossed the 12 mark with a lot of fis from 5" to 12 mixed in. I lost count at 23 and we caught quite a few after that. I'm sure the final was over 40, and they all still swim. As any good thing usually goes, this one slowed and the heat was still building and the clock closing toward noon. Fired up the ride and went looking for another spot with a little magic like what we just left. The ride let our shirts dry and we never found another spot that pulled our trigger so we pointed to the ramp for the ride home in some much needed AC. A better day with my friend I could not have asked for, and we mostly had the lake to ourselves. Only saw 5 or 6 other boats and none close enough to talk to. I hope Ernie finds a way to occupy his time. His schedule has been tough for a lot of years and no schedule is taking some getting used to. I actually remembered the camera and here's a few pics from the day. Thanks for visiting with us today......Skeet.