Thread: so many newbies ....

I'm one of these late-comers to the site so I figure I'll pop off rather than just reap the benefits of all this good info. Name's Carl, married to wifey for over 35 years....blessed with 2 of KY's finest daughters and a pair of wonderful grandbabies. Air Force volunteer toward the end of the Vietnam conflict then out and hit the open road doing this...

...for over 30 years as an independent owner/operator. Grew up in southeast KY spending every possible moment I could fishing the ponds, creeks, local lakes, rivers and tributaries of Lake Cumberland as well as Laurel Lake, Woods Creek, etc. Crappie bug bit me in the Arizona desert, of all places, after a day of bass fishing on Apache Lake with my Air Force boss. Hanging around the dock after the sun went down, the lights came out and I watched a pair of guys hoist a passel of the biggest crappie I ever seen in my life. These 2 were serious and it is apparent they studied crappie...they wasn't here for fishin'...they was here for catchin'. I hadn't come prepared for lifting slabs and one of the gents offered a rod and a spot to this displaced KY hillbilly and the fun ensued. I learned a lot that night from them (I thought as a worldly 19 year old country boy that I knew it all already). All my education was not about the ways of Mr. Crappie that night on the dock under the lights...the camaradarie of these "strangers", the laughing, good time up into the wee hours of the morning with these guys along with the baskets of big fish hanging under our wooden perch made for memories that this now-53 year young kid will never forget. After lurking around here for a while and reading some of the stories, I realized a lot of the posters that make up this forum could just as well have been those new friends I met on the dock on Apache Lake that night. Apache Lake looks like it has changed alot since that time in 1973 after pulling it up at apachelake.com but there are some things that never will.

Kids came along, work and a couple million miles took me away from my pursuit of gills and fillets, taking time off when I could just to cast to some bankrunners on Lake Cumberland. A Tournament TX, a Cajun 21' dual console, a couple pontoons and a small 2-man pond skimmer and a tackle box full of old KY Dept of F&G fishing licenses later, the girls are grown and living their own lives and I have an empty nest and a growling hunger to hit the lake again and get back to what this old mind and body needs at this point in life.

Build some custom motorcycles as an amateur when I can spend time in the shop and still transportin' cars around the country.

Well-managed site it seems here and kudos to the Chief Cat Daddy of Crappie.com for gathering a great group of folks like this. It has become a favorite place of mine to visit and read. I'm presently watchin' it snow out my window here in southeast Bluegrass and counting down the days to my 3-day visit to Weiss mid-March this spring with a bunch of the family.

Thanks for the warm welcomes and the how-do's.

Welcome Carl. Glad to have you