One July afternoon I went fishing with the owner of the local tackle shop where we both worked. Since we worked different shifts, we seldom got the chance to fish together. We both knew the fish were holding deep that time of year, so we decided to fish one of the deeper creeks off the river end of the big reservoir near the shop. Since we didn't have a lot of time to fish, we took the 12 foot jon boat, the trolling motor, some cushions to sit on and a couple buckets of minnows along with our tackle. The owner had read about putting minnows in a big clear weighted jar and suspending it on a rope in deeper water, then fishing around the jar as a technique to lure crappie in. The minnows were supposed to draw fish's attention, making it easier to catch the crappie. We caught a lot of small crappie, which likely would have bit with or without the jar, but we also had a lot of minnows in the jar die. There must have been too many in the jar and not enough oxygen, even though the lid had a lot of little holes drilled in it. None of the crappie were keepers and our experiment wasn't very successful.
When we headed back to the take out to load the boat in the truck, a couple of women were sitting beside the creek on 5 gallon buckets, fishing with cane poles. They asked "Did Y'All catch anything?" as we motored past. My buddy answered that we'd caught a bunch of little ones, but no keepers. As we were loading gear back into the truck, the shop owner took the dead minnows down to the water's edge and started throwing them into the water. One of the ladies turned to the other one and said "They did catch some little ones, didn't they?" I guess she figured that the minnows were the little fish we'd caught. We laughed about it all the way back to the shop.
Jim
