We’ve had better

George and I managed to sneak in a short fishing trip. I’ll say this, we’ve had better. The best thing I can say about it is, “A bad day fishing is better than a good day at work”.

However, it wasn’t that bad. We spent a good bit of time trolling around some humps in the lake that have been exposed by the lake drawdown and trying to trace down some brush in a few old creeks to fish when the water comes back up. It was obvious the fish have moved a bit in the past two weeks. Where we had been seeing active shad almost everywhere, we did not this time. They have moved toward deeper water, either because of the changing weather or to get away from the increasing numbers of invading, useless cormorants that are raiding the lake (I’ll tell you how I really feel about that in a later story).

As we approached a point where we often fish, we were studying the depth of water and some big stumps that are now showing nearby. Up ahead was a big old bush that is normally totally submerged, but now the top is sticking out of the water.  It is one of George’s favorite spots to fish. I tried to get George in position to fish “his” bush, but the wind accidentally pushed the back of the boat away from the spot and he couldn’t cast to it. So I chunked my crank bait past the bush, then retrieved slowly because the water was only about three feet deep now. I stopped the lure right as it bumped a limb on the bush.  BAM!  A big largemouth hit the lure and it ended up being almost a five-pounder. The fish had the front treble hooks solidly in its upper lip and the back hooks had somehow hooked the fish right on top of the head. George accused me of foul hooking the big one, but we both knew better. I tried to get him to take my picture but he fumbled with his phone and mumbled that it wouldn’t work. So I got him to hold the fish and I took his picture, even though we knew we would have to blur out his face.

He didn’t seem happy with me. I think It was just the fact that I was pretty far ahead by this time, he had yet to catch one and I had caught a really big one in “his” fishing spot. But hey, I wasn’t going past the bush without trying to catch one. And don’t blame me for doing it.  It was George’s bush’s fault.

DISCLAIMER:  I mentioned that George’s younger brother Larry and his much older brother Larry went trout fishing last week. Younger Larry broke his new $700 fly rod (you can still read the story in our archives – Nov. 9). Seems that the boys, their dad and a couple of the wives were eating out the other night and started laughing about the story. Larry’s wife hadn’t seen it, so George’s wife looks it up on her Eye-Phone and shows it to her. T*R*O*U*B*L*E.  George and Larry and Larry knew that was a mistake. About halfway through the story, she saw the “$700 fly rod” part.  “You paid $700 for a flyrod?” she said, apparently loud enough for everyone nearby to hear.  Even though they tried to convince her that I often stretch the truth and have trouble with numbers, it didn’t help.  And since this is a family site, I can’t share any more details beyond that.  My apologies, Larry.