Too sick to work (wink, wink)

Ok, so it should have been sick OF work. I just finished a big job that had a July 1 completion requirement and had hired my 16 year old great nephew, Austin, to give me a hand. I told him if we made the deadline I would take him fishing. We haven't shared a boat since he was 10. As luck would have it my buddy Jeff had Thursday off so we invited him along. We got to Morrison Lake about 6:45 and rather than looking for the fish suspended over deep water, which is typical summer pattern on this lake, we acted on a tip from a couple of old boys I know that fish there at least weekly. They always fish just off the docks on the first drop and always catch a mess of nice gills. The lake was flat so we slow trolled along the shoreline and tossed red worms under slip bobbers around the docks and swim platforms. We were catching fish but nothing to put in the box and were almost ready to head for deeper water when Jeff stuck a nice gill in the 8 inch range. We anchored and fished that area for a while, picking up several more nice gills.



That ended up being our system for the day, move slowly along the shoreline until we stuck a few good ones, anchor up, fish the spot then move on. We ended the day about 2:30 with 38 gills, 4 perch and a nice bullhead. We also caught lots of bass, the biggest was 18 inches and put my 6' light action to the test. Austin got big gill honors with a nice 9 1/2" one eyed slab. Oddest catch was a big golden shiner. After filleting the days catch we sent Austin off with a nice bag of fresh fish, a container of fish coating and a promise it wouldn't be another 6 years before we go fishing again.