Thread: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

Well, I got to eat a slice of humble pie. A big ole plate full to be honest and I can't blame anyone but myself. I wasn't even going to post about this one but that's just my pride coming to the surface like a nasty bruise.

Life became busy for a stretch and I haven't been able to get some quality on-the-water time since mid August. A few short "sneak away from the house" trips but that's it. So far, this has been a banner year for me on Barnett. I have enjoyed better than average catches, at least by my expectations, both in quantity and quality. From late winter through early summer I laid the wood to them pushing jigs and minnows. A few trips out with Ken(4theThump) around the Barnett Bash get together had me quitting minnows cold turkey and brought up my confidence in fishing straight jigs. Early summer I began power trolling with great success and I spent considerable time (and money) on my first season pulling crankbaits. Many thanks to Joel (Snubbys) for considerably shortening my learning curve on that front. Things had come together so well that I began to feel that I couldn't NOT catch crappie in the dink hole. Well, as the book says "pride cometh before the fall."

The Good: The weather was beautiful on that Thursday. I mean text book pretty. Cloudless sky's, no wind to speak of, the day kicked off in the upper 50's and warmed into the mid 70's. The water temps hovered around 72° warming a few ticks by the afternoon. I was late getting on the water due to a few odds and ends popping up but I splashed the trailer at Tommys around 9:30ish and it was just too pretty to be mad about it. My pride was up and I knew I was going to just crush them.

The Bad: I got in my own head. I was so confident in knowing what I was doing that I didn't pay one bit of attention to what the lake was telling me. I fell into some old habits and fished memories again instead of fishing the present conditions. I ran to spot after spot because that's where I have caught them before and it put two crappie in the net all day. I saw a beautiful day and paid no attention to the fact that it was a bluebird high pressure day following a slight cold front. I should have marked cover, buoyed it, and fished tight to it. My pride had me fishing open flats and distinct ledges all day. Each of my two fish both came from running over the top of the shallow side of the ledge and burying at least half of my gear into a stump or brush pile. They were shallow and holding tight to cover, the fish even told me so but I was being too arrogant to pay attention to any of that nonsense. I just kept plugging along doing what I KNEW was right.

The Ugly: For the first time in a few years I had real engine trouble. Five minutes into setting up my cranking spread first thing in the morning the big engine sputtered and stalled. Five minutes of cranking later she never caught a spark. After letting it sit for 15 minutes she fired up at the first turn of the key with out any issue. She doesn't want to idle and dies out pretty quickly when running at clutch speeds. If you don't get her on plane quickly she sputters out and won't crank for at least 15 minutes or so after the last time you tried to turn it over. If you give it throttle immediately after she cranks it runs just fine and hasn't lost and speed off the top end. I am figuring, and hoping, that it's a filter issue and plan to start there by swapping them all out. Maybe some bad gas, but I would think that bad gas would cause the engine to sputter regardless of the rpm. My first plan was to pull cranks again but this put and end to that thought. I stuck with slowly pushing jigs all day.

Luckily, for sanity's sake, after wrapping up the long poles and pointing the bow back north towards the ramp, I ran across a school of hybrids and stripers actively feeding on the surface. Not far past the turn at the S-curve the water was being churned to a froth almost, an area not less than half an acre in size had become a killing field for a massive school of shad heading north for the winter. You could smell the oil in the air.

They were corralling the bait up against the steep ledgers on either side of the main river channel and forcing them to the surface where the fish and gulls were committing mass genocide. I always keep a spinning rod on deck and today it was a B'n'M crappie wizard with and 1/8oz roadrunner head and 4lb test. Not exactly what I would consider a setup for 4-12lb bass with bad attitudes but man what a fight it was. I slid on a Bobby Garland Stroll'r in live minnow color and went to work. The faster you could work it the more mad at it they became. I would work it to the point that it was skipping across the surface and they would explode on it every time it touched the water. The ball was in their court with such light line and they were making long runs to the horizon. I could close my eyes and it was like I was 100 miles offshore chasing tuna again. I spent more time fighting than fishing. 45 minutes later saw 12 fish boated and released. The shad, having been scattered to the wind and those remaining were either dead or knocking on deaths door, the fish sounded and the birds flew on and as if a light switch was flipped, the melee was over. My pride somewhat restored and with a smile on my face I brought it on in to Tommy's and wrapped up another day on the water.


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