03-05-2015, 10:00 AM
What a great time of fishing that I had today with two of CCS finest students. (At least that is what they told me). emoPoke emoBig
Patrick and Dalton were the ones that were chosen to fish with me today as 8 of us guides, plus teacher, Matt Monahan, set sail on the Chickamauga reservoir in search of those elusive fish. I believe that every student and guide had a blast today. <br /><br />We headed to the creek where Dalton picked up a couple of yellow bass and I caught a small crappie to get the skunk off the boat, then we moved to a community dock and proceeded to wax the crappie. It didn&#39;t take us long before Patrick exclaimed &quot;I have already caught more than I did the past two years&quot;, as the crappie were very aggressive early on. We caught our fish on Bobby Garland plastics on 1/24 oz jig heads early. In short order, we had 22 crappie landed, albeit, most were under the 10&quot; keeper size, but it didn&#39;t seem to matter just as long as the fish were biting and pulling on the line. emoBig <br /><br />Wanting to catch bigger fish, it didn&#39;t take much pleading to convince me to take them out to the main river portion of our lake and try to catch bigger fish. We did manage to catch a few more bigger fish, but really not that many as the water temp in the lake was 10 degrees cooler than the water in the creek. The creek was dingy and warmed up much quicker than the clearer deeper portions of Chickamauga. All the guides and Matt, kept in close contact, sending each other pics of the kids catches as the day wore on. Great fun for this old fisherman.<br /><br />Matt, I&#39;m already looking forward to next year&#39;s interim with the students and I think all of our guides want to come back next year and be a part of this great event. I already have at least 2 other guides who want to participate next year. So, if all goes well, we may have more students to take out in 2016. <br /><br />Thank you, Ben Hayes, Brian Howard, Jimmy Manis, Mark Pollard, Chris James, Jerry Goodner, and Richard Simms for being the best guides and also for your knowledge in the classwork yesterday. I look forward to working with all you again. emoBig emoGeezer
Patrick and Dalton were the ones that were chosen to fish with me today as 8 of us guides, plus teacher, Matt Monahan, set sail on the Chickamauga reservoir in search of those elusive fish. I believe that every student and guide had a blast today. <br /><br />We headed to the creek where Dalton picked up a couple of yellow bass and I caught a small crappie to get the skunk off the boat, then we moved to a community dock and proceeded to wax the crappie. It didn&#39;t take us long before Patrick exclaimed &quot;I have already caught more than I did the past two years&quot;, as the crappie were very aggressive early on. We caught our fish on Bobby Garland plastics on 1/24 oz jig heads early. In short order, we had 22 crappie landed, albeit, most were under the 10&quot; keeper size, but it didn&#39;t seem to matter just as long as the fish were biting and pulling on the line. emoBig <br /><br />Wanting to catch bigger fish, it didn&#39;t take much pleading to convince me to take them out to the main river portion of our lake and try to catch bigger fish. We did manage to catch a few more bigger fish, but really not that many as the water temp in the lake was 10 degrees cooler than the water in the creek. The creek was dingy and warmed up much quicker than the clearer deeper portions of Chickamauga. All the guides and Matt, kept in close contact, sending each other pics of the kids catches as the day wore on. Great fun for this old fisherman.<br /><br />Matt, I&#39;m already looking forward to next year&#39;s interim with the students and I think all of our guides want to come back next year and be a part of this great event. I already have at least 2 other guides who want to participate next year. So, if all goes well, we may have more students to take out in 2016. <br /><br />Thank you, Ben Hayes, Brian Howard, Jimmy Manis, Mark Pollard, Chris James, Jerry Goodner, and Richard Simms for being the best guides and also for your knowledge in the classwork yesterday. I look forward to working with all you again. emoBig emoGeezer