EricM, Chick, bass & cats, 6/25/13

[FishNews]

No bait!! I got to relying on my ability to net up enough baitfish for a day's fishing and went to the water pretty much unprepared for any other eventuality. Duh! emoDoh So, after getting out of bed at 4:45 (AM!!!!) and getting to the boat ramp first (but not by much), I threw the net a gazillion times - or so my back and arms seem to think - with a net result (clever play on words, huh?) of ONE small golden shiner in the bait tank. All of the bass, crappie, and bluegill went back into the lake, of course. So did most of the 5 bushels of various weeds that came up in the net. Then to add insult to injury, or to be more precise, add injury to insult, I hung the net and put a nice long rip in it. Poop (or a close family relative).<br /><br />I took my ONE bait out to the channel edge and hooked it up. A CAREFUL cast kept the shiner on the hook long enough for a nice largemouth to suck it in and give me a bit of a tussle. A good picture, and back into the water it went. Now what?? I had some 4" Berkely Power Baits with me so I rigged up a drop-shot type rig and worked the area over. Huh, they seem to work a lot better below the dam when fishing with Mr. Wiskers. A little tug or two (bluegill?) is all I could manage, so I took my power bait over to the catfish area and sure enough it worked on little blues. I broke off after a while and rather than retie I remembered I had tossed a box of nightcrawlers in the cooler so I used them on the live bait rig. I caught a bunch of small cats - up to 5 pounds maximum - but I had a ball playing with them. I would have tried for crappie, but I had chosen to NOT put the light rig in the boat today. Duh again!<br /><br />Gave up at about 10:30 and came home for my nap. Now I'm all rested up for a trip to the movie theater - Tuesday is $2.00 popcorn and $2.00 coke with free refills. Which movie? Who cares? I go for the popcorn (and free refills). I think Mrs. EricM mentioned "Man of Steel", so I guess that's the one that I'll miss while getting my free refills................<br /><br /><br />