The Day after
(or "what the heck just happened")
When I was in college, we were taught that when writing a paper you should always start with a thesis statement and build the paper around that statement. For this blog, I guess my "Thesis statement" would be:
Knowledge and equipment go hand in hand.
With all the knowledge in the world if you don't have the proper equipment your knowledge is not going to get you very far.
With the right equipment and no knowledge you also aren't going to get very far.
Now if you read my first blog you are probably already laughing because you know what's about to come but hang with me and you might get a chuckle.
Armed with our new found knowledge <see my first blog> my son, my dad and I set out, the following weekend, to see how much we understood, without our buddy Jeff to guide us.
First off our motor is a beautiful 40 HP Force with a 6 gallon tank (remember that part; 6 gallons). Jeff's motor was a 200 HP (I believe) so it took us a little longer to get to our spots to say the least. But we found them and felt very pleased with ourselves.
The first stop we made was to acquire the shad we need for catfishing. Jeff made this look so easy and although we knew we needed some practice throwing the bait net, we didn't realize that the rope for the net was not quite long enough and truthfully the net wasn't quite as big as Jeff's either. My son threw like a champ sometimes the net flew open like a parachute catching the wind and other times it fell to the water as though it believe itself to be our anchor, in a sad flat kinda mess that frustrated my son for all he was worth. After many very disappointing tries (disappointing to him, not me, I was actually impressed he didn't end up in the water hahaha) he was able to pull up a few tiny shad that would eventually, at the very least, be a great cause of joy and relief to he and my father. Now before you laugh too hard I ask you, have you ever tried to throw a cast net to catch shad from a 16ft aluminum bass boat in wind blown, choppy water, while trying to run a trolling motor and all while your dad and grandfather watched you? ok then :)
With a few tiny shad (and one big enough to chop about 4 pieces off of) we headed to our new found crappie spot.
Now I was pretty sure the Crappie were closer to the bank than we had been fishing the weekend before but we had come out to use our new found knowledge so we stayed out in about 18ft. of water.
Now, we do not have the spider rigging setup to actually say we were spider rigging but we did put out a few lines hanging from the side of the boat at the depth our Fish Finder was showing fish. We decided to tie off on a stump and try our luck in one spot. I found out later why many of you are already laughing about that idea but apparently when you are spider rigging you want to be moving, VERY slowly trolling but moving nonetheless. I also did not have the hooks rigged in the same manner that Jeff had showed us (a point my son continuously made clear... at one point he got so frustrated with my setup the he actually said "we paid Jeff X amount to teach us how to fish and you guys didn't hear anything but the bait" and shook his head. he was right though and I learned a few more things after this trip as well.
Next time I will rig up as follows:
A 1 1/2 oz. weight at the end of my line.
Armed with our new found knowledge <see my first blog> my son, my dad and I set out, the following weekend, to see how much we understood, without our buddy Jeff to guide us.
First off our motor is a beautiful 40 HP Force with a 6 gallon tank (remember that part; 6 gallons). Jeff's motor was a 200 HP (I believe) so it took us a little longer to get to our spots to say the least. But we found them and felt very pleased with ourselves.
The first stop we made was to acquire the shad we need for catfishing. Jeff made this look so easy and although we knew we needed some practice throwing the bait net, we didn't realize that the rope for the net was not quite long enough and truthfully the net wasn't quite as big as Jeff's either. My son threw like a champ sometimes the net flew open like a parachute catching the wind and other times it fell to the water as though it believe itself to be our anchor, in a sad flat kinda mess that frustrated my son for all he was worth. After many very disappointing tries (disappointing to him, not me, I was actually impressed he didn't end up in the water hahaha) he was able to pull up a few tiny shad that would eventually, at the very least, be a great cause of joy and relief to he and my father. Now before you laugh too hard I ask you, have you ever tried to throw a cast net to catch shad from a 16ft aluminum bass boat in wind blown, choppy water, while trying to run a trolling motor and all while your dad and grandfather watched you? ok then :)
With a few tiny shad (and one big enough to chop about 4 pieces off of) we headed to our new found crappie spot.
Now I was pretty sure the Crappie were closer to the bank than we had been fishing the weekend before but we had come out to use our new found knowledge so we stayed out in about 18ft. of water.
Now, we do not have the spider rigging setup to actually say we were spider rigging but we did put out a few lines hanging from the side of the boat at the depth our Fish Finder was showing fish. We decided to tie off on a stump and try our luck in one spot. I found out later why many of you are already laughing about that idea but apparently when you are spider rigging you want to be moving, VERY slowly trolling but moving nonetheless. I also did not have the hooks rigged in the same manner that Jeff had showed us (a point my son continuously made clear... at one point he got so frustrated with my setup the he actually said "we paid Jeff X amount to teach us how to fish and you guys didn't hear anything but the bait" and shook his head. he was right though and I learned a few more things after this trip as well.
Next time I will rig up as follows:
A 1 1/2 oz. weight at the end of my line.
A Crappie hook about 1ft. up the line from the weight with a minnow.
A second hook another foot up the line with a minnow.
With this setup you want to move only fast enough to say you are moving but not fast enough for your line to drag at all. The line needs to stay directly vertical at all times.
After about an hour of nothing much but a single small crappie just large enough to keep (but we didn't) we decided to move on to catfishing.
While heading to our catfish spot, which happened to be just between our crappie spot and the marina, we noticed the engine missing quite a bit. Due to my past issues with motors my adrenaline of course began to rise and I started to worry. With thoughts of "man we can't afford to have this motor in the shop" and "I really don't want to get stuck 5 miles out from the marina, no one's gonna want to tow us in", I asked my son to check the gas tank when we made it to the catfish hole. I did relax quite a bit upon his announcement that we were simply getting ready to run out of gas. That may sound strange but no gas can be fixed with about $12, a far cry from needing the carb. rebuilt.
We fished for about another hour at our catfish hole and I am proud to say that my son and dad did catch 2 fairly nice blue cats. We threw them back as we did not feel like cleaning only 2 fish, especially when we already had 20lbs of fish in our freezer.
We decided to head back in as it was getting late, the motor sputtered from lack of fuel. I had my wife praying from home and all 3 of us, you bet, were praying. At one point it stop altogether. My mind began to wonder to whether or not any of my Facebook friends might be out fishing if I needed someone to bring us a gallon or 2 of gas :). My son crawled back and tilted the gas tank to the side to feed what little gas was left to the hose and we made it back to the marina.
When we were out of the water I opened the tank to find there was absolutely nothing left in there, if you were dying of thirst you couldn't have even rinsed out your mouth (not a good idea anyway).
We/I learned that if you are going to pay to be taught something then it is probably a wise idea to:
A. Have the right equipment.
B. Do the thing you were taught, the way you were taught.
C. Drop your boat closer to your hole or have extra gas somewhere close.
Thank you for reading I hope you enjoyed our folly's, cast a big net and keep tight lines.
Until next week.
A second hook another foot up the line with a minnow.
With this setup you want to move only fast enough to say you are moving but not fast enough for your line to drag at all. The line needs to stay directly vertical at all times.
After about an hour of nothing much but a single small crappie just large enough to keep (but we didn't) we decided to move on to catfishing.
While heading to our catfish spot, which happened to be just between our crappie spot and the marina, we noticed the engine missing quite a bit. Due to my past issues with motors my adrenaline of course began to rise and I started to worry. With thoughts of "man we can't afford to have this motor in the shop" and "I really don't want to get stuck 5 miles out from the marina, no one's gonna want to tow us in", I asked my son to check the gas tank when we made it to the catfish hole. I did relax quite a bit upon his announcement that we were simply getting ready to run out of gas. That may sound strange but no gas can be fixed with about $12, a far cry from needing the carb. rebuilt.
We fished for about another hour at our catfish hole and I am proud to say that my son and dad did catch 2 fairly nice blue cats. We threw them back as we did not feel like cleaning only 2 fish, especially when we already had 20lbs of fish in our freezer.
We decided to head back in as it was getting late, the motor sputtered from lack of fuel. I had my wife praying from home and all 3 of us, you bet, were praying. At one point it stop altogether. My mind began to wonder to whether or not any of my Facebook friends might be out fishing if I needed someone to bring us a gallon or 2 of gas :). My son crawled back and tilted the gas tank to the side to feed what little gas was left to the hose and we made it back to the marina.
When we were out of the water I opened the tank to find there was absolutely nothing left in there, if you were dying of thirst you couldn't have even rinsed out your mouth (not a good idea anyway).
We/I learned that if you are going to pay to be taught something then it is probably a wise idea to:
A. Have the right equipment.
B. Do the thing you were taught, the way you were taught.
C. Drop your boat closer to your hole or have extra gas somewhere close.
Thank you for reading I hope you enjoyed our folly's, cast a big net and keep tight lines.
Until next week.
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