Talkin' About Fishin'

Pick a spot.

I am a little bit homesick today. I was sitting here daydreaming about doing some serious fishin'. It's the time of year when the sand bass are making their annual spawning journey into the creeks that feed the lakes. In this case, I am speaking of Lake Palestine. I know some spots on the creeks that you could stand in one spot, not moving more than a foot in either direction, and catch over 100 sandies. I should know. I have done it. And, no I don't keep them. I practice catch and release 99.9% of the time, just keeping what I need to feed myself  a couple of times. The fight that a 2 pound sand bass puts up when you use light tackle like I do, is reward enough for me.

Soon the crappie will move into shallower water as they, too, prepare to spawn. I like to crappie fish with a bobber set for about 3 feet of water. When the bobber starts dancing, so does my heart. I love to fish for crappie and they are very tasty if you decide to keep a few. I can almost see that bobber dancin' right now. Fish.Fear.Me.

And let's not forget the catfish. I like to fish for catfish around boat houses. There, the water is fairly deep and there's always easy access to deeper water when the fish feel like going deeper. My preferred method for catfishing is "skipping" liver up under the boat house "garage door". It's very simple to do. Bait your hook with some chicken liver and do not use a weight. Chunk the liver up under the boat house door like skipping rocks across the water. This does three things that catfish love. the liver makes noise as it skips across the surface of the water, therefore grabbing the attention any nearby catfish. This method also chums the water with the smell of liver is dispersed each time the liver skips. The third and maybe most important feature of this kind of fishing is that the liver falls very slowly towards the bottom of the lake, much like an injured bait fish would do. the next step is to hang on tight because you never know when that heavy duty catfish will take your bait. Watch your fishing line carefull, as any move to the left or right means you have a bite. When the line goes tight. SET. THE. DAMN. HOOK.

I'll take up the subject mof bass fishing this weekend maybe and let you in a couple of secrets that have made me a damn good fisherman. I don't say that to brag, it's a simple fact. Ask anybody that really knows me. Fish. Fear. Me.

Because Toby said so.