Mr. Responsible

This time of year is my very favorite for fishing. My dad used to take me all the time when I was young. He showed me how to find the schools of minnows and throw my lure into the middle of them with just the right bait to hopefully reel in a nice fish.

I used those same techniques today while fishing on my lunch break. The Shad minnows were swarming in a cove at Concord Park on Fort Loudon Lake. I could see Smallmouth jumping all over the water. I quickly tied on a silver spoon and cast into the middle of the minnows. The school of Shad was so thick that I hooked 2 of them while reeling in. I quickly threw back out and immediately snagged the nice Smallmouth you see in the picture. I was so excited that my hands were shaking. The fish had hooked itself pretty deep so I had to go back to my car and get my needle-nose pliers to remove the sharp hooks without killing it. I ran lickety split back to the same spot and kept throwing but no luck. Eventually my time ran out and I had to get back to work.

One of my small pleasures in life is fishing on my lunch break. I have an hour for lunch. It takes me 10 minutes to drive to the lake from the office and 10 minutes to drive back. So that leaves 40 minutes of fishing time. I sure could have used more of it today but I was thrilled to catch at least one. If I wasn't so responsible, I would have just called into work and told them I wouldn't be able to make it back, but, that's me, Mr. Responsible. Oh well, there's always tomorrow!