Great Fishing and Back Surgery.

To say it’s been an event full few days would be an understatement .  To begin with I scheduled a couple of days off work so I could enjoy the absolute best time of year to catch numbers of hard hitting ,  monster Crappie. As a couple of plans fell through and the scheduled friends that had planned to fish were unable to go I decided to hit the lake with my all time favorite, never fail, never back out fishing buddy Hank. I just say “Hank, you wanna go fishing” and he jumps in the truck ready to go. No asking questions or coming up with excuses like work, family, angry wife etc.

So we hit the water and as I enjoy the solitude of finding my own places to fish and avoid the crowd I look for isolated stake beds and old submerged stump rows.  When trying to dissect big stump rows that contain many square feet of eroded root wads I hold a 11′ rear seat jigging rod in each hand with a 3′ slab slayer style bait in different color on each pink jig head. Usually lime/chart or blue /chart is a pretty good bet on Rend. I fish within a foot from the bottom as the monsters live in the root wads waiting for a jig or Thread find Shad to swim by. I fish methodically slow when in a large area of stumps. I know for a fact that the fish will be here its just a matter of locating each fish and convincing them to bite. It’s not like a small stake bed where you can pull up fish it for 5 minutes and move on. There are so many places for Crappie to hide in these root wads it defiantly testes ones patience.

After about 15 minutes of wondering if I had picked the right spot I was rewarded with a vicious slam  of a 14″ fat, angry and hungry Crappie. As Hank came up front to investigate and climb  on my lap (yes, he’s a 103 lb lap dog that craves attention) I realized it was going to be a great day.

After many more hard slams and catching and keeping some fish for an upcoming fish fry and even releasing several bigger fish to be caught again when they are over 2 lbs we call it a day.

While on the water I couldn’t  help but think about how enjoyable and rewarding spending the day on my favorite  lake could be. Knowing I had an upcoming back surgery pending I knew not to take any of this for granted . The weather  was perfect with highs in the mid 60’seat and light winds. The fish were definitely cooperative and the company was enjoyable .

Now as I write this I am on my couch with a battery pack taped to my side and wire leads ran up my spine sending electrical pulses to my brain. Fun right? My thoughts exactly .  Hopefully this will get rid of this nagging , constant low back I’ve  dealt with for a decade. After a couple more days I will know if this trial experience will pay off and decide to move forward with the permanent instalation . I’m keeping fingers crossed, praying and hoping like hell this all works out.

So, I wil, resume working on orders I  the next couple of days and try to answer all my emails regarding questions about fishing rods. Did you know you can go insane on your couch watching documentaries? Hopefully my sanity will creep back in as needed to get back to some sort of normalcy .  I just realized it’s only been one half of a day. I guess knowing the fish are out there wondering where Hank and I are makes this extra sucky. I’m currently watching a documentary on Manatees .  I feel like a Manatee.

So, that being said, be patient with the orders and I will be back in shape and better than ever. Keep the fishing stories and pictures coming as I am looking forward  to a pain free (or any improvement whatsoever will work) fishing trip. I can only imagine how enjoyable  that would be. Take care folks and be careful out there and take those kids fishing. Andy