With the crowds on the Barren river making the week ends too tough to fish with the grand kids in the boat, we headed out to smaller waters and smaller boats. We have two jon boats one 14ft river boat and another eight ft pot boat for lack of a better term, alot of the cab fishermen and crawfisherman in Louisiana use these short deep boats to run their traps and trot lines they are easy for one guy to control and can carry alot of weight at the same time. So we packed them both on one trailer and head for Shanty Hollow to get in some Blue Gill fishing, and this time of year the O2 level keeps almost all of the fish up in the upper 6 feet of the lake. to our surprise the lake had fallen another foot to a foot and a half despite the recent rains. so we set our floats and we worked the edges first and worked our way out we got into some great pan fish action we went through a box of night crawler and a whole tube of crickets in about an hour and had even picked up a few nice crappie in the mix. then to top the afternoon off we found a willow that was blown over into the water and decided to take the 9 year old over and let her try jigging a worm and see if she could tag a small bass. or a twister and and get a crappie or two. Well we get about 20 yards from the tree and this 9 year old girl looked at me and said Paw hang on it is hot and that is a big worm on the rod,(a 10inch power worm) right and I said yes, she said can we change that to a 4 inch and make the color pumpkinseed with the gold glitter and can I drop shot it instead of that texas rig you have been using. Well my jaw dropped and was seining the mud and water in the bottom of the old boat. I said sure baby girl but where did you get all of that from, well paw I read your KY fish and game books and Field and Stream and I always watch the outdoor channel. And I think smaller will work better here with the shallow thermaclime and I keep the bait off bottom. I did not know what a thermaclime was until I was twenty something, if then. I said OK your the boss I am just the old trolling motor today kid. Well she gave me specific direction on how to postion her with the bow of the boat and she got in there and dropped that 4inch worm into that first hole and the 2nd cast bang she has a 2lb bass and hauls it in with a thumb grip like she has her own fishing show she has me work from the darkest shade around to the light and in 45 minutes this 9 year old girl has put three grown men and her mother and grandmother under the table. She took 5 fish with the average being 2.4 pounds her biggest was a 4 .1 that she took in open water after she lost her last pumpkinseed worm, she noticed that bass fry minnows were breaking the surface out toward the middle she said she had one left for her limit and wanted to try something she had read about in a time life fishing book. she went into my tackle box and dug out a blue and chrome pin minnow about a 4 inch bait this time she went with a smaller rod with six pound line so it would cast farther and the line could not be seen so easily. so I rowed her out there and she waited until a school splashed and she cast beyond the school and brought the lure in just under the surface and did not catch any thing, she said pop I have seen you do this on Barren and it worked what did I do wrong I said well I use a shad rap and let it sink and swimit under the school not through it, and ask her if she wanted me to rig up a shad rap, she said NO way pop just watch, well the next splash and she was on it she let the minnow sink and brought it under the shool and let it fall just a little and gave it a quick jerk and bam she was hanging on and the drag was singing away she fought the fish for ten minute that seemed like an hour to her. When we got it in the boat she said that is it poppy lets go home. On the ride home I ask her why she did not want to go to a rattle trap or a shad rap lure on the schooling fish. She said Paw did you read the sign on the post that said no shad are allowed to used for bait in Shanty Hollow because there is no shad in the lake and they want to keep it that way, so they would not know what a shad would look like so I tryed to match my lure to the fish they were trying to eat. Fishing 101 I know I am an old rooster crowing with pride but this kid is making me look bad. she has a natural drive to learn everything outdoors and not afraid to try anything. The other day she came in and said Paw where are those meal worms we bought to fish with I told her and it dawned on me we were not going fishing. So I went outside slipped around the apple tree in the back yard and there were 5 of the neighborhood kids 3 irls and 2 boys and my grandaughter standing in the middle with my cricket cage the meal worms some night crawlers and a few freshly dug red worms. it was survivor in the back yard to make it short only two made it to the final challenge my girl and a 12 year old tough guy they each had to eat 2 large night crawlers and keep it all down well she won after they all broke off to go brush their teeth I met mine in the kitchen and was delibertly holding up her progress, I ask her what they had been doing she looked up at me and said eating gross stuff for money I just won 15 dollars and I ask was it worth it she said yea but the cricket legs were scratcy and the night crawlers had alot of grit but it was not as bad as she thought, she then opened the fridge grabed a bottle of water and a green onion out and rinsed her mouth out and ate the onion, and ask if I would drive her to the movies it would be her treat she could buy the tickets. Man ya got to love a kid like that
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