Lake Barkley fishing saga
Lake Barkley fishing saga.
Knute(The Heathen) was scheduled to meet at my house at 0700 to 0730 for our departure time. He must have been as excited as I was as he showed up at 0630. I had the truck hooked to the boat trailer and had all my provisions loaded. It only took a few minutes to transfer the supplies from Knute's car to the truck and we were on the road at 0645.
It was a pleasant and uneventful drive to Holiday Hill's Resort where we launched the boat and unloaded the contents of the truck into our accommodations.
The third member of our group,Florida Al, met us there.
We were on the water by noon to start fishing.
Our attack plan was to rig with minnows under a slip bobber and fish the shallows for spawning crappie. Let the fun begin. We immediately started to reel in 12 to 14 inch crappie. My one working live-well was getting full so we decided to return to the lodge to clean fish and prepare for supper.
Upon our return to the lodge we docked the boat for the evening and filled up three big glasses with fine bourbon. Knute and Florida Al cleaned the fish while I peeled potatoes and made ready for French Fries.
Somehow that first big glass of bourbon had become the start of the third glass and I could perceive that Knute was not going to be the cook that evening. I took over the cooking duties and battered the fish and went ahead and fried the taters and then the fish. Being health aware old men, we also had a salad with the meal. Forty-seven BIG crappie were cleaned that first day.
Day two was pleasant but the bite was off from day one. We managed to catch another 20 crappie. Although our numbers were down other fishermen were coming in blanked so we didn't feel all that bad about our decreased numbers.
Day two's supper was Fillet Mignon on the grill with a pan of fried taters and onions and the usual salad.
Florida Al had to leave early on day 3 so supper was just Knute and I. More fried crappie and French fries and that same **** salad! Another twenty crappie were caught that day.
Day 4 was check-out day so we loaded the truck and vacated the lodge but fished for half a day before returning home. A storm had come through the previous evening and the fish had lock jaw. I did accidentally catch a nice 18 inch bass on a live minnow that last morning.
Knute did manage to wreck my boat that first day. He was coming into the dock hot and never shifted to reverse. The boat's rub rail slammed into the corner of the dock. The dock won and took a nice chunk out of the rub rail.
