Monday Dec 6, 2004, My first day on Dale Hollow. I hired John Davis to take me out on a guide trip and show me around the lake. He picked me up at Wisdom, where I was staying all week. First stop and about my 3rd cast I catch my first Dale Hollow Smallie on the FNF and I am hooked for life. Not a big fish but it had 2 eyes and gills so that counts. Caught a few more on the fly and then about 11am or so we started fishing the famous Silver Buddy. John told me what to do and I hooked into an absolute MONSTER. She gave the best fight of any fish I had ever tangled with to that date. John lays the net under this fish and what a Brute she is. He does not have a scale in his boat but she is a SURE 5 and probably a 6 knowing what I do now. You can see the fish in his book of pictures that he keeps in his cabins. Cabin #2 has the book as of a few weeks ago but you can't miss it. Just look for the biggest guy in the book wearing an ugly Blue rainsuit holding one of the biggest Smallies in the book. The lake was absolute glass at the end of the day and I wanted to see just what that Triton could do and John put the hammer down on the way back. 75 - 80 who knows but he goosed it one more time at the end to show he had some juice still left in the tank.

Tuesday Dec 7, 2004, wind is BLOWING 435,897 mile per hour which means it is blowing in every direction at Dale at the same time. Not good conditions for the bobber but I perservered and fished all day long without a bite. My brother in law, Rob, comes down that night to fish the next 3 days. We go into Albany and find this whole in the wall mexican place to eat. That night as we had just gotten in our beds, 2 BR cabin, I rip one of the ABSOLUTE longest farts in the history of mankind. It had to be a 15-20 second flatuation domination. I laid there thinking that was the greatest fart of all time and there was nobody there to witness it. A few seconds later I rip his twin brother and again mad that there was no witness to the flatuation domination event. A few seconds later Rob says "Woody, can I come sleep with you, I miss my wife". I reply "Come on but I must warn you, I got gas". He is AMAZED and in an AMAZED tone he says "Those were farts, hell I thought the heater was turning on or something else was turning on". I said "You mean you heard them, that is great, I thought they were going to go un-noticed by the world". The next moning we head to the same spot that I landed the monster Smallie from the day before and pull up to throw the fly first. Rob is all about the video or pictures, I am the exact Polar opposite. He brings out the video camera and makes me tell where we are at, what we are doing and what happened the night before regarding the Flatuation Domination. He says at the end "Well I am going to put down the camer and start to fish", as I am making my first FNF cast of the morning. The bobber goes under before he gets to his seat and he grabs the camera and videos 3 jumps of the Smallie then tries to net the fish with one hand and the camera in the other hand. He stabs and misses once to which a few words came out of my mouth that would be bleeped but they are clearly heard on the video. He finally nets my 4-8 Smallie and let the games begin.

We caught a few fish each day Wed,Thur and Fri but nothing spectacular. We did fish thru 3 different hail storms on Friday including driving thru one, which was painful. You could hear it coming thru the woods before hitting the water or see it coming across the water before reaching the boat. Pretty cool but sure did hurt when you got whacked in the head. That was all for my first week on Dale Hollow