Met my fishing partner, Knute (the heathen) at the New Albany,IN ramp at 1600 hours and off we went to Doug Meyer's not so secret place to throw the net.

I caught 3 shad and 2 skipjacks on the first throw. Caught some more on a couple more throws then Knute (the heathen) wanted to try. Unless he plans on knocking the bait unconscious with the lead line, he's not going to catch anything with the way he throws a net.

We went on up below the hydros and anchored. I fished for cats while Knute (the heathen) cast swim baits and pop'r type lures for the whites.

My first 4 inch live whole shad wasn't in the water for 5 minutes when I hooked and landed a nice 15lb blue. I let that one back but kept some other smaller ones that I caught on cut skipjack.

The afternoon, early evening thunder storm that I didn't see on any forecasts showed up and knocked us off the water early. I can brave a small shower, but thunder and lightning was starting to crash and we left.

I remembered to put in the drain plug and take off the transom straps. I pre-started the motor in my driveway so Knute (the heathen) could start the motor when we launched. That does seem to help him starting my motor.

Hurricanebob: I attempted your method of fabric softener with my net with a slight twist. Mrs. Tyme didn't have any liquid softener so I layed the net on the ground and placed 3 dryer sheets on top of the net. For some reason, that didn't seem to help.