Saturdays Fishing Trip

Saturday morning I woke up a 4:15 am to get everything ready for the days fishing trip. So I go down in the dark to load the boat on the trailer and I couldn't find the boat. The last guys to use the boat apparently didnt pull it up onto the shore all the way. About 20 minutes later I found the boat tucked into the cattails on the other side of the lake. Special thanks to my dad and father in law and also to a nice stiff east wind for that adventure...

So it takes another 20 minutes to trolling motor the boat back to the boat ramp. I get er loaded up after finding the trailer stashed in the weeds down by the building and by the time I start loading fishing gear its already getting light out.

Off to a clients lake in Fulton County for the day to take some ladies from Chicago fishing. It didn't much matter that I got off to a late start, because when I got to the property the ladies were still sleeping and I wasnt about to have them woken up. (although the cool overcast morning would of been dynamite fishing).

Let me just say that Chicago girls spending time at a farm in fulton county is just kinda entertaining. They finally woke up about 10:15 am for our morning fishing trip and we made it out on the lake just a hair before noon. Before making it out on the water I laughed (internally of course) about stories and drama of mosquito bites, spiders, mice, camping, mud, etc.

So 3 of the ladies have never really fished before and one of them, Mary has been fishing several times. She too thoroughly enjoyed helping her 3 friends experience the great outdoors, we enjoyed a few behind the scenes laughs about the days adventures. The highlight of the day was when Mary was teasing one of the girls by putting a freshly caught fish just a bit too close for comfort and watching her reaction. Well that was all fine and dandy until the fish flopped off the hook and onto the girls lap. The next 30 seconds was complete chaos that just about capsized our boat and left both the fish and the girl laying on the floor of the boat both gasping for breath.

The fish, which was a really nice redear sunfish, managed to stick its dorsal fin into her leg at some point during the commotion and the blood running down the leg didnt help the frantic situation any. Five minutes later and Samantha was back to fishing again, and she managed to catch more fish than any of the other ladies for the rest of the trip. During those 5 minutes of therapy there was a moment when I though she would never fish again.

Anyhow despite the heat and late start the girls picked up on fishing much faster than I ever thought possible and we managed to catch some really nice fish! We filled up a 5 gallon bucket full of crappies, redears, bluegills, and catfish and we released another 5 gallon bucket full of fish as well throughout the day. We actually let all of the really big bluegill and redears go and just kept the crappies and a few of the hook swallowers for eating.

This group picture below took about 5 minutes to accomplish. The girls didnt really like touching fish, so we didnt get many pictures while out in the boat, but we had to have a group picture and some documentation of this day for the girls. Altogether I think they had a great time experiencing a different lifestyle outdoors in Fulton County!

Ladies, next year you are getting up much earlier to go fishing!