8/17 Guests with Bananas Revenge of Stripey and Beating the Skunk
Today we had a friend of the family and her college age daughter. Friend has been amazed at our results and wanted very badly to go. Lulu and I really enjoy being out there having time together, but some friends call for special consideration. The boat all geared out really is good for 2, OK for 3 if the third can help with duties requiring front of boat, but 2 that have never caught a fish are another story. The early morning call did not deter our friends so we were off.
Not to digress, I thought about space and had to make some tough choices. I decided that B&W would not work as there would be nowhere to work the cutting board, no way to handle the rods in the front to help them (remember first timers) and I was feeling that trolling up 40 dinks might be a good plan. I knew I couldn't try to net shad either. So, I took out the bait rods, the shad net the back anchor and cutting board... still crowded but a bit better.
We called them at our 3:15 wake up time and they where up. OK, on track... and the arrived within 5 minutes of the agreed upon departure. I pushed them to park and get their stuff loaded and off. We got there pretty early to be the 3rd boat in line and what a line it was today. I think that the end of the line was all the way to Lake Hughes (I have never been there, just saying). Fishininone was getting his trolling cam together and I got the boat ready to dump in the drink.
Finally in the lake and I realized that I can launch, park and get back to be boat faster than guests can pee. LOL. so we headed off up the fish arm to look for the stripers I didn't kill last time. On a tip from Bassfan, i tried to keep an eye out for weeks and grass on the trollers. I did see one breaking fish and tossed a surface plug for an attempt by stripey to eat my steel, but without a hitch.
As I was marking fish, it was pretty dang slow. finally a hook and it comes off and then we got a solid dink hook up. I helped guest daughter reel in her first fish ever. Mom said, "so big" and lulu told her it was a very small dink and the big ones are 10X that size or more. I rolled back through and more nada and then found some really good marks on lock jaw fish.
About this time I was noticing that guests were asleep, or trying to sleep from the boredom of an hour of trolling. Of course, very polite, but obviously not loving it. I started getting questions about fishing different ways and lulu was explaining "trolling".
i broke out my coffee and knew I was in trouble when that didn't spur a bite. So by and by I ran over to the ski arm and tried trolling around there. Then passenger has to pee, so I run all the way back over to SS as the pee house in ski arm is "out of order". I don't know if Cutbait's crew was in there yesterday or if they were being lazy. JK Cutbait.... ;)
so back to running over the same fish that ignored me earlier and a licer who was playing with his baby while trying to get his other kid on a drag raft runs over my line. I started yelling and cursing (sorry guests as I as dropping F bombs and calling out A.H. he stopped and I got my rigs in. I couldn't believe that I got my rigs back except one swivel was pulled out, but the rigs was OK except somehow one of the leaders was wrapped up around the line up about 10' up. I don't know how the heck that happened, but I had to unhook everything and swapped out the one rod for the other with a swivel ready to go. another couple hours of trolling up grass and daughter guest says she would like to go swimming. I said, you don't have a swim suit. I moved the topic along and about 1 pm we are off the lake.
About this time, guest break out their bananas. OK, that is the reason!!! I noticed they had banana boat sun oil too. LOL I told them that bananas are bad luck on a fishing boat. I think I convinced them with the stunning effort to come as close to a skunk as is possible (LOL).
After last week, I was sure to keep it way under the posted 5 at the ramp and got out pretty quick. I did get yelled at for parking all the way in the back under the only tree. First by another random A.H. and then the sheriff. OK, it was in the red, but there were boats buttoning down all over down there in the red. Last week the sheriff waved at me when we were in the same place. I guess that goes with the lice infestation...
so, after 3 consecutive weeks of limit fishing, including a 47# string 2 weeks ago (20 fish), stripey got his revenge. I still had a nice time on the lake and thought about how it must have been the bananas... Of course, the game plan was modified to accommodate a tight squeeze too. I don't think they will want to go fishing again. I don't think any of those other mutual friends will be so interested in trying fishing for the first time either. I thought about how nice it is to have that time with lulu. I told Lulu that baiting would have been impossible because of the crowd and we talked about fishinone's times with us. She said, no problem with Ron... he wouldn't get bored, he will handle the bait, his own rods AND pull an anchor too! I don't think Ron will bring bananas either!
I did see Bassfan and Flyhigh too. They all did better than me today, but I think it was slow for most of the fleet. Bassfan texted me that he couldn't figure the lockjaw schools and asked if my guests brought bananas. LOL how did he know! Sorry guys, it must be my fault!
Next week revenge will be mine!!!
DMS
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Originally Posted by TroutOnly
