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Shiners, 23 inch bass, gator and bird off dock
Hi all, I had one of those remarkable mornings I thought I should
share. I have been going down to the local lake early every morning for the past two weeks to practice casting my new surf rod and to toss out some Purina puppy chow dog food to try and attract some wild shiners. I have found that soaking the dry dog food in a zip bag 1/2 full of water about 1 hour makes it soft and about half of it will sink when it hits the lake. The fish really like it and every morning when I toss some out the water boils with action. Only problem is I could not tell what type of fish where eating the food. I could see a bream from time to time in the early morning darkness but that was all I could see for sure. This morning I decided it was time to try the cast net and find out just what has been eating all the dog food. I toss out some dog food, wait a bit and then toss out some oatmeal. I get the net ready and toss out a bit more oat meal and let the net fly. I pull it in and find it is loaded with shiners. I fill the 5 gallon pail and have so many I have to toss more then 3/4 of them back. Well I guess the dog food trick really does work. I would like to try some hog food but the dog food is much easier to find and seems to work just fine. Now that I have some fresh wild shiners it's time to try and catch a big bass. I selected my MH rod with Abu Garcia 5601 reel because it has a clicker on it. I make a gentle cast to some lily pads about 20 feet away and put the rod in a holder. Next I grab my surf rod and start working on my casts. As I'm casting away I hear the clicker on the bass rod and quickly set the surf rod down and grab the bass rod, make a nice cranking slow hook set and try to get the Owner MUTU Light circle to do it's job. Fish on! Big fish on, it's pulling drag on the stout reel. I almost lose the fish to the lily pads and then almost lose it under the dock. Got it under control and pull up a nice 23 inch bass. The circle hook worked great and had gone into the hard part of the roof of the mouth near the lip. I did have to cut the hook to release the fish but it was nice not to deep hook it. I don't use live bait much and deep hooking is a major concern for me. The fish was released in good shape and I went back to the practice casts with the surf rod. I blast out a long one and as the line starts to settle after the lead hits the water I see a large white bird fly into the line and it gets tangled up. I have no hook on the surf rod, just a weight so I think it should not be hard to slowly pull the bird in without hurting it to untangle it and as I start to crank in it frees itself. That was different, almost caught a bird with no hook on the line ;-) Next thing that happens is a gar (I think) grabs the shiner I have out and starts to swim away with it. I grab the rod and notice a small 3 foot gator eyeing the moving float. I think this could get interesting so I free spool the reel just to see what would happen. The gator chases down the moving float and runs off the gar and eats the float and maybe the shiner too. I make another slow cranking hook set trying to get the circle to work but this time it slips out or maybe the gator only had the float. In any case it was a hoot and I was rolling of the dock laughing. I hope you enjoy my story and it's all true! Later, DC -- Dale Colemam |
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