A Mixed Bag for Ron

Had an email from Ron this morning, but it has taken me most of the day to work up enough energy to drag myself to this computer so I could post this fishing report he provided me. Not really sure what's going on with me, but I came home last evening feeling bad after spending the day with my boy and his wife, and things only have gone downhill from there. Got up this morning feeling horrible and felt even worse when the wife offered this possible diagnosis: "You know you could be coming down with the flu or whatever it was I had a couple weeks ago." Am keeping my fingers crossed, but given my close connection to old Murphy (he loves to ride on my shoulder), wouldn't be at all surprised to find my wife's prediction coming true.

In the meantime, though, I'm gonna keep dragging my sorry carcas around for as long as possible and at least try to add a few items to my blog, even if I have to do it in shifts.

Back to Ron's report. He told me that he spent this past Thursday on Lake Smith, where he managed to boat four crappie in the 10-to-12-inch range. He didn't have any luck at all with bass but said a "fella nearby was slaying 'em." He had a total of seven, including one that weighed 5+ pounds. All of them had fallen for a small crankbait, which happened to be among the things Ron had left at home that day.

Friday morning found him launching at Lake Smith again. "The skies already were dark at 7 a.m.," he noted, "and they only got darker." By 9 a.m. when he had to head to work, he had gotten a good drenching and had missed two strikes. He went back to try his luck yet again in the late afternoon but only could muster one crappie.

On Saturday morning, Ron pointed his yak toward Blackwater. "It was a long peddle to the first long west-running creek," he said, but he found a few dinks, plus a 1-2 and a 1-4 on Zoom flukes. While peddling back to the Blackwater Trading Post, he scored a 12-inch striper while trolling the XTS. He also picked up a crappie on the beetlespin.

In closing, Ron let me know I'm not alone when it comes to tangling my lures in trees and stumps. He was telling me about his first scare of last year that came from a mid-channel bush/tree stump. He was just about to reach for the lure when he saw a snake curled up. He backed off with the yak and worked on freeing the lure with his paddle. This activity was enough to spook the snake, which swam off harmlessly. Ron noted he's had to be careful of some low-hanging bees nests, too.