Day 1 at Lake Gaston: A Nightmare

Those aren't my words; they came from Jim Bauer, who started another fishing vacation at Lake Gaston yesterday. "Thinking about how it started, I maybe should have gone back to bed," he said.

It was after 8:30 when he got to the boat. First thing he discovered was that the boat was stuck on the lift, thanks in no small part to the "lousy low water," as he described it. Then he found a bilge full of water, with no clue about how it got there. "It actually came up through the deck drain," he explained. He finally cranked the Yamaha and took a chance and got it off the lift but didn't leave until he had taken time to raise the lift.

With that task accomplished, he at last was off to find some fish. "I fished the cove and down the deep-water docks before I boated the first fish, incurring a couple misses on the Whopper Plopper (WP) along the way," said Jim. One fish smacked the bait twice, right at the boat, without ever getting hooked up.

In an effort to get a decent bite going, Jim started switching off and on between the Whopper Plopper and a French Fry. He also decided to change directions and began fishing toward the mouth. "I ended up missing a couple of good fish and having some come off," he said, adding there was probably a half dozen or more that fell in this category. By 3:30, he had boated five total, including the 1.4 (pictured here), two 12-inchers, and two dinks, and decided to return to his quarters.

He went back out after 5 o'clock and caught one more dink. More importantly, though, he talked to Bob (the neighbor) 'bout the low water and the problem with that lift. As he learned, when workers put the weights on the cables, they shortened them. The result was that the lift would not go high enough to get under it, or all the way to the bottom so you could get over it.

Bob urged him to drop the ball weights so the lift would go higher, so about 7 o'clock, Jim found some wrenches and sockets and moved the lead balls far enough to raise the lift and get his boat under it. As he noted, "It was interesting using the boat for a work platform. My knees are dang sore!"

As if all that wasn't enough "excitement" for one day, Jim encountered two snakes on the water, too. "Darn near dropped the WP on one," he explained. "The other swam right next to it."

There also was an occasion when he tossed the WP up under an overhanging tree, then looked away for a second. When he turned back to start the retrieve, the lure was nowhere in sight. He quickly picked up slack and set the hook, and it was "Fish On!" In a matter of seconds, though, the fish was gone. "I never heard a sound," said Jim. "The darn fish just inhaled it--the sneaky thing!"

In conclusion, Jim admitted "I'm flat whipped. It was a tough day. Sure hope things improve soon."