Birthday Boy Catches Fish

Had Toni on the boat Friday with his parents Hans and Marlies who were visiting from Germany, along with Toni's FiL Jaime. Huge cold front on Wednesday and Thursday made me worry we might not catch a fish, but it turned into a fine day on the water. Hans and Marlies like to hold a rod when they fish, so instead of trolling, we spotlocked on a couple points known for producing eater fish and downlined baits all morning. Caught a mess of eater channel cats and 10-15 hybrids, a lot of fun on ultra-light tackle. Mom and Dad are a little short on conversational English, but they certainly knew how to point to a rod going down and yell "FISH!" Quite surprised to see how adept Marlies was at untangling lines. When hybrids are zooming all around the boat on the way to the net, they can create a Gordian Knot in no time. She always jumped right in and started work at pulling the knots apart. I may have to hire her as first mate next time they visit. I gave them a couple of suggestions on preparing the fish for dinner that night, and word is they really enjoyed the Lake Norman bounty! Hans also boated one of the biggest bull stickfish ever to come in the boat after a long battle. We did not keep it for dinner. ;)

I had Joshua and Natalie out hybrid hunting today on Mighty LKN. We started at first light to try and get a jump on the Labor Day boat traffic. Bite started off slowly, but at our second location, I pitched a spoon towards a rocky point and had an immediate hook up on a decent fish. Handed the rod the to Natalie, and that's when I learned-- Natalie is terrified of fish. No particular trauma--she was never chased down the street as a child by a blue marlin, or anything...but the idea of reeling in the fish and being in the boat with it flopping around kind of freaked her out. Which was kind of funny, given that we were on a "fishing" trip, but that made the day a more interesting challenge. That first fish ended up being a 7 pound blue cat, which was a big wiggly fish start to her day. The next few were all hybrid stripers, and as the day wore on, Natalie began to rally. I told her it was like allergy shots. Each fish made the next one a little easier. By the end of the day we had 25-30 hybrids in the boat and Natalie was beginning to not only reel in her own fish, she was going to the rod holder, picking up the rod and giving the fish as good a battle as it was giving her. I couldn't have been happier for her sticking with it and getting just a little braver with each fish. We still couldn't get her to hold up her fish for the photo,and sticking her thumb in its mouth and lipping it was right out! Baby steps. Next time, we'll work on using the fish grip pliers, and then unhooking the fish herself. Well...maybe not, but you gotta have a dream, right?

Every now and then, you have one of those days where you bounce baits right on the fishes' heads all day long, and they just won't bite. But even then, sometimes the fish story has a happy ending. This is one of them... Meet my little buddy Liam. He came fishing today with his grandfather and Carson, his older cousin. Carson put an eater cat in the boat right off the bat and it looked like we might have a good day. And then we fished. And fished. And fished. Not even a bite. Liam never gave up. He helped reel in rods when we moved, took off bait and kept an eye on the planers, hour after hour. He never complained, but as the day went on, it was clear he was getting discouraged. About 1 pm, we called an audible and set up to make one last drift across a mussel bed. I asked Liam what we should put on the hook as we baited the final rods. He suggested the piece of cut bait I had in my hand and then ALSO adding a cut gizzard shad head on the same hook. We called it the "Liam Special" bait . And we pitched it out and drug it for a half hour. No joy. We finally called it a disappointing day. The rod with the Liam Special bait was the last to come in, and as his grandfather David started to reel it it, he said "I think there's a fish on here!" Liam was off like a shot to grab the rod and started cranking it in like a pro, big grin on his face. He was beside himself when the fish hit the net and came over the side of the boat. Sometimes it's not always about putting 20 fish in the boat. On this day, a single blue cat in the low teens at the last possible moment made all the difference to a fisherkid who was small enough he had to have help to hoist it up for a picture. And now I have a new bait and a great story about Liam, the kid who refused to give up on fishing, even on an insanely slow day..