Weekend prep, weekend plans

Yesterday at lunchtime I drove to a bait shop at the entrance to Wise County Park. It is only about ten miles from the house. Pastor had told me that he expected the crappie to be very interested in minnows and the bait shop sold minnows for $2.50/dozen. A very inexpensive experiment. I spent a few minutes chatting with the owner while he bagged up the minnows. I learned in that conversation that if you keep the minnows cool, they will stay alive for several days in the bag. That is what I needed to know. So, once I got home, I put the bag of live minnows on the refrigerator in the garage. Mama did not discover the temporary aquarium in the fridge until very late in the evening yesterday. She found it very funny to have live fish swimming around in their bag in her refrigerator. They spend most of their time in the dark, but they are cool enough to be viable this evening.

Alex and Leslie are coming over tonight to fish. I cannot tell them no. I am not sure what they have done to prepare for their time at the lake tonight that is different from what they have done on the past times at the quarry lake, but they are excited to try again. Even though they caught only three fish last time, they did catch fish. So, their success rate her has been far greater than in the public waters they have fished. I am not sure if they want to try the upper lakes, but I will offer that to them as well as our normal lake. I enjoy the time with them as they chat in Mandarin including me in the conversation when needed. at some point they will bring the girls to fish as well, but their mama has not allowed that to happen yet.

Late yesterday evening, I tried the minnows at a spot where we typically catch crappie. I had limited success. I did about as well with lures as I did with live bait, but it was still fun to see the bobber popping on the surface of the water and know that a fish was interested. I caught four fish that way. Two I threw back. They were too small. I caught four with lures as I waited on the live bait to be taken. With the difficulty in getting to that particular spot, I will not use live bait there unless I am in the boat. It is too much paraphernalia to carry down and then up the steep bank - rods, bait bucket, fish bucket and tackle box. It took two trips to carry all the stuff back to the top of the bank. I could only handle the bucked with the caught fish in it by itself since I still needed one hand to help me climb the bank. I had to rest after carrying the fish bucket to the truck in the second trip up the bank.

Since I was basically on a mission to find accessible places to fish tomorrow night, I went to the upper lakes. I tried a couple spots on the smaller lake and caught several bass before landing a very large bass. The minnows did not seem to attract any attention in that lake. Then I went to the large upper lake and caught several small bass there as well. I also caught a large bass in that lake. All told, I caught four crappie, eight bass and one very large perch in about an hour and a half. I am not sold on the minnows, but I will try them tonight on a different spot with a different hook setup. If I can get that to work, I will get more for our outing with Kenny and Kim Cantrell tomorrow evening.

Mama arranged for them to come over tomorrow afternoon so we could get together. They have wanted to go fishing for some time and now that I know these lakes a little better, I think we can have a very good time enjoying being close to the water. We were going to see them tomorrow one way of the other. Either they were going to come over to go fishing or we were going to go to them to hang a swarm trap on their property. They have a lavender farm within a mile of their homestead. The bees love lavender. It is a little bit far to place one of my traps, but it is not too far to visit with friends.

So far, neither of the traps I set out have attracted any bees, but that is just as well since I am not quite ready to house more bees. I still need to build a couple parts for the partial hives I have on hand. It will not take me long. It is just getting that to be a priority.

Mama’s business continues to thrive, and she is getting to be quite proficient within the company internet framework. It is a pleasure to see enjoying this as much as she is.