Drake fished with a friend
I had to manage the store yesterday, and with the daylight savings time change, closing at 5pm left no time to jump in the boat and fish. It’s a sad time of year when the after work fishing gig is over.
A friend of mine, Jason was talking about fishing, but his truck was down, no way to get his boat to the lake. “Take mine”, I said. “It’s on the lift, gased up, and the key is in it”.
I didn’t have to ask twice. “One condition, though”, I said. “I know”, Jason said, “Drake goes too.” He went over to the house, parked out back, and began taking gear down to the lake.
A friend of mine, Vickie, yelled down from the house “Is Drake going with you?”… as Drake slipped out through the crack in the door, almost running everyone over as he ran down two flights of stairs, across the lawn, and out to the end of the dock. “Guess so”, Jason said.
With the boat backed off the lift and swung toward the dock, Drake jumped on. It was sort of a gloomy, overcast November evening, and fishing is usually touchy this time of year, but Jason and Drake were definitely in to it. Anchored up on a sunken Island, Jason went to work casting out crawlers and minnows on the bottom, using circle hooks and a “tightlining” technique.
The report was that things were slow, and Drake was making “comments”. If the fish don’t bite for a while, Drake looks at you and lets out these sort of short growls. “Shut up”, is what I usually say. “I’m doing the best I can, and if you think you can do better, here’s the rod”.
On this particular night Jason caught a couple of rock bass, a sunfish, small pike, and about a 14″ largemouth that took drag. Drake got bored and had been laying on the carpeted bottom of the boat when the largemouth chirped the drag on Jason’s reel. That got him up and excited as it always does, and he got himself in position for his “fish lick”.
I got home just before dark to see the boat’s green and red lights, and the two of them idling across the flat glass calm lake. It really was a great sight, no other boats on the lake, in fact, no other docks or boats were in as all the neighbors have put theirs to bed for the winter. Seems like I’m always the last one out and the first one in, but it’s cause I just try to hang on to good things. It’s really no problem to be taking docks and boats out of ice water if you are prepared.
We’ll be taking ours out this weekend. Though it’s sad, we’ll still have the kayaks in, and will start immediately looking forward and planning for ice fishing.
