Birthday fishing trip

We missed the tournament Sunday. I woke up at 6 AM with the phone stuck to my chest. I must have woke up at 4:45 and grabbed my phone to turn off the ring and fell right back asleep. When I rolled over at 6 the phone was indented into my chest. I woke up and quickly looked at the time. I thought I was dreaming. I couldn't have overslept. I just stand up and get out of bed if I wake up to go fishing. I must have still been sleeping when the alarm went off.

I had a really good feeling about the tournament too. It was my birthday so I was going to try extra hard to win it. Gene was downstairs on the couch. I asked him what he wanted to do since we had missed the beginning of the tournament. He said whatever. I decided that we should go fish Alum Creek and try to catch some Saugeye and Crappie.

We got to Alum Creek around 10 AM after getting some breakfast and bait. It was overcast and about 10 degrees cooler than the previous day. We started out trolling around some points and an island on the Northern end of the lake. Gene caught 2 white bass but no saugeye.

We decided to troll the Road Bed and then troll some points on the main lake but did not have any luck at those spots. We finally headed back to the Northwest side where we had discovered another old road bed in a cove. We had caught some crappie there during a bass tournament so we hit that for a few hours. We got a few crappie and tried casting a worm on a spinner for some Saugeye.

A while later I had saw a bass surfacing in the shade of a tree. I cast a crazy leg chigger craw out and he picked it up and swam with it. I yanked the rod back and reeled in a 11 1/2 inch largemouth. The next cast I flew the craw past the road bed and hopped it up over the bed. Right as it got to the edge of the roadbed I felt a tug on my line so I ripped it back and pulled in a 12 1/2 inch largemouth. He was pretty thick too.

We fished for crappie a while longer before moving around the shore fishing for some more bass. No luck through the next cove so we decided to try our spring crappie spot. On our way out of the no wake zone we decided to troll. As we crossed over a point Gene snagged one pole and while reeling in his other had a fish hit. He pulled in an 18 inch musky. He was pretty excited. We cast around the point a while then headed for the crappie spot.

It was quite a ride to the crappie spot. We didn't know if the crappie were there still or not. We finally got there and dropped anchor. We fished for a while and did not get any bites. Then I took my bobber and minnow off and just cast my jig liek we had this spring. I cast right up by bank and caught one. I thought they might be by bank so I cast again and I had another hit. They were about a foot out from bank.

We moved closer and caught a few more then they turned off. It was getting later in the day. After a bit I noticed that some smaller fish were surfacing behind us. I cast out and got one in the deeper water. They must have moved to feed.

We finally had 7 larger crappie and white bass in the livewell and it was getting close to dark so we headed home. Once we arrived at the house i unloaded the fish from the livewell and put the boat in the garage. I went to clean the fish and realized I had left my fillet knife in Dad's truck back in Kansas. I didn't want to try to fillet them without a knife and they were still alive so I put them in my coy pond. Once I get my knife I can fish them out of there and clean them. There are quite a few minnows in there to keep them happy until then.

All in all it was a good birthday filled with fishing for fun. I like to multi-species fish every once in a while. Fishing for bass around here can be a grind. Sometime in September my wife kids and I are going to go to Kentucky Barkley lakes in Tennessee. From what I have seen and heard there are large numbers of larger fish there. I am really excited to camp and fish for a week there.