Decent opener

As we approached saturday morning there wasn't near the anticipation for bassin that there had been in years past. For those of you that follow my blog you know I have been basin for about 2 months now so there is not the edge there like there was a while back. I was attending Pine Haven Christian Assemblies family fishing weekend. I and good friend Ben hit the water on Saturday morning on one of Park Rapids finest lakes Long Lake. We hit the water with much anticipation and I believe it was been that was the first to get the skunk out of the boat. I was throwing a bluegill swim jig and was not getting as much as even a sniff. We hit some shallow areas however they had dropped nearly 10 degrees over night as we had some good lows in the North Country. We moved slightly off the bank and I began to throw a smithwick rogue around and was getting many followers and short strikers but no takers. When I decided to change colors to the size and color I wanted I didn’t have any. So as we headed to the bank with only about a Half dozen bass under our belts I was in store for a Wal-Mart run after breakfast. What I was needing was a good old f-13 rapala Black over silver. As I came back from Wal-Mart I tied one on while on shore and made a cast out to check the action and I immediately hooked up on one. As I went to take it off the little cracked out bass went nuts and stuck one of the hooks into my pinky as I held the entire weight of the bass on my littlest finger the hook was sunk to say the least – I took the bass off and there I was with a brand new rapala hanging from my finger. Luckily we had a guide at the camp and I thought he could help me out with getting it out. So I asked for his assistance to pull it out with the old string and pull trick and after help with some beefy braid and good tug, it was now just in my finger and hurting and I had some string attached to me. After having him tug I had my brother in law C-dub pull on it twice too and it was not coming out. So I drove myself to the Park rapids E.R. where they pulled it out and I had become the 5th victim of a fishhook that day that they had pulled out. After that fiasco there is only one thing that can cure a hurting hand and that is to get back on the water. So I went out and Ben and C-dub and I beat them up pretty good on jerk baits on wood catching nearly 30 in a couple hours before supper. Although I don’t have any fish pictures I do have this nice picture.


and for those of you who are thinking(oh man up and rip it out or just push it through neither of those were options as just ripping it would have left need for stitches and pushing it through was not an option on such a small gap treble hook) It was fun watching a pro doctor at getting fish hooks out though - he is good.