I know that we are heading into the meat of the bow hunting season. yet I don’t have a single hunting story of my own. The reason is that I’m not keen on sitting out in the woods when it’s so hot and the bugs are horrific. Add that to the fact that I have some sort of allergic reaction to those pesky black gnats. I don’t mind fishing until it cools down a little more.

Recently I hit the water with the original flat lander, none other than the Rookie himself. He’s not really a flatlander but I called him that once and the name stuck. I have chased walleyes to turkeys with him as well as landing a few muskies along the way.  When it comes to the guest/celebrities catching muskies in my boat, he’s number two in terms of fish caught but he is number one when it comes to being a proficient netman. I hope this doesn’t come back to jinx me but Rookie has never botched a fish, walleye or musky.

On this outing we started out chasing muskies even though the cosmic tumblers of the universe were so out of kilter that the odds of catching one fish were incredibly long. We fished the three best spots on the lake and then decided to pull out the crappie gear. The new goal was a fish fry. The first spot we pulled up to was a total bust. Even though we didn’t deal with a single fish it was hard to move because historically the spot was cash money, you know - a sure thing. I have also been schooled by crappies (pun intended) to know that I need to move often and quickly until I find them.

The third spot turned out to be “the spot.” Before my small crappie jig hit the bottom an “eater” did just that. When it comes to a lot of fish, I guess I do my fair share of catch and release. When it comes to crappies, I’m a catch and eater. It didn’t take long for other fish to follow suit and a crappie fishing contest broke out in the boat. A divider in the livewell separated my fish from Rookie’s fish. The contest became more interesting when I tossed one of my crappies into the livewell and it landed squarely on the divider only to fall into Rookie’s side. Now I saw it happen but Rookie didn’t know that. He was looking towards the livewell but never said a word.  

“Are you going to put that one in my side?” I asked Rookie. He smiled and offered that he would throw the next fish he caught into my side. He followed that with a laugh, indicating that his words and actions would never match up. When his next fish went into his side, we both laughed. 

Eventually we had to stop in order to count fish, making sure that we were not over our legal limit. While I was counting, Rookie had the theory that maybe some of the fish from my side of the livewell somehow migrated into his side, even though I didn’t see how that could have happened. In the end there was enough for the both of us to have a fish fry. When it came right down to it, I out-crappied the Rookie but in terms of gamesmanship, I got smoked.

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