Our grandson, Zane came over to spend Saturday night with us as has become the routine.
Usually on Sunday morning, Zane, my wife and I are all up at the crack of dawn, ready to take on the day. This Sunday, we were moving a bit more slowly.
The temperature on Saturday was somewhere between 105 and 109, depending on what thermometer you observed. There was a light breeze, which made it feel like a hair dryer on low.
To go outside was like opening the oven door and stepping in. We were all tired by the time we went to bed.
I got up about 7, grabbed a cup of coffee, and went out to enjoy what I hoped would be a bit of time outside without oppressive heat. It was quite pleasant.
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Thinking a nice morning was wasting, I was ready to go wake up Zane to go fishing when he came outside. I have always claimed it was his fault when we have to go fishing early on Sunday mornings.
Perhaps our fishing trips are not all to be blamed on him. In the pleasant morning air, we discussed fishing, the coming heat of the day, whether we should wake up Nanna to go with us, and other deep philosophical things a young man needs to learn.
If he will only remember, the most important thing I taught him that morning was to never wake up a woman, for any reason, except if the house is on fire.
We decided to head for the lake.
The dogs followed us to the cabin where we picked up our gear, and ran ahead to get in a quick swim while we loaded the boat. I dropped a line over the edge while Zane untied us and pushed the boat away from the dock.
As I reached back to put the trolling motor in forward, a fish slammed into my lure. Being somewhat startled and totally unprepared, I set the hook with way too much force.
The jerk stripped the gears inside my reel and line started playing out. Knowing a large fish was running away with a limited amount of line on my reel, I grabbed the line and wrapped it tightly onto a cleat on the side of the boat.
Zane saw what was happening when he looked back to see why we were not moving. He started bringing in my fish by pulling line, hand over hand. Zane pulled up my bass, about five pounds, and got it off the hook while I worked at rewinding my line.
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When I got the line back on the reel, I cast it out again to see if I could get it straightened out by reeling in with only moderate resistance. Another bass hit the lure as soon as it touched the water.
Zane had cast in about the same time and got a strike too. I cranked my reel, gears grinding, and line playing out. Zane was fighting a fish while the drag on his reel let out line.
We each fought a fish unable to help each other. With much effort, I pulled in a bass close to six pounds, and Zane’s was only slightly smaller. When I turned on my cell phone to take a picture of our hard fought trophies, I discovered the battery was completely dead.
We put them back in to grow bigger and went back to fishing.
We fished for about another hour and caught crappie, bluegill and a few more bass. I wish we would have counted how many fish we caught but it was one after another.
When Nanna called us from the porch that breakfast was ready, Zane said, "I wish Nanna would have been with us. The fishing would have been better."
I told him, "It would have been better if Nanna had been with us, but the fishing does’t get any better than this."
