Fishin' With Dave

nice largemouth bass

Last Monday I had the pleasure of fishing with a good friend of mine Dave Grant.  He is the son of Mike Grant, who I worked with for many years.  My good friend Bruce Wiley has it right, you can only have so many good friends in your life and Mike is one of them.  Well Dave asked me to go fishing with me a few weeks ago but he ended up having to work.  That's OK as he is trying to work his way through college, something that will make him very successful someday.  We decided that Monday was a good day so after meeting me at the pole shed at 8:00 we loaded everything up and headed northwest about 60 miles from Alexandria, MN to a smaller lake fishing for panfish.  It's a long drive but spending quality time with Dave is as fun as fishing.  He's a bright young man and has the qualities for a very successful future.  He met me at the pole shed and we loaded up my ATV, 2 man Clam, the auger and I decided to take my new KDrill 7.5 inch auger that is powered via my M18 Milwaukee portable drill, or so I thought.  I bought it since I already had a M18 drill driver.  It says to have a drill with at least 750 inch/pounds of torque and one that has a side handle.   Charging off to find a side handle for my drill, although not expensive, I bought 2 that didn't fit before calling Milwaukee Tools customer service for help.  Giving him the model number he told me that he had some bad news, first that there were no handles for that model and second, that model only has 500 inch/pounds of torque and will burn out if you use it.  After recommending the right drill, a trip to Home Depot got me me just what I needed!  We got to the boat landing, unloaded the ATV then loaded up the shack and headed out.  The lake is a long narrow lake with a deeper basin on the west end, maybe 1/2 mile from the east shore.  Using the Navionics app on the phone we got into the 25 foot basin and drilled a bunch of holes with my 9" gas Strikemaster.  We set up the 2 man and got comfortable.  After an hour of fishless time I decided it would be nice to try the KDrill.  Heading straight north I drilled about 5 holes going shallower.  It wasn't terribly cold and fishing outside was tolerable, the second hole produced a nice mark on the Vexilar then boom, it was a nice fish, sort of felt like a northern.   Yelling at Dave to come and help with the fish as I was using 3# test and a panfish setup he got there just in time to lip this nice largemouth.  Back in the hole she went, rebaited and 5 minutes later there was another bass on the line, not as big but still fun.  All together I landed 4 bass, a small sunfish and a  hammer handle northern.  It was fun.  

Dave's one of two 8 1/2 inch sunfish

About 4:00 we decided to move in shallower for the evening bite. Back off a point there were 2 permanent shacks, a good sign that it was a consistent place to catch fish.  We set up close to the shacks, not on top of them and started fishing.  Right off the bat we started marking sunfish, then began catching them. I call them hate to's....Hate to keep em, hate to throw them back.  We were catching a fish a minute and sorting through the better ones. Dave called his dad and asked him if he wanted any fish for his grandma.....yes bring some home.   We had about 6 fish on the ice when Dave gets a nice 8 1/2 inch sunny.  Five minutes later he gets another one.  This was only after watching him with his fishing pole, I just shook my head and dug another single action light pole out of my bag and handed it to him....here try this as I could see the set coil in his line was taking up any feel that the line gave him.  Dave started catching fish and managed to get another nice sunfish.  We were fishing waxy's on #8 frosty glow jigs.  That Vexilar Glo Ring that I picked up a few weeks ago really works slick and for that evening bite seems to keep the fish interested longer.  We ended up with about 14 sunnies, I threw in a smaller one just to make his dad clean a smaller fish, told Dave to tell your dad he's lucky we didn't save all of them.  Dave is going to St. Thomas University for Mechanical Engineering and he will do very well for himself.  He's a smart kid and utilizes every minute of our time together to ask questions, seek advice as he looks to the future.  Working his way through school he is extremely conscience of student debt and is working hard to graduate debt free, a fabulous goal.  Sometime during our trip he asked me some advice on an upcoming internship he applied for, or any opportunity that presents himself.  I told Dave...Don't let the grass grow under your feet, make sure that if you are done, go find something else and don't wait for your boss to give you something.  Companies really recognize self starters.  The other thing I like about Dave is he's a realist, not wrapped up in the what if's of the world.  Of course I am turning into an old curmudgeon however it's fun to see that there is still some common sense left...just like his dad!!

I am desperate to get caught up as I went to Lake Winnebigoshish last weekend with my friend Mark Applen so I have more fishing stories!  At least I am fishing.