Lake Junaluska

Cat and I got out for a few hours this morning to do a little fishing on Junaluska. We got to the lake about 7:30 or so, and there were already 4-5 boats on the water. It was a cool morning with no wind, obvious that it was going out get hot again. After dumping the Gheenoe in the water, we pushed off to some of my favored holes. Holes number one and two were occupied by other boats so I had to troll on to on of my favorite flats to catch bass on. I was fishing my usual rig, a super fluke on a 4/0 sickle hook, no weight. A side note on Zoom Flukes: flukes are amazing. I have caught more bass on a fluke than anything else I have ever fished. I've caught all species of bass, crappie, bluegills, even trout on flukes! I find them fun to fish since I usually get to see the strike, and a lot of times, I can get a hesitant fish to strike by stopping it or twitching it lightly.

Sadly, the Fluke let me down today. I could blame it on the high pressure or even the unseasonably high temperatures, but in reality, it's because I can tend to be hesitant to try a new strategy in the face of failure. I beat the banks for hours and only managed two half interested follows, and a missed hit. I tried flyfishin for gills, but even they were being weird. Only caught a handful of small panfish, but did see some larger gills snub my attempts at imitating food with chenille and rubber legs!

Out of desperation to save the day I put on a red 1/8oz rattle trap and starting burning it over the flats. I finally caught a decent bass right at the boat about 15 min after putting on the trap. Eventually lost that on the back of a large carp that I accidentally snagged. He was a biggie, maybe 30+ pounds. There was a time I used to fish for carp when I lived in Atlanta, might have to get back into fishing for them. That lake is full of them! We decided to leave fairly early since it was already starting to get hot and I had other things to do.

Despite not catching many fish, Cat and I had a good morning together. We've have always had a good time on the boat together. Sometimes we'll solve all the worlds problems together, or we'll just sit and enjoy each others company with few distractions and talk about our dreams or just life in general. I'm lucky that I have a wife who is so tolerant of my passion for fishing and sometimes enjoys doing it with me. She has always been aware of the enjoyment I receive from being on the water, and how much it enriches my life. Because of this, she gets better quality time from me without me being stressed or distracted. Maybe I'm being selfish in the amount of time I expect to spend on the water, but for me, life is about experiences. The older I get, the better I get at managing my time so that I'm not off doing something all the time, and I try do things for her, ... it's amazing what a handful of wildflowers can do at the end of a day fishing, if I'm somewhere I can pick em.