Top O’ The Water Morning To You

I just recently had a birthday…no big deal now, each year past 50 is just another number. Many of you know what I am talking about; what is odd however is that as each year rolls by I feel like it’s the simpler things in life that have value. My good buddy, Kenny Williams, and I played golf at the Ellettsville Scramble a couple weeks back; along with us was my son Harrison and Kenny’s brother Mike. At the end of the day we had shot a 60 (scramble style) which was good enough for third place…quite possibly the best part of the day came when Mike invited me down to fish his lake in Greene County. Much like when I was a young man, you didn’t have to call me twice to a good meal and you certainly shouldn’t invite me to fish your lake…’lessen you spect me to show up’.

Flag Day, Saturday, June 14…found me up early and on my way to Lyons to see what I could stir up at Mike’s lake. I hadn’t been there before but made my way beside a long dam and knew that indeed, this was the place. I took a second to look the place over and slowly drove down toward the water’s edge-the entire time checking out the water for fish feeding on the top. As I sat, putting on my waders, pumping up my float tube, grabbing a pair of fly rods…I was serenaded by a very, very sweet sound; male Bob White quail were whistling sweet nothings to any girl Bob that would listen and it was music to my ears.

The sun was just starting to peak up over the eastern horizon and was still sitting down below the trees that lined the lake on the east side. I eased my Creek Company ODC 420 backwards into the clear water, pulled on my pair of kick fins, grabbed my 5 weight fly rod, floating line attached to a shad popper and made a long cast towards the shore. A quick couple strips sent the fly zig-zagging (walking the dog) back and forth towards me…the fly hadn’t gone far when up from below came a burst of water, my line hand gave a quick strip set, quickly I was hauling in my first fish of the day…a beautiful 12 inch largemouth bass. Here was one of those ‘simpler things in life’ I was referring to earlier; I wasn’t fishing from a 25,000 dollar bass boat, it wasn’t a large southern reservoir and the bass wasn’t a whopper! Didn’t matter…as I sat there and looked around at the sun starting to expose all the color of the wild flowers…quail still whistling back and forth, beautiful fish in hand, simple and awesome just flowed together.

The next fifteen minutes was much more of the same simple joy; in fact I had a fish on or blow up my popper on the first 5 casts I made and in the first lap around this gorgeous lake I probably landed close to 30 nice, healthy bass. I must admit that I had a difficult time focusing on just the fishing due to the many, many Bob’s that were whistling and carousing around the area of the lake. Frankly my quail hunting the past few years has dwindled down and down to the point that it bothers me to announce that this past year I didn’t even shoot at a quail.

As I said my most recent birthday has placed me in the over 50 crowd (by 2 years) and one of the more simpler memories of my youth were the Sunday afternoons when we would all load up into a car and drive to someone’s home, usually a relative, and sit on the front porch and talk. I know that this must shock the under 30 crowd…yes, we actually had a glass of tea or lemonade and just sat there and talked; not once did I have to be told to put away or shut off my cell phone! My grandma and grandpa would talk about the old times and if there were other kids around we might play whiffle ball, tag or any number of outdoor games…if however there weren’t any other kids, then I would sit and ‘listen’ and all these years later-I can honestly say that I wasn’t bored. As I finished my third lap around the lake, Mike was filling up the back of his Mule with some stones from nearby; I slowly got up and dragged my boat and my bones up to my Suburban. I plopped my butt down in my lawn chair (yes, I carry a lawn chair to help in getting my waders off) and Mike and I just sat there, quail still chirping in all directions, and had a conversation. We didn’t discuss politics, religion or even farming practices…we just talked about our youth, parents, how we were raised…oh, and the two large Blue Cats that had been placed into the lake a few years back (one over 30 pounds and the other over 50). I enjoyed the conversation with Mike about as much as I enjoy talking to Kenny on a daily basis…kind of odd isn’t it that two really nice guys came from the same ‘rural heritage’? Our conversation was simple and took me back to a Sunday afternoon a good many years past…you know what, Mike is just the kind of guy that my grandpa would have liked; grandpa had good taste in people.

Just maybe, you feel like at times the ‘pace’ of your life is moving a bit too quickly; deadlines, meetings, shuttling here and there…maybe you need to take a step back, go fishing for-oh-anything…and just sit a spell, have a conversation, not look at your watch or think about a phone. The outdoors is a fantastic reliever of stress and somewhere along the way you might just learn to Enjoy the Great Outdoors.

To watch a video of my amazing top water bass action, click here.