Midnight, track shoes,jitterbugs, and bass!

In my younger days we had a tendency to fish ponds out in the surrounding countryside around midnight. My buddies and I wore black clothing and track shoes, just in case we decided to run the 1/2 mile back to our vehicle for exercise. In case you are wondering, we did not run from the landowners, we just liked the sprints.

We would always fish the "muskie jitterbugs" also in a black color to match our outfits. If you get a bite on a "muskie jitterbug" it's normally a better than average "green trout" or bass as some people call them. We caught several bass 10 pounds in one summer.

We carried a "greenhorn" with us one of these nights, to one of our favorite sprint ponds. The owner of this pond lived on the hill about 200 yards above the pond. This gentleman didn't mind us fishing, unless we happened to wake him up late at night, by laughing or talking too loud. He would then become grumpy, and start firing his shotgun at us, while releasing his doberman. This is when we would enjoy the sprint back to our vehicle. We explained all of this to our "greenhorn" buddy and told him to whisper if he had to talk. We also told him when fishing a jitterbug, not to set the hook until he actually felt resistance on the other end of his line.

Everything was going fine until about 1:00 am when "greenhorn" said "My Lord I have got a monster!" He said he could not gain an inch of line. He was turning the reel handle on his Mitchell 300 and the drag was screaming. my friends and I instructed him to quit hollering and run up the bank and we would grab his line and hand-line in this monster in. We did not want to turn on a flashlight, so we kept swinging our hands in front of his rod tip to try to grab his line .I made several jumping attempts to grab the line with no success. Yes, back in my early teens I could still jump. With our idiot buddy still screaming, we knew it would not be long before "grumpy" the landowners lights came on and released the "fur lined razor blade" his doberman and we would hear the shotgun. I risked turning on my flashlight to locate the "greenhorn's" line.

To our amazement this dumb *** had reeled his jitterbug up to his rod tip and was simply cranking the hell out of his reel handle, which was making his drag scream!

Sure enough the lights came on, the "doby" came out and we were all peppered with bird shot. Needless to say "dumb*** greenhorn" did not get invited to join the midnight, track shoe, bass club. Man wasn't it great being young and dumb, or being a landowner with a great pond in the middle of the night.

Keep your your powder dry and introduce a child to hunting, fishing, and the outdoors, Bobby Barkley Director of Marketing NWF-LA Hook & Trigger Pro Staff.

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