From: jmd@kastle.Princeton.EDU (John M. Danskin)
Subject: fishing report, lake carnegie and d&r canal
Reply-To: jmd@kastle.Princeton.EDU (John M. Danskin)
Organization: Dept. of Computer Science, Princeton University
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1992 19:12:00 GMT


Lets see.

I got out a little late this morning to southern lake carnegie. I was going
to try my new jointed rapala floating minnow out on the local largemouths.
I had seen a lot of jumping largemouths in this area, but never caught one.

Finding a fishing trail, I walked to the lake and found (!) about 5 large
largemouths swarming under a low tree. I couldn't see what they were eating,
but it looked like a nice situation. I cast nearby a couple of times, but they
were too interested in whatever they were eating to look at my lure. Casting
right over them, I pulled my lure right through them at top speed and one took.
I never saw the fish, but he was big enough to run against my drag and bend
my spinning rod double, which is plenty big for me. I had a long 3-5 seconds of
heaven, and then a slack line. Sigh. A dozen fruitless casts and I moved on.

Presently, I hooked a skinny tree branch, way out over the water. I couldn't
pull it off, didn't want to wade out in my nice school clothes. Hmmm. Rapalas
cost $5.39 at my tackle shop and I am a grad student. I climbed up on the tree
and went out on another skinny limb, climbing near enough so I could hack the
first limb with my pocket knife. It was over two inches thick, so this
took about
15 minutes, but I got my rapala back.

A few minutes later, I was fishing some cover, and I managed a textbook bump
on a stump. A medium bass looked like it was taking the lure, and the line felt
tight, so I struck. After I got the lure out of the bushes, I tried again.
Cast just to the left of the stump... OK, I cast to the right of the stump.
the rapala caught on a sunken branch and wouldn't come out. Nothing to climb
this time. I waded out into about a foot of water and mud up to my knees and
got it back. So much for the nice school clothes.

Working my way slowly back to my car along the lake and then the canal,
I got to
the bridge across the canal. Hmmm. Maybe if I fish upstream of the canal and
let my lure bump on the piers? The third cast was a  little high and went into
the street (low bridge) but cool, nobody ran over it. On the next cast
I had my lure wedged on a pier. This time I finally broke the line. Too
deep to wade. I climbed over the edge of the bridge and as far down the wooden
pier as I could. Lure still out of reach. Hmmm. Maybe I could hang 
upside down from this support? Naw, I'd never get back up. Luckily there
was still
a fair amount of line left on the lure. I managed to reach it with my rod and
get it into my hand, but the lure still wasn't coming. A treble hook was lodged
pretty nicely between a steel bar and the wooden pier. I pushed at it
with my rod
tip, but it was too soft (gotta get one of those stiff action graphite rods).
Finally, I took my rod apart and used the butt section to push the lure out.

Time to go to school.
God I just love fishing.


John Danskin			|	fisherman extraordinaire
(609) 258-5386			|	
jmd@cs.princeton.edu		|
Newsgroups: rec.outdoors.fishing