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   There are days a person needs to get away from the rat-race of work and life in general. On these days, it is hard to beat a few hours of fishing. In our daily routines, we deal with stress, no matter what a persons line of work.  After several days of this pressure building, a person needs a release, something requiring no pressure or time commitments.  It is time to throw the dog and the wife in the truck and head for the lake. Actually I would not recommend throwing the wife in the truck, as this may only compound the problems of the day.  Fortunately, my wife likes to fish as much as I do. On one of these high pressure days, we loaded up and headed down the hill. The lake is usually calm later in the evening. This day, a strong southerly breeze was making the water a bit choppy. I thought there was no reason to risk our lives in rough water if the fish were not biting, so we each made a few casts from shore and the dock.  We caught fish almost every cast. Load the boat; if we are going to drown, we will drown with a full live well.   

   The ride to the island was a bit bumpy, but the leeward side was calm. We started fishing parallel to the shore and the fish were still biting. Bass were hitting in shallow water on just about anything put to them. They seemed to be hanging over nests in which they are about to or just recently had spawned.  After catching several, we decided neither one of us wanted to clean fish, or go to all the bother of cooking them, so we turned them loose. If they had not yet spawned, they would still have the opportunity. 

   Before long, the wind began to die, and we moved up the shoreline. Bass and bluegill were within a few feet of the shore, in water less than two feet deep. Most of the bass were in the one-to-two-pound range, just right for eating, but this was their lucky day. Bluegill were biting almost as aggressively as the bass. I caught bluegill on a big Rapala, almost as large as they were. As the water calmed, we moved out to the submerged logs that lay as structure behind the wing dam.  Crappie started hitting everything. I caught a six-inch crappy on my four inch Rapala.  My wife caught a nice twelve-inch crappy on a rubber night crawler that was almost as long as the fish. When a person gets into a school of crappy, the fishing is generally fast and furious. We both changed lures to something more crappy suitable and caught fish like crazy for the next half hour or so.  As fast as the feeding frenzy seems to turn on, it turns off. The moon was rising over the water and reflected across the now perfectly calm lake when the fish stopped biting.  Our arms were getting tired, and our spirits were greatly improved.  Sitting back in our seats, looking across the placid lake, we realized, the stress of the day was gone. If a person takes a couple hours at the end of the day to do something constructive, such as fishing, the next day will seem much more tolerable. It works for my wife and me. The fish are no worse for the wear, and thankful I am too lazy to turn them into supper.

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