Mackie Pike

Mackie Pike - 4/13/10

After work is a great time to go fishing. Now that I think of it there no bad time really, unless perhaps there is a tornado or some such.

Yesterday, I decided that life was too oppressive to go without fishing for another second. So I crept to the nearest fishin' hole I knew of, which in this case was a small creek I know as Mackie Pike. It runs along a road of the same name which is only a few miles from my house.

I threw a small spinning rig in my truck and my creek box of lures. My creek box is only about the size of a pack of cigarettes. The lures I take to Mackie only consist of a very few essentials. I take a bare hook and split shot in the rare case I use some type of live bait, which I assure you is very very rare. I also take a small Rebel grasshopper and crawfish diver. They only dive about a foot or so. And of course I have a white Rooster Tail and a yellow, 1/8 oz I think and that's it. They all throw quite well on the ultra light spinning rig. And If you can't catch everything that swims on one of those baits you really should consider doing something else with your time.

Really, if you go to a creek with those in a small box you can catch any manner of fish pretty much all day. Despite their small size you can catch some reasonably large fish as well. The fight of a one pound fish on my three foot ultra light is too fun for words. You really have to work them hard.

Anyway to the fishing. I pulled up on the side of the road with my little dog at my side and away we went. The spot I fish is where two forks of the small creek come together. My dog (Dax) was very happy to be out and about and very curious about every blade of grass stick she could find. We hopped the guardrail...well she went under I hopped, and walked the short distance down to the water.

The two streams of water come together and create a pooling area with swirls and wakes and calms areas. The spot also has a rather deep area to the left hand side near a large tree on the bank. Aim for the deep hole. Fire. I decided it best to start with the 1/8 oz yellow Rooster Tail. My lure was ambushed by the third cast. The fat girl jumped and splashed violently. She was a very respectable small mouth, very bronze in color with nice vertical stripes. I would have to guess that she weighted about a pound and a half.

After a few more unproductive attempts I switched to the grass hopper then the white Rooster Tail 1/4 oz and had no luck.

Then I went to my last lure, the crawfish (natural color). This was a good idea. I caught another fairly quickly. This one was not quite as large as the first but it will keep me sane for another day.

Go fishing.