Memorial Day at Kentucky Lake

I hope everybody had a wonderful Memorial Day Weekend. J and I headed out to Kentucky Lake for the weekend. J's dad, Jay, has a good friend that owns an RV Park & Marina down there - Waters Edge RV Park & Marina. He generously let us stay in the rental chalet for the weekend; which was just beautiful.

For those of you not familiar with Kentucky Lake, imagine Lake of the Ozarks*. Now subtract all of the drunks, all of the "testosterone" boats, the inevitable holiday boating deaths, the overcrowding, the bars, the t-shirt stops, the tanning bed stores, the miniature golf, the go-kart places, the bungy-jumps, the condos and the presence of lake house on top of lake house, and finally the stand-still traffic. What you have left is an absolutely beautiful lake, largely undeveloped and full of natural beauty. We didn't see a single party boat. It's all about family fun - jetskis and water skiing and fishing.

*This is not to say I don't enjoy Lake of the Ozarks, I absolutely do! I'm just pointing out the vast differences between the lake most readers will be familiar with and Kentucky Lake.

Mike and Mary Beth went down with us, as did Jay. We took the boat and all of our fishing poles and looked forward to all the fish we'd catch (and also, I took my fishing hat - hot, huh?).

Got down there late on Friday night, visited for a while and went to bed with visions of fried crappie dancing in our heads. Went out Friday morning - nothing. Not one damned fish. Mary Beth had one play with her bait... but didn't hook it. Oh well - we'll go in for lunch and then try again. Went out after lunch and again - nothing. Not one damned fish. Fishing sucks. Fishing is not fun. I hate fishing. I told Jay and Mick (the owner of the marina) that I was pretty sure there weren't any fish left in Kentucky Lake.

So on Saturday evening, Mick introduced us to Paul - Paul had been out that morning and was already back before we even got out of bed with his day's limit. He literally catches thousands of fish every year. Holy cow! So Paul took us under his wing and told us what we were doing wrong. He gave us the correct lures to use; told us how to cast them, told us where to go (to the mouth of a cove within a cove) - he even specifically directed us to his favorite spot; and sent us back out on Sunday.
So we all got up early Sunday morning and loaded back into the boat. We found the cove within a cove that Paul had directed us to, put his lures on our lines and gave it a shot. Sure enough, 30 minutes later I was pulling in the first fish of the day. It was tiny little bluegill (far too small to keep, even though I wanted to keep it and have it mounted).

After that it was just one after another. We all caught plenty of fish and when we headed back to the dock for lunch we were a much more enthusiastic group of fishermen/fisherwomen/fisherpeople!

We all ended up with plenty of fish to show for our work - I caught a total of 12 fish that day (proud to say I was the high score). Mary Beth caught the biggest fish of the day:

Of course, J and Mike caught plenty of fish as well

So we had a great time and in the end we caught plenty of fish (which are now sitting in my freezer), all thanks to Paul and Mick!