I turned my truck around on the narrow gravel road and backed up angling the rear of the truck toward the water. "We are here," I said to the young woman sitting on the seat next to me.
Dixie looked around and smiled. "It is a beautiful place."
"That it is," I replied as I opened my door and got out.
I was untying the rope that held the twelve foot Jon boat secure in the bed of the truck as Dixie got out on her side. "Grab the coffee and the lunch sack," I told her as I pulled on the nose of the boat and slid it out.
"Put those in the middle section of the boat," I said to her as I walked around to the far side of the boat.
She did as I told her and then looked at me and asked, "Now what?"
"Grab the handle on the back of the boat on your side and we slid it into the lake."
Half the boat was in the water, when I said, "That's good for now."
After we sat the boat down, I walked around and got back into the truck. With it parked on the shoulder of the narrow road, I came back to hand Dixie the bow rope. You hold onto this and I'll finish launching the boat."
I picked up the back of the boat and slid it easily into the water. As it drifted out, I took the rope and pulled it around so the nose was back on the shore. I held out my hand to Dixie. "Okay, step up on the front seat, then go back, and sit on the cushion on the back seat."
Dixie took my hand and climbed aboard. Once she was seated, I said, "That cushion is also a flotation device so if you fall over board, try and take it with you."
Dixie chuckled. "I've fished out of small boats before."
I rolled up the rope and tossed it in the floor of the boat. I put my left knee on the bow and pushed off with my right foot and leg. I swung my leg around and stood up in the front of the boat. I place another cushion on the front seat and sat down.
Dixie was looking around at the open water we were floating across. There was a thin fog floating across the surface. The air was cool and the water warmer. "Have you ever crappie fished before?"
With a shake of her head, Dixie replied, "I've fished for bass with my dad and for bream with my mother or brother."
I pulled a bag of minnows out of a box and took the rubber band off the top. Where I had bought the minnows, the guy had injected oxygen into the bag and the rubber band kept it in. I dumped the minnows into a minnow bucket and dropped it into the water next to the boat.
There was a clip on the end of the line attached to the handle. I attached that to a metal loop on the inside of the boat. I picked up a cane pool as long as the boat. I unhooked a size one hook from the electrical taped wrapped around the butt of the pole.
As I unwrapped the line from around the pole, I said, "This is a lot like bream fishing." The hook was attached to the line with a brass swivel, a half ounce of lead was crimped on the line above that, and a sliding cork was on the line a foot or so above that.
I fished a minnow out of the bucket and slid the hook through his back just behind the fin there. I had it held up so Dixie could see what I was doing. "Just above the back bone," I said as I dropped the rig over the side. The cork bounced and wiggled as the minnow swam around.
It only took a few minutes to get the second pole rigged. I turned the butt around, got up and handed it to Dixie. She took the pole with both hands. I grinned and picked mine up. I held it with one hand about eighteen inches from the butt, which was against the bottom of my forearm.
"Try it this way," I said as I reached out and pulled the free line toward me as I lifted the pole. The line slipped through an eye at the small end of the pole. "Now you can swing it out and drop it right where you want it."
Dixie tried what I was doing and got the hang of it quickly. "That seems easy enough."
I chuckled. "Out here in the open is one thing. Over by the trees where we will be fishing will be another."
She nodded and watched as I picked up a short wide blade paddle and used it one handed to turn the boat and got it headed toward some scattered cypress trees farther out in the lake.
I slowed the boat as we neared the trees. I picked up my pole and swung the bait and cork out toward the first tree. It landed about six inches out. "Try to stay six inches to a foot out from the base of the tree," I said as I looked back at Dixie.
She grinned, swung her rig out, and dropped it about a foot from the opposite side of the tree. "Do I wait for the cork to go under or do I pull up when it moves off?" She asked.
"Pull up if it goes under. If it is moving away, pull your line tight and wait until you feel the weight of the fish," I told her as my cork bounced and zipped under the water. I lifted up and then snapped my wrist to set the hook.
A few moments later, a fat silver green crappie slid across the water to my waiting hand. My thumb went into his mouth; I closed my fingers under his chin and lifted him up by his lower lip. "That looked easy and smooth," Dixie said with a grin.
"Years of practice," I said as I removed the hook from his mouth.
I laid my pole down and opened a small tackle box by my feet. I pulled out and old chain style stringer and opened the bottom clip. I poked the sharp end of the clip through the fish's lower lip and snapped the clip. I hooked the clip on the opposite end of the chain to a loop inside the boat on the opposite side from the minnow bucket.
"One down and forty nine more to go," I said with a grin as I baited my bare hook with another minnow.
"I take it that fifty is the limit for the two of us," Dixie said and then gave out with a soft squeal as her cork shot under.
The fish was larger than the one I caught. "Play him easy. Crappie have a paper thin mouth."
Dixie chuckled. "I am playing him easy but he has other ideas."
I had my hook re-baited and swung it out close to the tree as I said, "Slide him up this way."
She pulled in line and swung her pole slowly around in my direction. The fish came within arms reached and I lifted it up the same way I had done mine. "Nice fish," I said as I got the hook free from its mouth.
*****
Over the next three hours, we boated thirty or more fish. Twenty two of them were on the stringer. The others were under the eleven inch limit. We were down to three minnows. "Three more bites and we're out of bait," I said.
"Then what?" Dixie asked with a grin.
"It's too cool for swimming," I replied with a like grin.
"The sun is warm," she said as she looked around. "Maybe I should get some sun while you kill those last three."
We had fished all the scattered trees and were now well away from the point where we had launched. There was a wall of button cypress in front of us. I swung my cork out toward them. I looked back at her and grinned. "You're not going to get much sun with that flannel shirt on."
She looked around and asked, "Uh, how private is this place?"
"Unless they launch where we did, it is a long ways through heavy cypress to the lake. Anyway, it's the middle of the week. Most people fish on the weekends."
"Most," she repeated and shivered as she unbuttoned a sleeve on her shirt.
"And then there is me," I pointed out. We had dated a few times but nothing had happened. I had two kids at home and she had one. Other than some heavy petting in my truck, we hadn't had a place to do much else.
She had both sleeves unbuttoned. As she undid the first button at the top of the shirt, she said, "You just want to see my tits in the daylight."
"And the problem is? They are beautiful by the dashboard lights in my truck," I replied.
As she undid another button, she looked around. "I've never done anything like this before."