On the eve of my daughter’s birth, I am sitting here thinking about all the plans I have for our family.  Of course, I want us to raise a good daughter with values and respect.  Everyone wants that, but aside from that, I want to instill the values of the outdoors.  I hope that I can raise my daughter to appreciate the greatness of what we have in our world.  I was raised in the outdoors and as I said before, I was fishing well before I was a year old.  My friends continue to laugh at me (I’m not sure if it’s out of fear or they think I am joking) when I tell them that Maddie will be hiking with me before Christmas.  I hope to teach my daughter how to camp, hike, hunt, fish, and in doing them all, appreciate the outdoors.  I hope to teach her how to bounce a spinner bait off a log and split the pines shooting at a passing grouse.  I hope to teach her the creative ways that campers can start a fire (well not all of them Casey) and how to hike around or up a mountain.  I think the values that you learn from outdoors carry over for the rest of your life in the world.  I hope that she enjoys the outdoors and the time spent with friends and family the same way that I do.  I will never forget some of the great hunt and fishing trips that I grew up taking.  It wasn’t ever because we shot the biggest deer or caught the biggest fish, it was because of the memories of the day and who I spent it with.  I have seen things that God intends us to see, but too many people miss out sitting on their couches at home.  I want to share those experiences with my daughter.  So years from now when Madison Elizabeth reads this, she can know that everything that we have done or are planning to do, were all thought of before she was even born.  Also, she can know that it was friends and family of her dad’s that made him raise her this way.  Hurry up Maddie…the fun is about to start.

The wife had worked out-of-town for weeks and the golf course had decided to close on Mondays due to the summer heat.  This worked out perfect for us!  It had been hot for weeks.  The fish were active at night and we had a plan.  All week we looked forward to Sunday night much like most of the working people look forward to Fridays.  Once it again it was a busy weekend and we ended up having to stay until almost dark.  This in itself is a consistent story in the golf business.  Finally Casey and I were done for the day and we headed to the truck.  We pulled out of the parking lot and headed north to Lake Lanier.  I called the wife on the way.  She had been busy with work all weekend and had to return to the office at 7 am.  I told her that we were going fishing and not to wait up for me to call.  We said our good nights and I pulled into the KFC parking lot.  A bucket of chicken and a cooler of Pepsi was going to cover the necessities for the night of fishing.

We arrived at the lake around 9:30.  We pulled into the parking lot of one of the boat ramp/park areas along the lake.  The sign said that the park closed at midnight.  That would be over two hours of fishing before the police showed up during there rounds and asked us to leave.  No problem we thought.  We grabbed everything from the truck and headed over to the water.  The far west side of the park was a cove.  As you moved to the east, you passed the boat ramp, a small inlet, main lake, and then back to another cove.  The plan was to work our way around the park until it was time to leave.  We had to use the bug spray almost instantly.  I baited up a rod for catfish and cast it out into the back of the cove.  I then set up Casey and I for bass on our other rods.  We made a few casts and dug into the bucket of chicken.  Whether it was because we were fishing or we were that hungry after a long day, it tasted great!  About 30 minutes in we started to catch fish.  Mostly small bass and the catfish rod was starting to produce.  The channel cats in Lake Lanier are more on the smaller side.  Two pounds is a good fish here and we didn’t get to good.  We continued to leap-frog our way around the park.  One of us would grab the tackle box and pass the other one with the bucket of chicken.  We would fish each area for about 10-15 minutes before moving over to the next spot.  Time wasn’t a factor because I figured that the police would come around closing time.

As we moved to the dark side of the park, some green-eared sunfish decided to pick on us.  We caught several over the next few minutes.  They tend to strike hard, twist the line, and be small.  Green-eared sunfish are still caught fish, but they aren’t bass and they can get annoying.  We moved further back into the cove and caught several more catfish.  The bass started to strike again.  Still small fish though.  A few of the bass would go about 12 inches, but we weren’t trying to keep any fish anyways.  There would be other days to catch fish for a fish fry.  Tonight was just a catch and release night.  Casey hooked what I grew up calling a sunfish.  For some reason, he really liked that fish.  I think that he thought catching different types of fish would up his “outdoor points.”  We started to realize it was getting late.  The moon was high over head, although it was still quite warm.  Maybe the police weren’t going to come through tonight…

We picked up our stuff and headed back to the truck.  We loaded everything up and got in.  When we looked at our cell phones, we realized we were in trouble.  Both of us had over 30 missed calls on our phone, multiple text messages, and my phone had a GPS tracking request.  Apparently the wife had woken up around 2:00 am and realized I hadn’t sent her a message that I was home.  We looked at the truck clock and it was 4:15 am.  Uh oh!  I swallowed my pride and called her.  Wow! That was one upset wife!!!  She was worried something had happened to us.  I apologized several times and she finally calmed down after about 10 minutes and asked the important question…”Well, did you at least catch some fish?”

We learned our lesson that night.  Now we wear a watch and tell her what time we plan on being done by.  We like to fish too much to risk losing that privilege!