Encounters of a memorable kind

My day of fishing on Lake Ontario was filled with interesting moments and encounters, starting before Gene’s alarm sounded at 4:20 AM Tuesday at our hotel in Auburn, NY.

The guide caught the first fish, unexpectedly, while showing me what I needed to do. Gene caught the next one, and it was back and forth between Gene and the guide. It was looking like my highlights would be me getting to hold their fish and release them into the water. Then I caught one. But I still hadn’t really caught on to what it takes to catch smallmouth bass with a drop shot. I’m pretty sure I had two or three good bites that I couldn’t keep on the hook.

The guide changed a few things on my rig, and talked me through some casts, and I got a better feel for what I was doing. I caught 3 decent brownbacks, plus 2 tiny ones and a couple of gobies! I hoped to catch one more nice smallie but it was not to happen.

Other nice encounters of the day included the morning sunrise (viewed over Lake Oneida on the drive to Henderson Harbor), the beautiful waters of Lake Ontario and the western New York countryside.

Less pleasant encounters included one with the nightstand hours before the alarm, when I was trying to find a pillow I had tossed off the bed ... and a little too much sun.

And there was the missed encounter — with my Bible app, breaking my string of consecutive days since before the start of the year, 33 straight weeks and at least 231 days. I did read and pray Tuesday; I guess I just didn’t use the Bible app.

All in all, it was a great day, the kind I would gladly encounter again.

To see the pictures, go to my Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/pat.gilliland.35