Brad Crownover is pictured with a pair of Yellow Perch; two of about 50 we caught while at anchor Thursday a mile or so Southeast of Perry’s Monument on South Bass Island.

July 19th, camped at East Harbor State Park:

GONE FISHIN’--

The waves had whiskers as the 2 to 3 footers slapped the hull and the anchor line strained a bit under the Southwest wind.

Brad used his combination GPS and fish finder to sneak past a large school of yellow perch in about 25 feet of water. We dropped anchor then eased out some anchor line to loiter his 27-foot Sport-craft fishing machine over the school of fish.

Using minnows for bait on snelled spreaders we went to work. Fishing over the stern of the boat Brad soon had a half-dozen or more eating size perch in the cooler.

I was fishing over the port side about 8 feet away with an identical rig—and couldn’t manage a bite. Finally, I moved to the stern and joined the harvest. Hmmm.

In addition to the perch I managed to catch 3 or 4 Sheephead—a fish the locals regard as highly undesirable. But, they were considerably larger than the perch and more fun to catch. That put me in the running for one of the day’s prizes, “Largest fish.”

Brad already had captured the prize for “First fish” and was well on his way to earning “Most fish” honors. Then he capped the tri-fecta by boating a dandy White Bass.

After an hour or so I surrendered, and watched the gulls that had been shadowing us, hoping for some treats.

I finally announced to Brad as he decided to quit for the day, “That’s okay, you just caught the last one anyhow.”

“What did you say”, he asked incredulously.

“See”, I explained, “The last fish is now gone from your fish finder”.

He just rolled his eyes.