I took my daughter to an old friends place out in east texas (Gilmer) today. I haven't seen this place since she was born 11 years ago. He's got this Oh' maybe 1 acre tank that I remember being dug.. Looked like and upside down baby's butt, no cover anywhere in the water. Anyway, I figured we would do some perch jerking as I want to keep her interested with constant action. At this age I don't want her to get bored.

She was knocking the heck out of and caught a few nice Coppernose.. One was huge. Maybe 2 lbs. I didn't realize they got that big. I got tired of putting crickets and grasshoppers on both of our hooks and since she was having just as much fun catching the hoppers as fishing w/ them I decided to go back to the truck and break out my ultra-ultra light rig (thinking about a post here that somebody wrote about ultra light rigs, smiling to myself). I tied on a 1/8 once (little bitty) spoon I hadn't used in a month of sundays. Plain copper color. I was wailing away thinking it would be cool to catch a 2 lb coppernose. Talk about perch jerking, holy moly. Then it hit.

The fight was on. Drag singing, line a pulling, daughter at my side telling me to watch out for the log at the bank. As time and the fight went on after 5 minutes I said to her this can't be a copper or bluegill. It's pulling to hard and going to far out with the drag set. I'd just get the thing up close enough to the bank to try to figure out what I was and off the drag would sing back out to the center of the tank..

This went on for about 45 minutes. Finally an 8Lb channel rolled over about 4 foot out from the bank. With a little effort and a wet tennis shoe I got it on the bank.

1.) 4 foot ultralight rod,
2.) 4 Lbs test,
3.) smoked drag on a shimano reel,
4.) 2 huge cat fillets.
5.) And best of all a Daughter that thinks I'm king of the world. All she did was talk about it on the way home.

We left about 9Pm.. Got home about an hour ago. I was most content when she past out half way home.

I'll have to file this day away under:
Perfect day.

Good job! A few more trips like that and she will be hooked for good. Gotta love that ultralite fight. I do eat fish once a week or every other week, but I am more into the fight of the fish. Since the meat is not my first priority it is ok if I lose a few big ones. Heck I kinda like one of the fish winning every once in a while. Gives me a chance to tell my buddies about the one that got away. You know those ones grow a few pounds with each telling.