There are few fishing trips that can compare to the magic of fishing with minnows! The chant of, "Go Shiner, go!" is a mantra that poured from my mouth on more than one occasion. But there is one occasion that sticks out in my mind more than others.
When I was around 15 my buddy John and I received a gift from a gentleman who knew of our love of fishing. He had in his possession a life raft that had once been naval issue. It consisted of a body of rigid plastic filled with styrofoam and there was no real bottom. Attached by nylon ropes were wooden slats that made up the "floor" of the boat. So obviously it was open to the water beneath the body. You could sit on the side with your feet resting in the bottom. Of course everything else you had rested in the water as well. Not a great or even good fishing vessel, but to us it was a yacht.
One perfect summer day, John and I stopped at the bait store and loaded up on minnows, or shiners as we called them. We bought a bucket full; must have been a hundred! We then bolted to the lake with our mighty vessel in the back of John's truck. When we arrived to the lake (really just a cattle pond) we threw the raft into the water from the shore and we took turns passing the bucket of minnows back and forth as we got into the wonderful gift we'd received.
Paddling around the lake, we rigged up our lines with bobbers and split shot. Placing our minnows on the hooks, we would cast them out and watch the bobbers slowly meander around the lake. We would get visibly excited when the bobber stopped meandering and started moving in a straight line very quickly. A bass was chasing our minnow! The magic chant was then started. "Go Shiner, go!" We were willing the minnow to entice the bite of the bass that would plunge the bobber into the brown lake water. Suddenly the bobber would plummet under the water! We would set the hook and bring out our prize. It wasn't always a nice bass, but that didn't matter. We had caught a fish. I imagine for someone standing on the shore the chanting and then the yelling of two teenage boys must have been a sight.
After catching a nice eating bass, I needed to rig up another minnow. I asked John to hand me the bucket. He reached into the water filled bottom of our raft and went to hand me the minnow bucket. I'm not sure what happened next. I remember his bobber going under and him jerking around to snatch his pole up to keep it from going over board. And suddenly, inexplicably his foot struck the bucket knocking it over. The lid to the bucket balanced just for a moment on the top and then slid off under the force of the shiners slamming into it as it fell over onto its side. When it landed half submerged into the bottom of the raft, the minnows saw their chance. Freedom had arrived on the foot of a teenage boy! They saw the open water under the raft and with one accord they dispersed out of the bucket, between the slats, and then out into the open waters of the lake.
John and I sat there silently and watched all our minnows swim away. The fish on the one baited pole got away. We had two baitless poles and an empty minnow bucket. We were done. The magic had backfired. After a few minutes of silence I looked at John and said, "Maybe we shouldn't say go shiner, go." He looked at me and asked why. I replied, "Because those minnows took us way to literal."
- JD
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