Chapter 9

One thing that Paul had never thought to ask Dan about was the vacation policy. That subject came up because of a remark that Joyce Jamison made about what her vacation plans were. Paul inquired and he was told he was entitled to three weeks’ vacation. He decided to take a week of it that he would spend at his home up north just relaxing and doing some fishing. Paul had not yet purchased a boat and his dad had no objection to him taking his boat for the week.

Ellen had some legal work to do which meant that Paul would be by himself for this week. It was early Saturday morning when Paul was pulling dad’s boat heading north. Dad said that he was going to be keeping the boat at his townhome which meant that Paul needed to purchase a boat on a trailer.

Launching the boat into Belton Lake would not be a problem. There was a boat launch in a park that wasn’t that far from Paul’s home. Based on the information he had gotten from Stacie he had purchased an annual boat launch pass.

Arriving at his home he sat on his butt and made a list of the items he needed to purchase for the week.

Having completed his list he headed toward town and stopped at the farm stand Stacie had mentioned purchasing some fruits and vegetables. In town, he filled up the six-gallon gas tank for the boat as well as his car. At the food store, he purchased the remaining items on his list including a casserole, which he would put in the oven to heat up for dinner.

Back at his house he put the items away, opened up a can of beer, watched TV, and thought about going fishing the next day.

It turned out that Sunday was not a good day to go fishing. The strong winds were one thing but it was the heavy rain that had Paul thinking he would skip it today. He spent part of the day writing next Sunday’s column he sent in wirelessly to the paper. He also watched videos on YouTube on how the fishing was done on this lake.

In the early afternoon, it still was raining but not as heavy as it was earlier. He heard his doorbell chime and in answering it he saw an older heavy-set lady standing there. He invited her in out of the rain.

“My name is Alice Cramer and I am sorry to bother you but Stacie told me you were periodically living here. The reason I am here is that I was hoping you would contribute to the annual fundraiser we do for the food bank here.”

“Let me get my checkbook.”

“No, no,” she said. “While that would be nice that is not the type of donation I am asking for. What I am hoping you would do is to have dinner with someone who would bid on doing that with you at the silent auction we have at our annual dinner dance. The owner of the Blue Bon donates dinners and we like to enhance those dinners by having a celebrity be part of that dining experience for the winning bidder. Norm Spanner the retired football coach has agreed to be one of the diners and I am hoping you will be the other diner.”

Paul took a few seconds to think about it before he said, “Sure, why not, but it would need to be either on a Saturday or Sunday as I need to be in Austin on those other days.”

“Thank you,” she said. “I will let you know when the date is which will be flexible for you and the high bidder.”

After she left Paul thought it would be embarrassing if there were no or low bids on him doing this dining. Laughing to himself he thought he would see by the amount of the bid just how big of a celebrity he was.

Monday morning after breakfast Paul was in the boat out on the lake doing some fishing. He had caught two small bass by casting a lure close to a fallen tree by the shore. He noticed some birds out in the lake diving into the water. Remembering what Stacie had said about fishing he reeled up and headed toward those diving birds.

There was one other boat there with a single fisherman casting toward the edge of this commotion the birds were making. Before Paul could make a cast Paul could see this person had hooked into a fish and was reeling him in. Paul started casting but he wasn’t having any luck. On another cast, he thought he had a hit and set the hook but then he realized he had caught this other fisherman’s line and he was the one who had hooked a good size hybrid striper.

Paul just opened the bail on his reel and watched the other fisherman play and reel in the fish. When the fish was by his boat, this man reached in with some long-nosed pliers and removed his lure from the fish thereby releasing the fish to fight another day.

Paul motored over to this other boat and apologized for hooking his line. This man told him not to worry about it. He could see the mess of his lure around this man’s line he had created and told him just to cut Paul’s line which the man did. At the same time, Paul was noticing how this man was set up to fish. He was casting a silver spoon that had a good size chrome slip sinker where the spoon was tied onto the line. This sinker seemed to be a little hollowed out as it slid over the swivel.

The lure was handed back to Paul and in taking it Paul asked, “It’s obvious where the fish are when you see the diving birds, but how do you fish for hybrid stripers when there are no diving birds?”

“Stripers as with most fish like a certain degree of water temperature. They will suspend themselves where the water is at that temperature. Your fish locator will tell you what that depth is and that is where you need to fish.”

Paul thanked him for the information and motored away as the birds were no longer diving for the bait fish. He re-attached his lure and was able to catch two more small bass but catching these large hybrid stripers was what he wanted to catch.

Back at his house after he parked the boat he drove into town. At the bait store, he bought ten of these slip sinkers along with six spoons that were just like he saw this man using. Stopping at the auto parts store, he purchased some spray primer paint and some chrome paint. He also picked up a corn beef sandwich at the food store deli next door for a late lunch.

When he was back at home, he sprayed these sinkers with primer, and after it dried he gave them two coats of chrome paint. Once the paint was dried he used a magic marker and put two dots on these sinkers to simulate eyes. He was anticipating being successful in catching some hybrid stripers the next day.

Paul didn’t have any success the next day in fishing for hybrid stripers. He never did see any birds diving and trolling his spoon didn’t produce any strikes. He switched tactics and found a cove where he was able to catch some crappies. He kept two for dinner.

The following day as he was motoring out to the lake he thought that maybe it was meant to be that he wouldn’t catch a hybrid striper. He had that thought till about an hour later when he saw birds diving a good distance away. He sped out to where these birds were diving and once there started casting into the edge of this commotion.