When Judith Palmer goes fishing, she doesn't let a little thing like weather stop her.  So when I woke up to a constant drizzle, with predictions of thunderstorms and occasional downpours, I knew darn well she was not going to cancel her outing to Marsh Creek Lake.  Donna Trexler called basically to ask Is it on?, and I was confident enough of Judith's dedication to say Yes.  I left home and the windshield wipers were running the whole way.  Downpours?  You bet.  There was little thunder and lightning, though, and I've learned that, for avoiding crowds, fishing in rain is one of the three best strategies.

I was on the twisty section of Little Conestoga Road when my cell phone rang.  For a moment I panicked;  This happens so seldom.  I hit the answer button and started shouting “Hello!  Hello?!”, negotiating those curves and straining to hear the phone at the same time.  I kept imagining the guy behind me yelling, HANG UP AND DRIVE!  Finally it occurred to me, turning off Who's Next on my car stereo might make it easier to hear.  It was Judith.  She had bad news;  The boat rental guy had pulled out of the deal due to the prediction of thunderstorms.  All we'd have would be Judith's two kayaks.

OK by me,  I told her, We can take turns.  Besides, I'm almost there and it's the closest public rest room!  I always figure on how long it takes to drink a pot of tea, rather than how long it will take to pee it out.

I arrived, parked, and headed right for the comfort station.  Coming out, I saw Donna pull in.  We were just finishing rigging our tackle when Judith arrived.  It took awhile to decide where to fish with two boats and three people, but Donna volunteered to take the first stint shore-fishing.  I found myself in a kayak for the first time ever.  It was great!  The back-and-forth paddling motion, although it showered me with spray, never raised my bad shoulder high enough to irritate it like canoe paddling often does.  As I gained experience and confidence I quickly got a feel for how hard and deep each stroke had to be to keep the craft on a straight course, and got up a respectable speed with remarkably little effort.

I headed for the shoreline to the left of the boat ramp, having to go quite a ways to get beyond the territory of the shore-fishermen.  My goal was Green Sunfish, in my opinion the king of Pennsylvania's sunnies:  Pretty to look at, good fighters, aggressive, and seeming to average a little larger than their cousins.  They are also fairly rare.  Marsh Creek Lake is one of the two impoundments I fish where one can take a "Pennsy Sunfish Grand Slam":  Bluegills, Pumpkinseeds, Yellowbreasts, and Greenies.  I knew from past experience they hang around the rocky areas of this shoreline, and was eager to take my first one of the season.

Judith had provided me with a drag anchor, which, since it was intermittently breezy and fairly choppy, was a necessity.  The hard part was manipulating paddle, anchor rope, and fly rod, including dangling line and fly.  Every time I tried to switch from using one to another, it was an exercise in awkwardness.  Do you know anyone else who can get wind knots in an anchor rope?  The thick mats of elodea were also a problem, tending to cling to any knots and balling around the anchor.  Several fish I caught, I failed to get their heads up and skid them across the tops of the weeds, then had to extract them from gallon-jug-sized weed balls when I brought them to hand.

And I did catch fish.  The anchor helped me locate the kayak in the best position to shoot my foam popper under the overhanging trees, where Yellowbreasts hang out.  Moving along, I picked up a few of these, and a small Bluegill from the edge of a weed mat.  I spent some time heaving my largest popper into a reed forest, hoping for a bass, but to no avail.  I discovered another advantage to the kayak when I lost the popper and most of my tippet in the reeds.  I paddled right into the reeds where the water would have barely covered my shoes, and got my popper back.

Judith paddled over to check on me, then worked back down the shoreline, while I continued further away from the launch area.  An area of half-submerged rocks, with overhanging willows to one side and a few stumps to the other, looked like a perfect place to anchor, and I spent some time getting positioned just right.  My first cast into the pocket behind the rocks resulted in a good hit, and I immediately levered the fish out of that rocky refuge into open water where he fought with great determination.  It was my Greenie!  Seven inches long, a burly rectangular chunk of muscle, shaped more like a smallmouth than a sunnie, with white-edged fins like a brook trout.  I released him with great satisfaction.  As a bonus I caught another from this area before reeling in and heading back to give Donna her turn with the kayak.

All three of us had gotten the munchies at once, and arrived back at the parking area within minutes of one another.  There was another problem awaiting me:  How to get out of a kayak?  Judith made it look easy and graceful.  Me?  Don't ask.  We all threw open our coolers for a common lunch.  What a spread!  Each of us had brought food for three and beverages for twelve.  I sliced home-made bread while Donna laid out cheese and crackers, but Judith won the disappearing-food prize with a bag of fresh cherries.

Donna seemed very reluctant to try kayaking.  Judith and I agreed she ought to be convinced to try, and wouldn't take no for an answer.  At last she was afloat, nervous but determined.  It was my turn fishing from shore, and I borrowed a flashlight and headed into the woods along the same shore I'd fished earlier.  I had no competition, the other shore anglers were packing up with twilight upon us, and a light drizzle starting again.  But a fleet of bass boats was cruising the shore, and one always seemed to be right where the trails led down to the water.  Nevertheless, I found a few spots where I could lob my now-waterlogged foam popper under overhanging brush from the back.  This proved a very productive technique, for I caught 4 sunnies in less than half an hour, at which time it was too dark to see where my casts were going.  In fact, it was so dark to begin with I couldn't identify those sunnies as to species, except none were Greenies and probably not Pumpkinseeds.

The flashlight was all that enabled me to find my way back along the maze of trails to the parking area.  There I cast futilely into the dark along the boat rail, waiting for the others, until I realized I'd had more bites in 15 minutes than I'd had all day...  On my legs, by gnats.  I retreated to the truck to disassemble my tackle.

Shortly two kayaks came gliding out of the darkness.  We all pitched in to load them back on Judith's car.  She had extracted two respectable bass from a mid-water weed bed.  Donna's bad luck streak was unbroken, but she had one thing to say that made Judith and I grin:  Now I have to tell Tim I NEED a kayak!

 -Rabbit Jensen-