2/01/2019 Bringing home Cash dog and a little spoon fishing
I got a phone call about a week ago from my good friend Doug Anderson about a colleague trying to help find a new home for Cash the German shorthaired pointer. The one year old pup just wasn’t getting the exercise and open spaces he needed with his current family, so they responsibly sought to rehome him with a hunting family. I wasn’t in a position to take this sweet little boy in but I called my other good friend Zack High who ended up finding a match in his (and now my) buddy Austin Holt.
I was happy to facilitate the introduction and once Cash’s old dad got comfortable Cash’s new Dad was a good fit I offered to go get him from Texas and bring him back to Mississippi.
I left Oxford Wednesday around 3 to drop my mother off at the airport on the way and got to Lewisville close to midnight. Not feeling overt exhausted after 8 hours in the car, I rolled over to Lake Lewisville for a little slow winter night crappie fishing. I didn’t get a damn bit despite fishing hard until almost 5 am, and settled into Motel 6 just before sunrise.
Slept for a few hours, got up and did some work and decided to go fish the Lewisville Tailrace inside Lake Lewisville Environmental Learning Area (LLELA).
Stump selfie
Texas Parks and Wildlife stocked 3,000 rainbow trout on 1/30/2019 and I suspected some stuck around within walking distance of the spillway. There were a good number of folks on both sides of river trying to give them hell, but it appeared that only folks on the left side were having luck.
After fishing the right bank hard with a spoon I walked back toward the dam intent on fishing the other side before the park closed at 5. When I was waking across I saw two guys with a stringer of perch, trout, catfish and white bass. I congratulated them on the haul, struck up a conversation and ended up taking their advice to fish a slow moving deep home a couple hundred yards south of the damn. On my second cast I caught a 10” rainbow trout, my first in North Texas. Pumped I fished another 30 minutes and hauled in a nice catfish, again on the spoon.
I had a little time to kill before I went to get Cash from Midlothian so I stopped by one of my old bass holes with a new confidence in this two species jigging spoon and managed to snag a nice bass before getting hung up and losing my new favorite winter lure.
Now it was to time to do what we came for. I made the hour trip from Lewisville to Midlothian and got Cash from his former family. I was sent home with a lead, a bag of food, medical records and a very sweet bird dog. I suppose because there wasn’t proper room to sniff and establish the pecking order Cash and Dublin had a rocky start to the road trip, but got on just fine after I stopped at a dog park and let them wrestle and stretch their legs.
Cash spent the night in the bathroom, Dublin the other full bed. I got the boys up at 6:30 for coffee and a walk did some work before going back to LLELA I’m hopes of a goodbye trout.
Several folks were out fly fishing, which I think is both beautiful and challenging.
To my knowledge they were skunked. I would have been too but for an unfortunate channel cat that was I guess chasing the spoon and managed to take a treble to the filet. The battle was fun, especially with the current, and after a quick photo and a moment to catch his breath, Mr. Catfish was sent home to grow.
I took the boys to a different dog park hoping they’d run out some crazy before the 8 hour road trip home.
Lone Star Toyota of Lewisville Railroad Park dog park
Cage match
We got out of the Dallas Fort Worth metroplex before Friday rush hour and returned east to take Cash to start his new life with a new family. The folks that gave Cash up had to make a hard decision. I shared with them the hardest part of that decision was making it. It was sad seeing him go but it would get easier and better for all involved from that point forward.
As it turns out, the folks that took cash had recently lost Scout, there a GSP to a car accident, and the timing was such that they were in prayer about getting a new pup just about the time I got the call that Cash was ready for a new adventure. I suspect the cosmic joker had a hand in that, as he often does in turning lemons into lemonade. I haven’t negotiated with Austin the exact number of fishing and hunting trips to be exchanged for my dog transport services, but even if he doesn’t even come and get Cash tomorrow, I’ve already decided his home will be in Mississippi, even if it has to be at Oxford Creek.
