I have a good friend back in Mississippi who I used to fish with when we got a chance. The first time we planned to go, he grilled like he was Joe Friday about was I going to be on time. He explained how many times he had people show up late or not at all, he almost made me get out the Bible and swear on it. Saturday morning we were to meet at the Natchez Trace regional visitor's center at 6 a.m. I got there at 5:30 a.m., 5:45 came and went, 6 a.m. came and went, 6:15 came and went. At 6:30 a.m. I headed up the road to be sure he had not had car trouble. At the bottom of the hill below his house he passed me at a high rate of speed. He overslept.

He liked to bream fish, I leaned toward bass fish back then. One morning we were bass fishing on Lake Lamar Bruce at Saltillo, MS. He had a spinning outfit he had bought to bank fish when he as in the Navy in Maryland. We started out chunking plastic worms, which he was not familiar with and the fish were not going for that morning. Finally, he ask me "Do you have anything I can chunk a long way and will make lots of noise?" I explained I had an old Jitterbug, but didn't think it was the right conditions for fishing it. He insisted, so I pitched it to him and he tied it on. He made a pretty cast right up against the bank and may have moved the bait a foot when a 2 1/2 lb. bass walloped it. A couple of minutes later he chunked it out in the middle of the stump covered cover, wham almost as soon as it hit the water another. I never caught a fish until I backlashed my Ambassadeur 5000 and went to my ultralight and a small beetle spin. I gave him the Jitterbug.

When we get together, he loves to tell the Jitterbug story, but he always forgets the sleepy head story.