Editor’s Note: “This the most fish I’ve ever caught in my life,” are words that guide Tony Adams of Eufaula, Alabama, hears every time he takes anglers out on Lake Eufaula, formed by the Chattahoochee River in southeast Alabama on the Georgia/Alabama line. Catching 30 crappie per person with Adams and two customers in the boat happens often there. What makes this trip even better is if you count the throwbacks, Adams and his two anglers often will catch more than 120 crappie in 4 hours. And, here’s the secret of taking a youngster or a novice angler fishing and creating a lifetime fishing partner in just four hours. Children may not enjoy fishing, but they love to go catching. So, to create a lifetime fishing buddy, take your children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews or any young person on a fishing trip of a lifetime where they can catch more fish than they’ve ever believed possible and have stories to tell all their friends when they return home. Even today, when I talk to my son, who is in his late 40s, he talks about all the fish we’ve caught on various trips when he was a youngster.

I took my grandson Conner Hudson to Reelfoot Lake’s Blue Bank Resort (http://www.bluebankresort.com/) for an awesome fishing trip a few years ago, and he still talks about that trip. My grandson Bennett Phillips never had been on a great fishing trip, until I took him fishing with Tony Adams. We’d planned to fish for four hours in the afternoon, but when we arrived at Eufaula, storm clouds were brewing. However, we went fishing anyway. After two hours of fishing, we caught and kept 30 really-nice crappie, and Bennett had a fishing trip memory of a lifetime. “I like to take youngsters, parents, grandparents and great-grandparents on either crappie or catfishing trips here on Lake Eufaula,” Adams says. “I do everything I can to make sure they not only have a great fishing trip, but a fishing trip experience that lasts a lifetime. The only way to do that is to try and make sure everyone catches their limit.”

Another important key to Adam’s success is neither the adult nor the child has to know how to fish. Adams explains, “I’ll go out the afternoon before the trip begins and check several of the over 250-brush piles that I’ve built and some of the natural brush piles that I’ve fished in the past to make sure there’s a large school of crappie holding on the places I intend to fish the next day. By knowing that the fish are there, I understand that my party will be fishing where the fish are each time we stop to put our lines in the water.” But Adams never assumes that his anglers for that day know how to fish. He also knows that having to fool with tackle takes away from fishing time, so Adams has his boat rigged-up with pole holders and lightweight crappie rods. Then all his anglers have to do is put their baits in the water, and when they see the tips of their poles twitch, set their hooks and pull the fish into the boat.

You can contact my guide, Tony Adams at 334-695-3003 or [email protected] and see photos of his fish on his Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/tony.adams.5477) or visit (https://www.facebook.com/pages/category/Sports/Gone-Fishing-With-Tony-133709770592006/).

To learn more about crappie fishing, check out John E. Phillips’ book, “Crappie: The Year-Round River Fisherman’s Bible” at https://amzn.to/2mxWIt4, available in Kindle, print and in Audible at https://adbl.co/382m0SR.

Tomorrow: What Makes a Fishing Trip of a Lifetime with Tony Adams