Cd'A girl catches double smallmouth bass
<p>Mackenzie Simkins holds up two smallmouth bass she hooked on one lure on Lake Coeur d'Alene.</p>
COEUR d'ALENE - This is a whopper of a fish tale.
Actually, two tails.
Seven-year-old Mackenzie Simkins caught two smallmouth bass on one lure at the same time on Saturday, Aug. 28 while fishing from the shore of Three Mile Point on Lake Coeur d'Alene near her home.
"Dad, I think I have a snagger," she said, using her term for a snagged line that feels like a fish.
Her father, Jamey Mackenzie, who had his back to her, shrugged and told her to work it free if she could.
Then came the words Jamey MacKenzie will never forget.
"I caught two fish," his daughter shouted.
Mackenzie picked the lure out herself at Black Sheep Sporting Goods about a month ago.
"It's a good catcher," she said.
Mackenzie is a second-grader at Holy Family Catholic School and has spent the summer catching, identifying and eating several species of fish.
Her catch list includes rainbow trout, perch, sunfish, crappie and smallmouth bass.
So far, her favorite tasting fish is rainbow trout.
"She really wants to fish for sturgeon because they are so big and don't bite," her dad said in an e-mail to The Press.