The first thing that I noticed was that as we were going out, several boats were coming in. Seemed like a bad omen. We headed up river and tried a couple of spots without much more than a few taps. I suggested that we head back down to the shallow low water spot by the Rogue River island. Mort picked up a redhorse just about as soon as we anchored. That was all the action that we got for awhile and we both ended up dozing off. This never happens. No matter what kind of day or week I'm having, it all usually just sort of slips off of me when I get on the river. I don't have any great explanation other than work and my young family have really taken it out of me lately. We messed around the island for awhile longer, fishing in some picture perfect wood. Mort picked up one more really big redhorse. It's a good thing I had the Sucker King with me or I might not have had bait for the night. Sounds like half a joke, but my dad really does have a nack for catching fish with a hook and crawler. He always out fishes me when we're catching our bait. I like to think that it's because I'm saving all of my prowess for the cats. It might just be that he's got a better feel for it than I do. I wonder what he'll think of the title, Sucker King. I'm guessing it won't stick like "Mort" did.
With light starting to wane, he decided to head in so that I would have time to get my bait cut up and get myself into position. After I dropped Mort off, I went and anchored in the mouth of the Rogue and threw out a crawler while I cut up my bait. I didn't feel very confident that anything would grab the crawler, but I still kept a pretty close eye on the vulnerable spinning rod leaning against the back bench. Soon after I had my cutbait bagged and the boat cleaned up, I spun in my chair towards the back of the boat just in time to see that rod take a bow towards the river. I grabbed it and set the hook on a 6-pound channel. It's always fun to fight them on my bass gear.
By this time it was just about dark, so I headed up to my spot below the Northland Drive bridge. I anchored off of the second pylon from the north bank and dropped in my 3 baits. I was still feeling whimpy, tired, and cold so I layered up like I was ice fishing in January. It didn't take long before the rod right in front of me did a little hop. Knowing that channels frequently hit a bait and then come back to it, I grabbed the rod and got ready. Within a minute I got another good hit, let the rod load up, and set the hook on what must have been a really nice channel. I kept my drag tight at first because the channels don't usually run drag on my baitcasting reels with the 80-pound PowerPro. After this fish jerked me around the boat with some pretty amazing head shakes, I decided that I'd better give her some room to run. After a short tussle, I finally saw a shadow of the fish. This would be my biggest channel yet. Of course, it turned out to be a 15-pound flathead. I was pleasantly surprised, but not totally shocked. They don't usually show themselves until sometime in May, but this has been a bit of a strange and warm spring. I was having a weird night in a weird season. Even though the water was still only 57 degrees, it made some kind of sense that I'd catch a flathead in my little Twilight Zone.
I snapped a couple of pictures and released the catfish back to the cool water. It didn't need any reviving. It jumped to life and shot straight back down towards the bottom just as soon as it touched the water. After letting her go, I noticed that Dr. Flathead had cured what had been ailing me. Suddenly, I was hot with all of those clothes on and I was Red Bull alert. I guess it was good to see her.
The rest of the night was pretty typical. I had a lot of hits and managed to boat 3 more channels-one dink and two that were somewhere in the ball park of the 6-pounder. When we headed out earlier in the day, I noticed that the dock was way out of the water. This ended up being a problem when it came time to trailer the boat. With the trailer backed into the water far enough to sink the runners, it stuck out a good 10 feet past the dock. With the wind and current, there was no way that I was going to get that boat on the trailer and stay dry. Rather than stew about it, I quickly resigned myself to the fact that I'd have soggy feet for the next hour or so and waded on in. I'll bring my rubber Burly boots next time out, but I hope the park guys get that dock down where it should be. I sure didn't feel like myself out there the other night, but whoever that guy was, he caught some nice fish and spent some good quality time with his old man. I hope he appreciates it.
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