I was in the boat by about 6:30 in the morning. The river’s up a little bit, so I thought I’d start out just off of the launch and around the island where the current slows up a bit. I figured once the sun was up, the fish might gravitate towards this shallow low current spot. It would be a little warmer for them. I threw out a crawler and some dip bait while I waited for daylight. I didn’t stay in my first spot for too long because I parked in the middle of a cloud of those evil no-see-em bugs. I tried to hang in there while they constantly bounced off of my eye balls, but I just about went mad and finally had to move. When I reeled in to reposition the boat, I found weight on the rod with the crawler. Most of the suckers in the Grand are redhorse or white suckers, but there’s also this disgusting, blotchy, warty, brown sucker that looks like it emerged right up out of the mud. My first river fish of 2010 was one of those guys. I didn’t want to touch it, so I kept it in the water and used the pliers to pull the hook out. It gave me the heebie-jeebies, but it was a fish. I followed it up with a few redhorse right at sun up. If the suckers were on, the channel cats must be. I was in for an excellent day. After cutting the suckers into bait and putting them on ice, I headed up river to see if there were any new snags.
I didn’t find too many. The stretch of wood that hugs the bank across from the gun club looked about the same. Other than that, there were no good blow downs until I got up to the Elbow. There are two really nice snags in deep water up there. There’s also still a lot of wood scattered all up and down that cut bank, including the landmarks that I used last year to find some of my best holes. It really made me wish that the flatties were going.
Before long, I also found myself wishing that the channels were going. I fished dip bait, cut sucker, cut creek chub, and crawlers. I fished deep snags, shallow snags, heads of holes, shallow flats, and current breaks. Nothing. Halfway through the day I got one good yank on the dip bait at the snag under the power lines, but I missed it. A turtle immediately popped up above the dip worm, so I’m pretty sure that it was him down there. I gave him a verbal lashing for screwing with me.
Mort called to check in on my progress from time to time and I had to keep telling him that I hadn’t found any active cats yet. He asked me why I thought they weren’t biting. The only thing I could land on was the water temperature. The air might have been 80-degrees, but I was reminded that it was only April 1 every time I stuck my hand in that frigid water. I got to wondering exactly what the water temperature was. I remembered that Mort had bought a fisherman’s temperature sensor the year before and we had never used it. I called him up to see if he knew where it was and hinted not so subtly that I was curious to find out what the temperature is right now. My dad has always been the giving kind and he graciously brought it to me. We talked for a little while at the dock and then I headed back up river to the wood across from the gun club. I anchored next to it and threw my bait on the outer edge. I wanted to mess with the temperature sensor, so I didn’t take the time to put fresh bait on. I tossed out the cut chub that was on there the whole time I was talking with my dad. It was looking pretty dry, but maybe it would re-hydrate at the bottom of the river. I just started fidgeting with the sensor when that rod started dancing. I set the hook and wrestled a 6-pound channel to the boat. This fish really had some shoulders. Great way to get my catfish season started. I spent most of the rest of the early evening hours in this general area. I didn’t run into any more fish, but I sure enjoyed the warm breeze and the serenity that a day on the river brings me.
With maybe a couple of hours of daylight left, I headed down to the bridge to fish off of the pylons. I don’t love fishing around the bridge because people tend to yell at you from their cars. I used to answer them, figuring that they wanted to know how the fishing was. It didn’t take long to realize that they were making fun of me. I get cursed at, called racial slurs, you name it. Mort and I call them “the hecklers.” I’ve learned to just wear my headphones when I’m around the bridge these days. Whether my iPod is on or not, if someone is trying to get my attention I can just point at the headphones in my ears and shake my head. Anyway, last night I tucked in close enough to the bridge that people couldn’t see me from up above. I cranked the iPod just in case. Sitting there waiting for a bite, I remembered the temperature sensor. I tied a couple of bell sinkers to it so that it would sink. As soon as I saw what I had done, I nicknamed this little device “Twig and Berries.” I’ll let you figure out why.
Here’s the goofy thing about this picture. I took about 100 shots of this thing to get just the right angle and completely forgot that I was fishing for a little while. My headphones weren’t helping matters. When I finally looked up, the rod on the right made a couple of hops. I grabbed it and set the hook, but completely whiffed. I couldn’t even feel the weight of my line and sinker. I was totally confused. A closer look showed me that the line was under the boat. This sometimes happens when you come off anchor. You end up drifting right over the top of your bait. A look around told me that this hadn’t happened. I reeled up and eventually realized that a fish had picked up the cut sucker and swam up river. I got a medium sized pike to the surface just before it shook its head and dove back to the depths. A bonus fish. I’d take it.
With only one channel in the boat after 14 hours of fishing, I had all but written them off. I was enjoying myself anyway, so I decided to stay until after dark and fish the hole and flats down river from the bridge. I set anchor over 10 feet of water a stone’s throw down from the bridge and dropped my baits. With my headphones still blaring, I went to the front of the boat to dig my headlamp out of my backpack. When I turned back towards the back of the boat, that rod on the right was bouncing like Hayden after she drinks one of those mochas from McDonald’s. I set the hook and quickly pulled up a smaller channel. Maybe there would be a night bite after all. And maybe I should keep getting distracted. It seemed to improve the fishing.
There was a night bite. I had steady action. I hauled in a 5-pounder and almost had a double when the second rod folded hard a couple of times as I was fighting the first fish. I missed on the hookset. After awhile, the bites turned into one hit wonders. All three rods were getting tapped, but never more than one little bump at a time and nothing was grabbing on. I finally decided to pack it in and head home for one of those short, fitful nights of sleep that always follow a night on the river.
Here’s what I learned on my first day out: Channel cats will bite in 50-degree water, but you’ve got to work hard for them. You absolutely can see no-see-ems. Pike like a little cut sucker now and then. If you fish across the river from a gun club, you can expect your serenity to be shattered by the thunderous report of a high powered rifle. Diving into the bottom of the boat is perfectly acceptable. Tying two sinkers to a temperature sensor looks hilarious. That steak house on Northland Drive smells awesome after you’ve been in a boat all day. Setting the hook with your finger resting on the braided line with a light drag can give you a pretty good cut. If I like it, then I better put a ring on it (courtesy of one of Michelle’s workout songs sneaking onto my iPod). Facing west all day will give you sunburn on the left side of your face while leaving the right side pasty white. You, in fact, can write a blog entry on April 1 without making some lame April Fool's joke. A .5 fish per hour average can still feel like a good day. And most importantly, I realized that nothing (fishing-wise . . . settle down) can come close to my love for catfishing on the river.
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