One of Those Days

This past Thursday I worked a half-day so that I could spend a good long chunk of time on Thornapple Lake.  With my muskie and bass gear all set up, I stopped home to change and grab the boat, and then started off on the hour long trip down to the lake.  When I finally arrived at the launch, I found the site packed with huge trucks, piles of gravel, and big cement slabs.  The launch was closed for repair.  I allowed myself a brief tantrum in the face of my misfortune and then I remembered a county park across the lake that also had a launch.  I found the park and the launch, but there was one sign that said that the park closed at 5:00 and another that said that it closed at 3:00.  It was 2:00.  I didn't want to risk getting locked in, so I weighed my options and decided to try Campau.

After another drive that took close to an hour, I dropped the boat into Campau Lake.  I dodged a couple of speed boats as I headed straight across the lake to fish the west shore.  I quickly noticed that I was constantly bouncing around in the wakes of these speed boats as they cruised the perimeter of this small lake.  The noise was ridiculous.  I didn't last 20 minutes.  I knew the river was still high, but I'd rather take my chances out there than flop around in the chop of these big boats all day.

On my way up to the river, I made a conscious decision just to calm down and relax.  I should have started fishing two hours ago, but getting all frustrated wasn't going to help anything.  I picked my way through the traffic on the beltline and was at a small Grand River launch off of Knapp Street in no time.  My plan was to try a new section of river just up stream from my normal stretch.  The river was still dirty and running a little high, but it looked fishable.  I ran down river first.  There was a group of guys fishing above a snag who said that they had picked up a couple of channels, so that was good news.  I continued on until I reached a small cove that I thought might hold a few pike.  I didn't find any Northerns, but I did see a ton of gar pike.  I messed around with them for awhile just because they were there, but I didn't really expect to hook into any of them.  As a matter of fact, I don't think that I really wanted to.

Next, I headed up into that new section of river.  I found it to have some nice bends and one really deep hole.  I took note of a few snags as I rode up river.  When I felt like I had traveled far enough, I settled in above a nice little snag.  I cast out a couple of hooks loaded with cut chub.  I quickly got a hit and pulled in a channel cat that pushed 5 pounds.  I picked up one more from this snag.  I tried another snag just down river from the first one, but the current was a lot stronger here so I didn't give it too much time.  The final snag that I fished up there was a beauty.  The high water had pushed a ton of wood up against the top edge of a small island and completely across a small channel between the island and the shore.  I got hit immediately and then hit again on the other pole when I was reeling in the first fish.  It was quite a trick getting both fish in on my bass spinning gear.  I had to hold one rod and reel between my knees and switch back and forth, cranking each reel to keep tension on both lines.  I got both fish in and they each weighed somewhere in the vicinity of 5 pounds.

I had similar results in the final blowdown that I tried.  I caught two more same sized fish and got into one more, but the line was cut clean.  It was either a channel that ran me across something sharp or more likely a pike.  I tried live chubs after dark in hopes that the flatties were moving.  I didn't find any.  It turned out to be a decent, but not too exciting evening on the river.  Channels are nice because they're consistent, but they don't get huge above the 6th Street Dam.  Fishing for them gets all too predictable.  I'm ready for the flatties to get active.  I'll go after them tonight when the wife gets home to relieve me of kid duty.  The river was at 62 degrees when I was out on Thursday and it's only going to get warmer with the hot weather that we are having.  We're in a stretch of days in the high 80's.  Just what we needed.  The flathead fishing is about to come into full swing.  This might be why I found it so easy to remain calm when my day turned into such a debockle.  It's that time of year when the fishing improves a little every day.  I'm knocking on the door of a fresh new season.  Life is good.