A Little Redemption

I spent most of the day yesterday fighting to keep my eyes open.  Work was tough, donating plasma was tougher.  Ignoring conventional wisdom, I blocked out my need for sleep and headed back out to the river at around 7:30.  I put in at the launch in Ada off of Fulton Street.  It's probably a little over a mile up from the Knapp Street launch that I have been using most recently.  This is a new launch to me and I liked it.  I headed down river towards the islands where I have been picking up my fish.  As I passed a few other islands on my way down river, I had a thought that coming back up in the dark could make for some tough navigating.  I planned to just take it slow and keep the spolight handy.  I tried fishing some of those islands, but they just had shallow flats behind them and didn't seem to have as much potential to hold fish. 

When I got down to the island where I've been doing most of my fishing, I decided to drop anchor just off to the side of the island and a little up from the bottom point.  The current was a little more swift than I had figured and I still had some momentum going from motoring downstream when I dropped the anchor.  I dropped it right under a big downed log and just about took a header over the front of the boat when it violently jerked to a stop.  Thankfully, the boat and I were no worse for the wear once it whipped around and settled with the stern facing down river.  I tried to fish, but I knew that I had some work ahead of me to get that anchor out so I pulled in my lines just about as soon as I dropped them.  With my lines in, I went to work on the anchor.  I grabbed the rope and jerked the anchor up and down, hoping that this would shake it free.  All it did was make the front of the boat bob and dip.  My next trick was to start the motor and slowly move upstream.  Keeping the boat pointed directly upstream, straight towards the rope, I started at idle speed and gradually increased the power.  The anchor popped free just as slick as could be.  I was pretty relieved that I wouldn't have to figure out how to fish without an anchor.

A creature of habit, I decided to head down and fish the clump of wood at the top of the island closest to Knapp Street.  I picked up a few smallies and rock bass with a crawler on one line and got bumped a few times on the cut chub on the other line.  I finally sank the hook into the fish on the cutbait.  It acted more like a flattie than a channel.  It gave me more of a solid, strong run than the flippy-floppy, spazzy fight of a channel.  Sure enough, when I got it next to the boat I could see that it was an ugly little flattie.  He was all blotchy and had one messed up eye.  Mine wasn't the first hook that he'd tangled with.

I slipped down to the bottom of the island and dropped 3 live chubs in.  I used two huge chubs on 10/0 hooks and one smaller chub on a 7/0.  I thought that this smaller rig might give me a better chance of getting the hook into some of the small fish that have been stealing my bait.  It didn't pan out right away.  That rod got rapped 3 times hard and my minnow was gone.  With just a little light left, I headed back to the bottom edge of the productive island.  Fishing all live chubs again, it took a little while for things to get going.  I finally got a good hit on one of my rods, and then a few others.  The hits were all isolated by several seconds and I didn't get the rod load that I look for before setting the hook.  When the rod sat still for a few minutes, I reeled it in and found that the fish had bitten the front half of my minnow completely off.  I threw this rig back out with a fresh chub and pretty quickly got a more solid bite.  I grabbed the rod and set the hook on another smallish flattie.  Shortly after 11:00 that same rod got hit and I reeled in a nice 8-pound channel.  At midnight I finished off the trip with a 10-pound flattie.  Steady action and some solid hooksets made for a good night.  Some big fish would have made for a great night, but I had a feeling of satisfaction as I pulled my anchor for the last time.

Picking my way through the islands in the pitch dark did prove to be  pretty tough.  I allowed myself to get sucked into a narrow side channel that was only a couple of feet deep at the top just before it rejoined the main channel.  Thinking that I was clear, I increased the throttle and then realized that I was very close to hitting a tiny island that had collected some wood.  If the river stays up and I keep fishing this section, I imagine that I'll get familiar enough with it to navigate it with my eyes closed.  For now, I better take it slow and keep that spotlight burning.

I got to bed at around 1:30 in the morning.  Sometime during the night our youngest got into bed with us.  That woke me up, but I didn't stay awake long.  At 5:00, Luke went into the living room and turned all of the lights and the TV on.  I had to get up and send him back to bed.  Surprisingly, I feel pretty good today.  I'm not having to fight to keep my eyes open.  Still, I'm planning on heading to bed early tonight.  Luke and I are heading out tomorrow.  I'll drop him off with Grandma before I night fish, but I'm going to work on getting him into some decent channel cats while he's out with me.  Time for the boy to take the next step.  (Note:  I had to go home from work sick the very next morning.  I've committed to Michelle that I'm going to slow it down.)