Saturday, August 28, 2010

Flathead Dearth

I'm going to remember this year as a really tough one for flatheads.  I got off to a pretty good start this spring fishing up river around the islands when the water was high.  My success rate went south at the beginning of July and I never came out of it.  I don't know what could have made the difference from '09 to this year.  I had flatheads coming into the boat on a regular basis last year.  This year I might as well be fishing in my bathtub. 
 
I keep going back to wondering if their numbers have fallen due to over harvesting.  I really hope the other cat guys out there aren't pulling them out.  I can understand a small one here and there, but it makes me crazy to think that people might be taking out the big fish that have taken years to grow to a decent size.  I also wonder if I have just allowed myself to get into a rut.  I'm fishing pretty much the same general spots.  Maybe I need to dedicate a night to fishing completely new holes.  

I did get out once this week.  After dropping Luke off at my sister's to spend a couple of days with his cousins, I headed over to the Grand.  I was on the water by about 9:00 AM.  It was a really nice day to be out there.  Relatively cool and mostly cloudy.  By this time of summer, it's nice to escape a hot sun.  My daylight hours were pretty productive.  I started with the Bomber and picked off several smallies and a skinny 26 inch pike.  When this bite seemed to slow down, I switched to a jig and Berkley Alive minnow.  Good move.  I was able to hit the same spots again and pick off some fish that were sitting a little deeper.  It takes a bit more focus to detect a bite on a jig, but a solid hookset just feels sweet.  My biggest smallie of the day pushed 17 inches.  I had several that were right around 15.  Those fish really fight like giants.  I thoroughly enjoy fishing for them.

I wish that I could say that things went so well for the flatties.  I used 3 different baits-live bluegill, live bullhead, and cut sucker.  The live baits didn't get touched.  I got off to a really early start, getting anchored and set by 8:00.  By 8:30 the rod with the cut sucker was taking a bow.  I set the hook on what felt like a pretty big fish.  I wrestled with it for a few minutes and got it just below the surface when the hook and 3 ounce no-roll came rocketing out of the water.  A tanrum ensued.

It took 3 more hours to get my next bite.  I was in the section that I now call the lower arm (because it's just below the elbow).  I had tried a few different spots in this stretch and was finally down towards the end near a pretty big point.  The cut sucker got hit again.  I was completely paying attention and got the rod in hand in no time.  The fish was still pulling fiercely, so I let her have it.  The bait pulled out of her mouth just as clean as Irish Springs.  Son of a mother!  What the what?!  Holy roller!  What is going on?!  I wanted to start throwing all of my stuff into the river.  I didn't.  I put everything neatly away and headed for the launch praying for forgiveness for all of those swearing words that the raccoons had to listen to. 

A sheriff deputy pulled up as I was getting the boat locked down on the trailer.  He asked me if I had been fishing.  I refrained from being sarcastic with him and just answered his question about how I had done.  I went into too much detail and I could see that his attention was wandering.  I told him goodnight and that I'd be leaving shortly.  Off he went.  

I'm not sure when I'll get out next.  Mort came over today to help change the water pump.  I'm glad he did because we had some trouble getting the lower unit off and he was the one who finally figured out what our problem was.  When we finally pulled the housing off and looked inside, we could see that the old impeller was in really rough shape.  I'm lucky that it was still pushing any water at all.  Unfortunately, West Marine gave us the wrong impeller kit so it's going to be another 5 days before we can get our hands on the correct one.  If I have to miss a week on the water, it will be worth it to know that we're keeping the motor in good shape.  We've learned a lot about our motor through this whole process and I think that we'll take a lot better care of it as a result.  That will give me a lot more nights to come home frustrated from getting my @$$ kicked by the flatties.

Too Much of A Good Thing


I had last Friday off.  The plan, of course, was to spend the day and evening on the river.  As I prepared for my day out, I got to thinking that it would be fun to get out a couple of hours before light to see if I could catch some early morning cats.  I had never done that before and I've always thought that it would be sweet to do a complete 24 hours on the river.  I kicked around a good starting time in my head and it kept getting earlier and earlier.  I landed on getting up at 3:00. 

Michelle was at school on Thursday night.  I put the kids to bed a little before 9:00, finished packing up the Jeep and boat, and got to bed by 9:30.  She got home at around midnight and I woke up when she came to bed.  The excitement of the long fishing day ahead was too much and there was no going back to sleep for me.  I laid there for about 15 minutes before deciding that I might as well head out.
I was on the river by 1:00.  I fished the area around the bridge for about an hour.  Nothing going on there, so I headed up to the stretch right below the elbow.  I was fishing live creek chubs and one green sunfish that I had picked out of the creek in Dutton.  The chubs were getting hit, but the fish were robbing them off of the hook.  I'm fed up with this phenomenon and I think that I'm about done fishing with chubs this year.  The channel cats are just too good at grabbing them by the head and leaving me with an empty hook.  With that said, my first fish of the night was a channel caught on a live chub.  It went about 6 pounds. 
After I caught my first fish, I drifted to a fresh spot in the same run and dropped my 3 rigs.  The sunfish was on the rod behind me, thrown out of the left side of the boat.  It was up on a shallower flat.  It didn't take too long before that rod was trying its hardest to jump out of the holder.  I reached back and grabbed it, felt to make sure that the fish was still there, and set the  hook.  I wasn't sure how big it was, but I knew that it wasn't a dink.  It turned out to be a 12 pounder.  I like them over 20, but I'd take it.  That was it for the cats.

When morning rolled around, I was already second guessing coming out so early.  I had downed a full thermos of coffee, so on top of the normal hangover feeling you get after being up all night, my stomach wasn't feeling so hot.  I did my best to shake it off as I tied on a Bomber crankbait and made the transition to smallies.  I motored up river from the elbow to a stretch where the bank is dotted with rip rap and rocky spots.  Deer were everywhere.  I must have seen 20.  One was a small buck, but the rest were does with 1 or 2 fawns. 
The spot turned out to be a good one.  There were fish on every little hump of rip rap.  I even had one fish pounce on the lure as I dragged it across the surface after it got hung up on itself.  Something was going on with the largemouth.  Catching one on the Grand is pretty rare, but 5 of my first 10 bass were bucketmouths.  Most of them were little.  A couple were keepers with nice girth.  One 16-inch walleye made an appearance in this stretch.  Another rarity.
The day became extremely hot and muggy.  I became nauseous and miserable.  By midday, I decided to anchor in the shade and catch a little nap.  I set the clickers on my cat rods so that I could keep fishing even if I wasn't conscious.  It turned out that this wasn't necessary because as tired as I was, I wasn't able to go to sleep.  Something about the river and the wind keeping things in constant motion, knowing that someone could come by in a canoe or kayak at any moment, and the fact that the boat just isn't that comfortable kept my brain from going into slumber mode. 
I spent the rest of the day feeling rough and doing my best to keep at it.  I caught plenty of smallies.  In the early evening, I picked up a couple of suckers for cutbait.  Figuring that I wouldn't stay late, I decided to fish around the bridge.  I regretted it after several hours without a bite, but instead of heading up river, I went home.
It was a good day in that I caught just about every type of fish that the Grand offers and I got to indulge in one of those "you only live once" experiences.  I'll never do it again and I wouldn't recommend it.  Things just don't go as well when your head is in a fog and you feel rotten.  The worst part is that it took about 4 days to get normal.  I was still cross eyed and thick tongued on Monday.  I'll have to keep it to 20 hours next time. 

Monday, August 16, 2010

Catching Bait for Catching Bait




I was doing yard work on Saturday morning when the weedeater scared a cricket out from between a couple of bricks.  Hayden and Luke were playing in the yard nearby, so I told Luke to grab his fishing pole.  Hayden came to see what I had.  When Luke returned with his Spiderman pole, she went into hysterics and demanded that we let the cricket go.  "No, he's bait."  With huge tears rolling from her eyes, she screamed, "You kill everything!" over and over at me until I finally sent her inside.  I put the cricket on the hook, dropped it into the little hole behind my neighbors' and handed the pole to Luke.  I could see his line take off, so I told him to reel up.  He pulled up a nice little chub.  Cool.  We dropped it back in and I went back to work.

Not much later, I opened up our little storage shed in the back and 3 more crickets scampered for cover like I had just yanked the curtain open on their changing room.  Luke was still close by, so I gave him a bait container and put him on the hunt.  The boy was in heaven.  He secured all 3 of those crickets and then walked around the yard listening for more.  He found another 3 under the neighbors' trash can.  Hayden intercepted us one more time on the way to the creek and was about to start up again when I asked if she wanted to try fishing with one.  This changed everything.  She was all about it.  Of course, she wanted to keep anything that she caught for pets.  

The crickets didn't stay on the hook too well, but the chubs sure did like them.  We caught half a dozen of them, putting two into an old coffee container filled with creek water for Hayden.  While we were at it, I figured that I might as well get my own bait bucket and put these guys to good use.  Luke sniffed out a few more crickets in my neighbors' yard and I had 8 nice chubs in the bucket before our supply ran out.  Apparently, chubs love crickets but they affect them like a pizza with extra anchovies hits most of us.  I opened the bucket the next day to change out the water and was puzzled to find it full of floaties.  I knew that I had given them clean water just the night before.  A closer look revealed that the bucket was filled with tiny cricket parts.  They turned out to be a bad idea all the way around for those poor chubs.

I carried the pager for work last weekend, so I've got a free day off this week.  I'm planning a 20 hour marathon on the river from 4:00 AM on Friday until midnight or 1:00 the next morning.  Flatties are said to get active in the hours just before light and I've never targeted them at this time of day, so I'm going to go test the theory.  An old friend is going to join me for a few hours while I'm out.  I don't know if the flatties will show up, but I do know that I'm going to enjoy every minute of it.  Hopefully the river fish are hungry for creek chubs with heart burn.  

Friday, August 13, 2010

Pannies at Granny's

We spent part of Sunday up at the in-laws'.  After swimming and a great dinner, I took the kids out in the rowboat one by one and helped them fish for pannies.  Using a tiny jig with a plastic boot tail, I casted out behind the boat and let them hold the pole while I slowly rowed just out from the weed line.  This worked so beautifully for my young fisherkids because all they had to do was hold onto the rod and wait for a fish to grab on.  One second they were looking at the clouds and the next second they were springing to action and wrestling with a nice fish.  All 3 of them had a ball and we caught some nice gills, crappies, and even a few small bass.  Luke hooked and landed his first two largemouth all by himself.  He didn't seem to find this as significant as I did.  I couldn't even get him to do a recap with me that night after I told him his bedtime story.  The jury is still out on whether or not Luke is going to be a fisherman.  Lincoln shows the most interest and stays focused longer than the other two.  That's saying a lot since he is the youngest.  If he can slow down and actually sit in one place for more than 3 seconds, he will probably end up spending a lot of time in a boat with me.  Time will tell.  For now we were gifted with a nice little memory, at least sentimental old dad was.  

Should've Stayed In Bed


I've been on the river a couple more times since my last post, but I haven't been able to break the flathead riddle.  The smallmouth are eating everything in sight.  I caught 20 in one evening.  Only a couple of them were keepers.  The channels continue to be quite aggressive.  I caught another fish that looked identical to the one that I claimed was a 10 pounder in my last entry.  Yeah . . . it was only 8.  Fresh batteries in my scale proved me to be a liar.  I am quite convinced that it was the same fish.  It even had a fresh wound on its mouth and I caught it out of the same spot.  Man, was he upset to see me again!


My very last trip was a lesson in frustration management.  I decided late that I was going to go, so I was only able to secure about 8 creek chubs and one stray bluegill from the creek behind my house.  I got to the river just before dark.  I headed up to a narrow section that runs a little deeper and decided to troll.  I noticed that the motor sounded different as I was trolling, but it was actually smoother than normal so I didn't bother to turn around and examine it.  When I got to the top of this stretch, I throttled up with the intention of heading to the elbow.  Instead, I heard what sounded like the air brakes on a city bus.  When I turned around, the tell tale was shooting out smoke instead of water.  I immediately killed it.  After drifting in the current and feeling stunned for a minute, I decided to start it up again and see what it did.  It started fine and the tell tale started shooting water as soon as I got it above idle speed.  Still, I didn't think that I should go further from the launch, so I moved down a little bit and got ready to fish the mouth of Bear Creek. 

I loaded chubs on 3 rods and caught one smallish channel on the line that I threw closest to the mouth.  I quickly got hit on the other two rods, but I didn't hook up and they got away with my minnows.  I decided to go with the gill and two more chubs.  The chubs got hit again and were gone.  I was quickly down to 3 chubs in the livewell and the gill that was still out there struggling mightily to get off of the hook.  I didn't have time to fully lament my situation before that rod got a little  extra pull like the plunk of one string on an out of tune guitar.  With that, the gill was gone.  

In less than an hour, the cats had whittled my bait supply down to 3 minnows.  I decided I'd better get out of that spot before the rest of my bait was stolen.  I limped on my lame motor down to the basin above the bridge and fished this area for the rest of the night.  I hooked up with one more channel in the 5 pound range before heading home to figure out my course of action in getting the water pump fixed on the old girl.  The plan that I came up with is to try to get my hands on the parts and collar a buddy who is more clever at this stuff than I am.  We'll see how it goes. 

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Just Enough Action to Keep My Spirits Up


I got a chance to sneak out on Sunday after the kick off picnic for Vacation Bible School.  Hayden and Luke have that every night this week.  So far, they love it.  Back to Sunday night.  I got to the river at around 7:00.  I had no bait in the livewell, so my first mission was to catch a few suckers and rock bass.  I struggled at first, but finally found the suckers in some skinny water.  The depth finder read just 3 feet.  I quickly caught a couple and then headed up above the elbow to catch a few rock bass.

I was set up for flatties by 9:30 with a tub full of cut sucker and 5 or 6 rock bass in the tank.  I spent my first hour on that “perfect” spot just above the elbow.  Nothing was going on up there and the bugs were so thick I was breathing them in, so I decided to motor down to the big basin above the bridge where I anchored in 9 feet of water.  I dropped a rock bass right under the boat and threw the cut sucker straight back on one pole and out to my left into the middle of the river on the 3rd rod.  It was that rod that came to life first.  I noticed the end of it twitching, so I moved into position where I could grab it quick if the fish committed.  It finally grabbed the bait and flew down river at 90 miles an hour.  The clicker was singing like a choir boy.  I knew that it was a channel cat.  I had a huge piece of bait and an 8/0 hook on this rod, so I didn’t hold out much hope that I’d hook up with this fish.  It ended up dropping the bait and scurrying away before I even attempted a hook set.  

I decided to skip the clicker and leave the reel engaged when I put the rod back in the holder.  Before too long, it got jumped on again.  This time it was bouncing violently and I was pretty sure that the fish had hooked itself.  I gave it a good jerk anyway and went to battle with a heavy fish that was flying all over the river.  When the fight ended, I hauled what I think was about a 9 or 10 pound channel into the boat.  I've hit 8 pounds several times in this part of the river, but have never topped it.  This fish looked bigger, but not quite as big as the 11 pounder that I caught earlier in the year down by the bayous.  I don’t know for sure because my battery died in my scale and I didn’t want to make the fish sit in the boat while I dug through my tackle box to find a replacement.  I took the above picture and released the fish healthy.

My only other action for the night was a very small flattie that ate the live rock bass.  I’m amazed at the size of bait a small flattie will take.  It makes me think that a grown flattie will eat a pretty good sized redhorse.  If I catch a one to two pounder next time out, I may just put it out on a 10/0 hook instead of cutting it up.  It might improve my personal best.  I’d be ecstatic to get above 30 pounds.  Might be a pipe dream.  There are probably a few over 30 in there, but there can’t be many.  The only way to find out is to put in my time, so Lincoln and I are going to catch some bait tonight and I’m hitting the river again tomorrow.  I’m still waiting for the big boys to wake up.  Hopefully tomorrow I’ll find them on the feed.