The Thanks I Get

Sunday was Father's Day.  I woke to the smell of coffee, but when I got to the pot I found it empty.  Brewing my own coffee, I watched as the kids scooted around the house, but I didn't get the cheerful "Happy Father's Day!" trio that I was expecting.  My daughter was going camping for a week with my sister's family, so she was bouncing off of the walls.  The boys were doing their tasmanian devil thing.  Michelle was focused on getting Hayden packed.  I eventually decided to head out front and pull the weeds from our overgrown flower bed.  When lunch rolled around there was still no mention of the old man's special day, and a sandwich and cup of diet Coke were brought to me in the front yard.  I was starting to wonder what was going on, but I went with the flow.  After lunch I drove Hayden up to Keri's and returned to find Michelle with car keys and purse in hand.  She wanted to head out for awhile.  She hoped I wouldn't mind watching the boys.  She was gone for a few hours, so I figured she must be working on something.  When she finally returned, she asked if I wanted waffles and eggs for dinner.  I gave up on it when I heard this.  I told her that no, I was thinking of taking Luke to Taco Bell and then we were going to go catch some creek chubs at the park.  She looked puzzled at that response and then asked me how that fit into my diet.  I finally said, "Well, it's supposed to be some kind of holiday so I guess that's how I'm going to celebrate."  She got a deer in the headlights look on her face and began to apologize, saying that she forgot.  We just spent most of Saturday celebrating Father's Day with our dads, but I guess I'll buy that she somehow forgot.  Anyway, she reached for the one thing that she thought might redeem her and sent me fishing.

Of course I took her up on it and was headed north within about 20 minutes.  Hoping to get some flattie bait, I started out fishing with crawlers.  I couldn't catch a sucker or rock bass to save my life.  The smallies were going crazy and I actually found myself grunting in disgust when I'd see them jump after the  hookset.  I even got so desperate for bait that I threw a little channel in the livewell.  I'm not sure if flatties eat them or not, but I wouldn't be surprised.  I was feeling quite a bit of tension as I got over an hour into my trip without decent bait.  It would start getting dark soon.  I was finally able to exhale when at last I pulled a small redhorse over the gunwhale.  It wasn't much, but it would give me a chance.  I finally got down to my very last chunk of crawler and was already in the middle of cutting up the little guy when my pole doubled over.  It was a huge sucker that would provide me with plenty of bait.  I was in good shape. 

I headed up to the island where I've been having some luck.  I didn't have my lines set for very long before the clicker in the rod behind me started going.  By the sound of it, a big flattie was moving away with my bait at a steady pace.  I grabbed the rod, turned off the clicker and engaged the reel, let the rod load up, and pulled the bait right out of its mouth.  My only substantial hit all night.  I went home feeling like Rodney Dangerfield.  Luke and I did get out and catch those creek chubs yesterday, so I'm loaded with bait and ready to hit it tonight.  I'm crossed eye tired, but I have to take advantage of June before it slips away.  The only thing good about the bad days is that they make the good days even better.  I'm due.

More High Water Cats

We're getting this thing figured out.  Mort and I headed out last night with the river still swelled and muddy.  In previous years, this pretty much meant a guaranteed skunk.  Mort was apparently still feeling this sentiment because he later reported that he wasn't holding out much hope for catching anything when I picked him up sometime around 5:00.  Luckily, he was wrong.

We started out fishing dip bait and crawlers.  Our first stop was at a snag that we had never tried, not far from the Knapp Street launch.  Nothing touched the dip bait, but we picked up a few rock bass on the crawlers.  I had plenty of bait, so we threw them all back.  I made a mental note for future trips when I might be running low on chubs and gills.  I have already had some luck fishing the down river ends of islands under the current conditions, so I suggested that we head up a quarter mile to the island that I've spent most of my time fishing.

The channels found our dip bait pretty quickly.  We started with a couple of eaters before Mort sunk the hook into a much bigger fish.  I'm guessing that it was around 6 pounds.  We don't know for sure because I opted to skip the net and just grab it for him.  You can usually get away with this when you're using heavy braided line and a big hook.  Different story with light mono and a small treble hook. As I was holding the line, the fish thrashed a little bit and popped off.  I could tell Mort was disappointed.  A fish story is always better when you can report exactly how big the fish was.  Estimates are viewed as exaggerations.  Maybe he should say 8 so the guys at work figure it was 6.

After a little bit, we decided that we had fished this spot out.  We opted to swing up to the top end of the island and fish all of that wood that was stacked up against it.  Didn't get a nibble.  The spot was money for me the first few times that I fished it, but it went south quickly.  I haven't caught a fish there in 3 trips.  We hadn't stayed too long when I suggested that we head up to the next island.  We nosed up to the bottom end of it again and found fish one more time.  These islands are gold when the river is high and dirty.  I couldn't be happier about this discovery.  We fished several snags throughout the evening and never got touched by a cat in them.  The slack water holes below the islands are the place to be.

When we finished at this spot, I ran the mile back down river to the launch and sent Mort happily on his way.  I headed back up to the exact same spot to set up for flatties.  With the creeks all high, I wasn't able to get my chubs.  I had saved several panfish from the night before and picked up a dozen huge sucker minnows from Gander Mountain.  It turns out that the sucker minnows were the prey of choice for the flatties.  I got a pretty quick hit on one, but I briefly felt weight and then the tension released.  I think that it was a smallish flattie that had the minnow by the head, but hadn't grabbed the hook behind the dorsal fin.  I would have 3 more misses like that before the end of the evening.  I'm pretty sure they were all small fish.  Small flatties will hit with a bang-bang-bang, where the big boys usually grab your bait and don't look back.

The 17-pounder in the picture came with just the slightest bit of light left in the sky.  It hit on the pole that I set up behind me.  The clicker was on, but this flattie managed to grab the minnow and run without turning the spool a single click.  I was sitting there waiting for something to happen when I noticed that the line on this rod had moved from my far left and was now in between the other two lines.  I grabbed the rod, reeled quickly until I caught up to the fish, let the rod load up, and sunk the hook into her.  I've never seen a flattie run all over the place like this fish did.  It raced around like a channel and then tried to keep going right on past me when I finally steered it boat side.  I was eventually able to tame her and bring her close enough to grab that big lower jaw.  She had quite a bulging belly, so I'm pretty sure that it was a female full of eggs.  I'm expecting an imminent lull as the flatties move into the spawn.  Hopefully I can pull a few more out before that happens.

Overcoming High Water Conditions

I've been looking forward to June since the end of the ice fishing season, but so far it isn't really living up to my expectations.  The story for this spring has been big rains and high water.  The river has been swelled for weeks.  One positive outcome of this frustrating situation is that it has pushed me further up river to seek out spots that will produce when the river is up.  I've found that the first mile beyond my normal stretch holds far more snags, bends, holes, and small islands.  I have been able to pick out some spots that produce even when the river is up.  An outing that I took earlier this week will serve as a good example of what I have found up there.

Hearing that we had yet more rain coming this week, I made a call to Michelle as I was heading home from work on Monday to offer to watch the kids for a few hours in turn for being able to head to the river by 7:30 or so.  She took me up on it, so with kids in tow after dinner, I went to the creek and stocked up on some creek chubs and even one small gill.  I should add that my stock of chubs is getting thin in the creek behind my house.  I thought that they would naturally replenish, but apparently I'm taking them out more quickly than new ones are showing up.  I'm going to have to leave them alone for awhile and get my bait from the local park where I previously caught them.  I ended up with close to a dozen chubs, including some that I had kept in a bucket after my last trip.  More would have been better, but this was enough to get me on the water.

At around 8:00 I dropped the boat into the river on this small little launch that doesn't have a dock.  I'm not loving this part of my new fishing situation.  The launch by my parents' house is beautiful and has a nice dock.  Launching and trailering the boat is dry, quick, and easy.  This one is muddy and shallow, and I have to wade in to get the boat on and off of the trailer.  Anyway, I headed up river under gun metal skies and in a mist of rain.  The first spot that I tried was the down river end of the second island up.  I got bumped a few times, but as I was waiting I saw a nice snag that seemed more inviting.  I set up on this snag and missed a few solid hits before landing an eater sized channel.  I don't normally keep them, but I decided before this trip that I was going to keep some eaters and have them for dinner the next night.  I got bumped a few more times on that snag, but I couldn't hook up.  I was getting frustrated, but threw in one more time.  I finally sunk the hook into my tormentor and was surprised when it leaped right out of the water.  It turned out to be my first gar pike.  It jumped a few more times, including when it was up next to the boat.  I grabbed my pliers to release it without bringing it into the boat, but one more jump and it released itself.

I dropped down to another small snag just as the sun was setting.  I've never seen the mosquitos as bad as they are this year.  Even with bug spray on, they swarmed me, looking for any opening that I would give them.  Latex gloves come in handy in this situation.  They allow you to protect your hands without having to put dope on them and risk contaminating your bait.  The wind suddenly came up and began blowing at what must have been at least 15-20 mph.  This cleared the skeeters and gave me some much needed relief.  The sudden wind made me wonder if a thunderstorm was coming in, but one never materialized.  Back to the fishing.  I picked up another channel and had a few more swings and misses.  With just enough light to see, I then slipped down to the sizable snag that is stacked against the top of a small island.  I've fished this before and have mentioned it in at least one previous entry.  I threw in cut chub on two lines and the gill on the third rod.  It didn't take long before I got a good hit and set the hook on something heavy.  I knew quickly that I was dragging in a turtle.  As I hauled in this angry snapper, the rod with the gill sprung to life.  With the turtle on the rod in my left hand, I grabbed the bouncing rod in my right and set the hook on nothing.  That old snapper had cost me a flattie.  I cursed the bad timing.

With this spot producing nothing more, I slid down to a snag along the edge of the island.  It gave me one more eater channel.  Running out of bait and time, I nosed up to the bottom of the island.  This is a nice current break and I noticed that it drops off into a deep hole.  A live chub picked up a small flattie in no time, but then things slowed right down.  I sat for quite awhile with only a few bumps.  At a little after midnight I decided to stack the last few chunks of cutbait on my hook and give it one last toss.  I finally got a nice steady pull that kept the rod loaded.  I grabbed it and set the hook on another smallish flattie.

I kept the fish on an aerator in the livewell overnight and cleaned them after work yesterday afternoon.  I soaked the fillets in milk, dipped them in egg, and then coated them with Drakes Batter Mix.  After baking the fish for awhile, I noticed that the Drakes coating looked somewhat dry and I didn't think it would bake to the golden brown that is promised on the box.  I melted some margarine and basted the fish nuggets.  I got a very good response from my family.  Michelle seemed reluctant to try it, but by the end reported that she thought that she might even like it better than chicken.  For her, it's important that she doesn't see any of the preparation process.  All she wants to see is the golden brown, fully cooked nuggets.  It was good that I was able to do all of that while she was gone at the dentist.  Luke also gave me a positive response and even came back for more.  I'm still a catch and release guy, but I might keep a few eaters from time to time to keep the family fat and happy.

We had huge rain again last night and so our county and those around us are under flood warnings.  I was wanting to bring Mort out tomorrow to show him this stretch.  I'm not sure if it's worth the effort, but I'm sure I'll still go.  The only way to learn how to catch fish in all of these tough situations is to get out there, find spots that produce under these conditions, and figure out how to fish them.  Getting bait will be a problem for the next couple of days as the creeks are all swelled.  I will probably have to get some gills and maybe resort to dip bait for the channels.  The fishing has been good enough to keep me busy, but I'm still waiting for stable water so the big flatties will start biting consistently.  Still a lot of great fishing ahead.