An Amazing Hour On the River

I'm not quite sure what to think about the month of September.  There is no other single month that has provided me with more really big flatheads.  I've had some amazing multiple monster nights during this month.  September is also when the flatties eventually shut down and disappear for 8 months.  They quickly go into this feeding frenzy that provides some of the most amazing aciton all year, and then just as quickly lock their jaws and vanish.  Shortly after I got married my wife and I went up to Silver Lake to visit my sister-in-law and her husband at his family cottage.  Not being much of a drinker, I thought that this would be a nice safe place to get my first buzz.  Somehow I ended up mixing Boone's Farm and Bacardi Limon.  I mean I literally mixed them in one glass.  I guess I figured it would get me to the buzz quicker.  Sure enough, pretty soon I was giggling at everything everyone said and the stars started dancing around in the sky.  I don't think it lasted 10 minutes before BOOM, a dull headache crawled in behind my eyes and my stomach was attacked by a churning nausea that lasted through most of the next day.  That's the month of September.

Let's stick with the buzz for this entry.  I went out alone one evening this past September.  Things were slowing down enough that I even struggled to get the suckers that I needed for bait.  I scrounged 2 or 3, cut them into big sections, and headed up river to my normal haunt.  I anchored in a spot where I had caught a good percentage of my flatties during the summer.  I'm not sure why, but before I threw out my lines I had this thought jump into my head telling me that I should move.  Just below Devil's Elbow is a 200 yard stretch of deep water.  Most of it is over 10 feet deep.  I've tried it here and there, but I mainly pick up channels in there.  Despite my record, my hunch told me to give this section a go, so I did. 

I anchored smack dab in the middle of this stretch.  I put my lines out in the normal fashion-one straight down, one further out behind the boat, and the last one off to the side.  I didn't have to wait very long before the clicker on the rig behind me started running.  I grabbed this rod and dragged in a 19-pounder.  This was a really good sign.  I barely got this rig back into the water before the pole right in front of me jumped and dipped to the river.  This was the bait that I set right under the boat.  The beast made several strong runs before I was able to get her back under the boat and into a 5 minute stalemate.  In the middle of all of this that same rod that brought in the first fish jumped back into action.  I had to ignore it and eventually the fish let go and diappeared.  I finally pulled flattie number 2 into the boat and weighed her in at 21 pounds.

Figuring that I probably wore this particular spot out, I pulled anchor and drifted until I was just up from a nice point that pokes out 30 yards into the river and slows the current.  I dropped my lines one more time and again one of my rods bounced and bent almost before I even had it set in the holder.  This was a scrappy 17-pounder.  Shock, elation, euphoria, and that stupid grin that always shows when the fishing gets better than you had expected or even hoped.

I haven't seen a flathead since I let that last fish go.  We had a pretty good cold front come through the very next day.  I tried it a few times after that, but with my teeth chattering and nothing going on under the boat, I finally had to call it a season.  It's tough to put the catfish gear away for the last time.  The only good thing about it is I get to immediately start anticipating next year.  I'm down to about 4 months.