That's More Like It

The river has come down to a depth more close to normal.  Knowing that the fishing would probably be good, Mort and I picked a day to fish last week.  He had some projects to finish up around home, so I had a couple of hours to dink around by myself out there.  I tried still fishing for about 45 minutes with small live chubs that I had trapped.  Nothing showed any interest.  I then tied on a parrot pattern DT 6 and went to drifting and casting.  I picked up half a dozen smallies, pulling most of them from just off of the bank.  The final fish was a nice 16-incher that came off of a shallow run with scattered small boulders.  These smallies aren't monsters, but they sure are fun to catch.  They hit hard and fight harder.

After I picked up Mort, we tried a little more casting but the bite seemed to be off.  We decided to still fish with crawlers.  This bite was steady.  We had our best luck just down from the Northland Drive Bridge in the middle of the flat.  We caught several little smallies and some suckers.  I had plenty of creek chubs in the livewell, so the suckers were spared.

I dropped Mort off with enough light to head back up river and get set up.  I went to my favorite spot just up from the elbow and dropped in 3 live chubs.  After a few misses, I finally set the hook on a heavy fish.  This fish was on the middle rod.  I tried to sneak it under the line on the rod to the left, but it swam right through it and started peeling line off of the clicker.  I managed to bring it boatside and free it from the other line before too much damage was done.  As a matter of fact, that rod got hit by another good sized fish as I was weighing my first fish.  By the time that I got to it, the fish had run me under a log and snagged me up.  I had to cut that line. 

Stopping to take a look at the fish that I had landed, I noticed that it had a blue zip-tie in the dorsal fin.  There must be someone else who regularly fishes for flatties out there who is curious to find out if he is ever catching the same fish twice.  I've thought about tagging my fish for this very reason.  Pretty smart way to do it.  I looked to see if this practice is mentioned in the regulations book, but I couldn't find anything about it.  I'm not sure what I think about it.  I probably won't bother with it, but maybe.  I caught one more nice channel out of this spot before trying the run just down from the elbow.  I had two lines deep and one thrown up on top of a shallow run.  By this time of night, nothing seemed to be cruising the deep water.  I got 3 or 4 good hits up in the shallows, but each time my minnow was torn off of the hook.  Figuring that it was just a channel, I decided to bag it and call it a night.

The flattie was my best so far this year.  At 18 pounds, it fought a little more like some of the bigger fish that I've caught.  When it hit it yanked the pole down and didn't let it come back up.  That's about the prettiest thing that I can see when I'm in the middle of a dark river.  I'm hoping to top this fish soon and I'm hoping to do so multiple times this year.  Backing off to once a week will make it tough to keep up with the numbers from recent years, but I think I'll do okay.  Time will tell. 

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. 

Practically Skunked

My muskie starter kit was completed this week when the Shimano Cardiff 400 that I ordered finally arrived on Monday.  This lit my fire to go chase them, so I put together a plan to spend all day Friday on Thornapple Lake.  I'd have to get the boat from my parents' house, so while I was up there on Wednesday to pick it up I figured I might as well spend a few hours on the river.

Even though just about everything is open, including catch and release for bass, things still aren't hopping on the river.  When the fish get into their summer pattern a crawler at the end of your line will rarely go more than a few minutes before something finds it and picks it up.  I barely scraped up a couple of suckers to use for cutbait.  The only other fish that I caught in the 3 or 4 hours before dark was a 3-pound channel.  Still, my experience this year has been that slow days on the river doesn't necessarily mean slow nights.  The channels had come through for me each night no matter how bad the fishing was during the day.  I figured that the pattern would continue.

To make a long story short, I was dead wrong.  The Grand River catfish had a collective case of lockjaw.  I fished my 3 rods for 2 1/2 hours and never got a single bite.  Not a twitch, not a nudge, not a tap, not a tickle.  They were completely shut down.  The water temperature remained at 57 degrees, but the air temperature dropped down to 40 before I left at 11:30.  This must have had something to do with it.  I don't think I've ever had a night where I didn't even get a bite.  It was kind of amazing.  Wouldn't have called that one.  I consoled myself with the notion that this was really just a bonus trip and the real fishing was going to take place on Friday.  I planned on getting on the lake before sun up and staying out there until after sundown.

The best part of that whole night happened as I was leaving the house.  Luke asked to walk me out.  I said good-bye to him in the driveway and got in the Jeep to hit the road.  I looked up as I was backing out and he was sitting on the steps giving me thumbs up.  I can't exactly put to words why, but this really warmed my heart.  It was just a simple gesture from the little guy, but it brought to my mind that famous footage of JFK Jr. saluting his dad during the funeral procession.  I realize that Luke's dad is just some schmuck heading out fishing and not in the league of a fallen president.  I think it was more about the boy than the dad in this situation.  It was just a nice little reminder of how much I love that kid and how much our growing father-son relationship means to me.  The river sure wasn't good to me, but I went to bed feeling blessed that night.

Off My Game

After a couple of weeks of high water, Mort and I finally got out this past Friday.  We were both really looking forward to it.  Life has whipped me lately and I really needed the relief that a night on the Grand brings.  It turns out that I was more tired than I thought.  Getting the boat ready, I found myself having a hard time focusing up.  My mind was kind of numb and hazy.  With Mort's help, I fought through the fog and we eventually made it out on the water.

The first thing that I noticed was that as we were going out, several boats were coming in.  Seemed like a bad omen.  We headed up river and tried a couple of spots without much more than a few taps.  I suggested that we head back down to the shallow low water spot by the Rogue River island.  Mort picked up a redhorse just about as soon as we anchored.  That was all the action that we got for awhile and we both ended up dozing off.  This never happens.  No matter what kind of day or week I'm having, it all usually just sort of slips off of me when I get on the river.  I don't have any great explanation other than work and my young family have really taken it out of me lately.  We messed around the island for awhile longer, fishing in some picture perfect wood.  Mort picked up one more really big redhorse.  It's a good thing I had the Sucker King with me or I might not have had bait for the night.  Sounds like half a joke, but my dad really does have a nack for catching fish with a hook and crawler.  He always out fishes me when we're catching our bait.  I like to think that it's because I'm saving all of my prowess for the cats.  It might just be that he's got a better feel for it than I do.  I wonder what he'll think of the title, Sucker King.  I'm guessing it won't stick like "Mort" did.

With light starting to wane, he decided to head in so that I would have time to get my bait cut up and get myself into position.  After I dropped Mort off, I went and anchored in the mouth of the Rogue and threw out a crawler while I cut up my bait.  I didn't feel very confident that anything would grab the crawler, but I still kept a pretty close eye on the vulnerable spinning rod leaning against the back bench.  Soon after I had my cutbait bagged and the boat cleaned up, I spun in my chair towards the back of the boat just in time to see that rod take a bow towards the river.  I grabbed it and set the hook on a 6-pound channel.  It's always fun to fight them on my bass gear.

By this time it was just about dark, so I headed up to my spot below the Northland Drive bridge.  I anchored off of the second pylon from the north bank and dropped in my 3 baits.  I was still feeling whimpy, tired, and cold so I layered up like I was ice fishing in January.  It didn't take long before the rod right in front of me did a little hop.  Knowing that channels frequently hit a bait and then come back to it, I grabbed the rod and got ready.  Within a minute I got another good hit, let the rod load up, and set the hook on what must have been a really nice channel.  I kept my drag tight at first because the channels don't usually run drag on my baitcasting reels with the 80-pound PowerPro.  After this fish jerked me around the boat with some pretty amazing head shakes, I decided that I'd better give her some room to run.  After a short tussle, I finally saw a shadow of the fish.  This would be my biggest channel yet.  Of course, it turned out to be a 15-pound flathead.  I was pleasantly surprised, but not totally shocked.  They don't usually show themselves until sometime in May, but this has been a bit of a strange and warm spring.  I was having a weird night in a weird season.  Even though the water was still only 57 degrees, it made some kind of sense that I'd catch a flathead in my little Twilight Zone.

I snapped a couple of pictures and released the catfish back to the cool water.  It didn't need any reviving.  It jumped to life and shot straight back down towards the bottom just as soon as it touched the water.  After letting her go, I noticed that Dr. Flathead had cured what had been ailing me.  Suddenly, I was hot with all of those clothes on and I was Red Bull alert.  I guess it was good to see her.

The rest of the night was pretty typical.  I had a lot of hits and managed to boat 3 more channels-one dink and two that were somewhere in the ball park of the 6-pounder.  When we headed out earlier in the day, I noticed that the dock was way out of the water.  This ended up being a problem when it came time to trailer the boat.  With the trailer backed into the water far enough to sink the runners, it stuck out a good 10 feet past the dock.  With the wind and current, there was no way that I was going to get that boat on the trailer and stay dry.  Rather than stew about it, I quickly resigned myself to the fact that I'd have soggy feet for the next hour or so and waded on in.  I'll bring my rubber Burly boots next time out, but I hope the park guys get that dock down where it should be.  I sure didn't feel like myself out there the other night, but whoever that guy was, he caught some nice fish and spent some good quality time with his old man.  I hope he appreciates it.

Off To A Good Start

I’ve never been on the river this early in the year before, but we had the boat ready a couple of weekends ago and God blessed us with a 3 day stretch of warm, sunny weather this week.  Eighty degrees on April 1 is unheard of around here.  I decided to take advantage of it and see what was happening on the Grand.

I was in the boat by about 6:30 in the morning.  The river’s up a little bit, so I thought I’d start out just off of the launch and around the island where the current slows up a bit.  I figured once the sun was up, the fish might gravitate towards this shallow low current spot.  It would be a little warmer for them.  I threw out a crawler and some dip bait while I waited for daylight.  I didn’t stay in my first spot for too long because I parked in the middle of a cloud of those evil no-see-em bugs.  I tried to hang in there while they constantly bounced off of my eye balls, but I just about went mad and finally had to move.  When I reeled in to reposition the boat, I found weight on the rod with the crawler.  Most of the suckers in the Grand are redhorse or white suckers, but there’s also this disgusting, blotchy, warty, brown sucker that looks like it emerged right up out of the mud.  My first river fish of 2010 was one of those guys.  I didn’t want to touch it, so I kept it in the water and used the pliers to pull the hook out.  It gave me the heebie-jeebies, but it was a fish.  I followed it up with a few redhorse right at sun up.  If the suckers were on, the channel cats must be.  I was in for an excellent day.  After cutting the suckers into bait and putting them on ice, I headed up river to see if there were any new snags.

I didn’t find too many.  The stretch of wood that hugs the bank across from the gun club looked about the same.  Other than that, there were no good blow downs until I got up to the Elbow.  There are two really nice snags in deep water up there.   There’s also still a lot of wood scattered all up and down that cut bank, including the landmarks that I used last year to find some of my best holes.  It really made me wish that the flatties were going.

Before long, I also found myself wishing that the channels were going.  I fished dip bait, cut sucker, cut creek chub, and crawlers.  I fished deep snags, shallow snags, heads of holes, shallow flats, and current breaks.  Nothing.  Halfway through the day I got one good yank on the dip bait at the snag under the power lines, but I missed it.  A turtle immediately popped up above the dip worm, so I’m pretty sure that it was him down there.  I gave him a verbal lashing for screwing with me.

Mort called to check in on my progress from time to time and I had to keep telling him that I hadn’t found any active cats yet.  He asked me why I thought they weren’t biting.  The only thing I could land on was the water temperature.  The air might have been 80-degrees, but I was reminded that it was only April 1 every time I stuck my hand in that frigid water.  I got to wondering exactly what the water temperature was.  I remembered that Mort had bought a fisherman’s temperature sensor the year before and we had never used it.  I called him up to see if he knew where it was and hinted not so subtly that I was curious to find out what the temperature is right now.  My dad has always been the giving kind and he graciously brought it to me.  We talked for a little while at the dock and then I headed back up river to the wood across from the gun club.  I anchored next to it and threw my bait on the outer edge.  I wanted to mess with the temperature sensor, so I didn’t take the time to put fresh bait on.  I tossed out the cut chub that was on there the whole time I was talking with my dad.  It was looking pretty dry, but maybe it would re-hydrate at the bottom of the river.  I just started fidgeting with the sensor when that rod started dancing.  I set the hook and wrestled a 6-pound channel to the boat.  This fish really had some shoulders.  Great way to get my catfish season started.  I spent most of the rest of the early evening hours in this general area.  I didn’t run into any more fish, but I sure enjoyed the warm breeze and the serenity that a day on the river brings me.

With maybe a couple of hours of daylight left, I headed down to the bridge to fish off of the pylons.  I don’t love fishing around the bridge because people tend to yell at you from their cars.  I used to answer them, figuring that they wanted to know how the fishing was.  It didn’t take long to realize that they were making fun of me.  I get cursed at, called racial slurs, you name it.  Mort and I call them “the hecklers.”  I’ve learned to just wear my headphones when I’m around the bridge these days.  Whether my iPod is on or not, if someone is trying to get my attention I can just point at the headphones in my ears and shake my head.  Anyway, last night I tucked in close enough to the bridge that people couldn’t see me from up above.  I cranked the iPod just in case.  Sitting there waiting for a bite, I remembered the temperature sensor.  I tied a couple of bell sinkers to it so that it would sink.  As soon as I saw what I had done, I nicknamed this little device “Twig and Berries.”  I’ll let you figure out why.

Here’s the goofy thing about this picture.  I took about 100 shots of this thing to get just the right angle and completely forgot that I was fishing for a little while.  My headphones weren’t helping matters.  When I finally looked up, the rod on the right made a couple of hops.  I grabbed it and set the hook, but completely whiffed.  I couldn’t even feel the weight of my line and sinker.  I was totally confused.  A closer look showed me that the line was under the boat.  This sometimes happens when you come off anchor.  You end up drifting right over the top of your bait.  A look around told me that this hadn’t happened.  I reeled up and eventually realized that a fish had picked up the cut sucker and swam up river.  I got a medium sized pike to the surface just before it shook its head and dove back to the depths.  A bonus fish. I’d take it.

With only one channel in the boat after 14 hours of fishing, I had all but written them off.  I was enjoying myself anyway, so I decided to stay until after dark and fish the hole and flats down river from the bridge.  I set anchor over 10 feet of water a stone’s throw down from the bridge and dropped my baits.  With my headphones still blaring, I went to the front of the boat to dig my headlamp out of my backpack.  When I turned back towards the back of the boat, that rod on the right was bouncing like Hayden after she drinks one of those mochas from McDonald’s.  I set the hook and quickly pulled up a smaller channel.  Maybe there would be a night bite after all.  And maybe I should keep getting distracted.  It seemed to improve the fishing.

There was a night bite.  I had steady action.  I hauled in a 5-pounder and almost had a double when the second rod folded hard a couple of times as I was fighting the first fish.  I missed on the hookset.  After awhile, the bites turned into one hit wonders.  All three rods were getting tapped, but never more than one little bump at a time and nothing was grabbing on.  I finally decided to pack it in and head home for one of those short, fitful nights of sleep that always follow a night on the river.

Here’s what I learned on my first day out:  Channel cats will bite in 50-degree water, but you’ve got to work hard for them.  You absolutely can see no-see-ems.  Pike like a little cut sucker now and then.  If you fish across the river from a gun club, you can expect your serenity to be shattered by the thunderous report of a high powered rifle.  Diving into the bottom of the boat is perfectly acceptable.  Tying two sinkers to a temperature sensor looks hilarious.  That steak house on Northland Drive smells awesome after you’ve been in a boat all day.  Setting the hook with your finger resting on the braided line with a light drag can give you a pretty good cut.  If I like it, then I better put a ring on it (courtesy of one of Michelle’s workout songs sneaking onto my iPod).  Facing west all day will give you sunburn on the left side of your face while leaving the right side pasty white.  You, in fact, can write a blog entry on April 1 without making some lame April Fool's joke.  A .5 fish per hour average can still feel like a good day.  And most importantly, I realized that nothing (fishing-wise . . . settle down) can come close to my love for catfishing on the river.

Rookie Efforts

Our oldest child, the girl, was a colicky baby.  This only helped cement my transition into a nighttime cat guy.  If she was awake, she was crying.  I couldn't really leave the wife to fish knowing that she was dealing with this misery.  I also couldn't just stop fishing.  I worked it out.  I'd stop by the bait shop on the way home from work and load up on sucker minnows and shiners.  I'd put them on an aerator when I got home and then wade into the insane life of a parent with a baby that never stops crying.

We'd finally get her to sleep sometime in the late evening hours and I'd tiptoe out to my Jeep and sneak up to my dad's to get the boat.  The drive to my parents' is about 25 minutes, but they live within 5 minutes of the launch.  I can generally be on the water within an hour of leaving my house.  Often times back then, I was launching just at dark or even after dark.  For this reason I stuck to the area of water close to the launch.  I didn't quite feel confident enough to run the river in the pitch dark and I was getting a lot of worry and warning from my family about fishing alone at night.  I actually got into a lot of fish in this initial area, so I was okay with sticking close to home.

Here's a description.  The water is quite shallow immediately off of the launch.  In the summer when the water is low, we actually have to keep the motor up and use a pole to get to a deeper channel on the other side of the river.  Immediately down river is a small island and the mouth of a smaller river.  During high water conditions, this little area just up from and against the island is a good place to fish for channel cats and other common river fish.  It's off of the main channel, so when most of the river is unfishable, this is a comparably calm spot where the water slows and pools.  There's also some decent wood that is stacked up.  Most of the year it is out of the water, but when we get a lot of rain this turns into prime channel habitat.

The island that I mentioned forms a natural bottle neck in the river, so the channel immediately across from the launch can be productive.  I've caught some nice flatheads in this channel in the early summers.  That bottle neck funnels them right to you.

Just up river is a bridge.  Below the bridge the water ranges from about 8-10 feet.  Most of the area between the bridge and the launch runs 5-7 feet.  We call this the flats.

Just up from the bridge is a pretty big hole that gets up to about 10 feet.  It holds a lot of channels and an occasional flathead.  I've caught some of my biggest fish out of here.

This area around the bridge and launch is where I spent most of my first couple of  years cattin'.  The general set up was to use two 7' spinning rods with medium sized Shimano spinning reels.  Bass gear.  I'd turn the driver seat around and lean the two rods against the back bench.  I'm pretty sure that I just used split shot and a hook.  I hadn't yet discovered the slip rig.  I was experimenting with hooks.  I used a lot of treble hooks, especially for cut bait.  My dad had bought a Mustad catfish hook kit, so I tried the various hooks in there.  I know that I liked the Kahle hook immediately.  I felt like I was sticking the fish pretty regularly with this wide gapped hook.

Most of the time, I'd put out one live minnow and then put half a cut minnow on the other rod.  I liked to start in the hole just under the bridge and then simply pick up the anchor every so often and allow the river to drop me back to a new spot.  I think that this worked out well because it put me onto the flat in the later hours when the channels and flatheads were out cruising.  I don't do this anymore, but I would spend my hours of waiting reading a novel.  I'd turn the old headlamp on and lose myself in some crime story.  I'd look up at my rods occasionally, but I pretty much depended on being able to hear them as the fish pulled them over and then I'd grab them before they went into the drink.  It's a wonder I didn't drown any of those rods. 

The cats sure gave me a good fight on that bass gear.  The channels would race all over the river, pulling drag, and sometimes coming to the surface.  The big flatheads would usually pretty much own me.  I've had them swim past the boat and head right up river.  I even had one break one of those spinning rods.  I tried to horse him in the current and my gear wasn't up to the task.  I sure wasn't sophisticated in those days, but I did learn a lot.  I would soon begin specializing my gear, figuring out bait, and venturing out to see what I could drag out of those snaggy holes.