A whole day free. The wife had to work, no babysitting chores, I knew exactly where I wanted to spend it. There's this hole you see where the river makes a sharp turn digging a nice hole then a riffle and a long slow hole. It's one of the most consistent fish producing spots I know. You can allmost count on catching at least a half dozen bass every time you go there, I'd even caught a couple big catfish there on lures while bass fishing. The hole has one more thing going for it, it's really not that easy to get to. You have to walk a hundred fifty yards down a dry creek bed and then the hole fishes best from the far side so you have to wade the river above to do it right. I've never seen someone else fishing there during the day much less at night, so that's where I headed.
I got there early afternoon and took my time, gathered enough firewood for a nice fire and set up a nice little basecamp. I'd packed in a few special things too. A couple empty 2 liter pop bottles, some strong nylon rope, and a handfull of big 5/0 hooks. The makings of a trot line. Plus the two big baitcasting rods. You know the ones with the clickers and star drags, big enough to handle the fish you dream of catching , not the ones you actually do catch.
I then went to work, fishing worms on my light spinning rod and soon had a couple drum and a pumpkinseed for bait. I tied each two liter to heavy rocks with enough slack to let them float about chest deep and sunk them about 40 yards apart just below the rock bar where the hole first gets deep. Then I stretched nylon cord between the two bottles with a half dozen of the big 5/0 hooks on droppers spaced out evenly. I baited these with cut pieces of drum and the punpkinseed and as a finishing touch blew up and tied two balloons as floats along the main line. It was beautiful. I was sure would catch a giant. With a couple hours left till dark I then hid the two baitcasters up in the bushes and began lure fishing upstream thru the faster water with my spinning rod.
The bass fishing was fabulous, by dark I'd probably landed a dozen bass along with a couple more drum on a smoke metalflake grub. I then built a fire, changed into dry shoes, put on a flannel shirt and threw out the baitcasting rods to wait on a big catfish. The word wait should probably be followed by a couple lines that are just blank to convey more of the meaning of the word as the wait for a big catfish to bite can sometimes be epic. Every half hour or so another drum would hit just to keep things interesting. Plus two softshell turtles, one small and cute and one big enough to make me be extra carefull not to get withing range of that beaklike mouth. Sometime in the middle of the night I heard a tremendous splashing in the direction of the trot line. Grabbing the flashlight I got there just in time to see a very big fish roll once on the dropper baited with the pumpkinseed. Then before I could wade in to land it, the line went quiet. Two quiet, the big cat had come loose and gotten off. I had two nice runs on the rods but came up empty with the bait gone so I put on a nightcrawler trying to catch some smaller drum for bait. After a few minutes the line tore off in a rush and I was fast into a nice carp.
But no catfish, at dawn the score was 10 drum, 1 carp, 1 small gar, and a grand total of zero catfish. On both sides of me owls cried during the night. First the eerie unworldy cries of a screech owl then the familiar cry of a barred owl. I hooted back at the barred owl and he flew closer calling out off and on all during the night. At dawn I moved up above the riffle to the smaller hole above. Instantly a drum was on and they bit as fast as could rebait for about an hour. I even managed to catch a decent smallmouth on a nightcrawler fished on the bottom. I think I was even more surprised than he was.
Finally I went back downriver, took up the trot line, gathered my things and waded the river and headed up to the creek that was my way out. Just then a great fish broke water above me. Not in that way that big carp breech but in a huge tail slapping roll. It looked gigantic. Sneaking slowly up the bank, I crept up behind a weed bed and peeked over the bank. In the shallows were eight or ten big fish. Carp I thought, but they didn't look just right. Carp in the river are a gracefull streamlined fish and these were stockier rounder fish. I watched for a bit then it hit me. Buffalo! The world record is 88 pounds though much larger ones have been caught by comercial fishermen. I think the state record is a bit under fifty pounds. In this pod of fish there were two that were very big. I'd never caught a big one and am no person to judge their size but the largest looked a bit shorter than the 37lb carp I'd caught earlier in the year and at least as broad across the back. Since buffalo are a rounder, deeper bellied fish this was a very big fish. The water here was shallow and clear. The fish would spook if I made much commotion at all, so I hooked on a nightcrawler on an unweighted hook and crept forward behind the tall weeds. After a minute or two one of the big fish and a smaller one swam my way. I cast the worm out ahead of them and waited. They both swam right over the bait and the line twitched and began to move. I set the hook and was fast into a fish...the smaller one of course. Not that he was small, I guess around ten pounds but by the time I landed him in the shallow water every fish had left the pool. All in all a very fine fishing trip.
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