Knowing the smallmouth were probably in a bit of spawning funk and with two nights to fish I stopped and loaded up on nightcrawlers. It's the magic time of year for catfish. And that's pretty much how it worked out. I caught maybe 15 smallmouth in three days of hard fishing. Including this guy who looked like he had healed up from a run in with a great blue heron.
I also caught a pretty saugfish on a grub.
All the first evening I kept catching more catfish than bass on lures. It was looking like something special was going on with the catfish. That evening I fished with nightcrawlers as I enjoyed the campfire. At times small channels were hitting the worms almost like bluegills. Most were the size of those little guys you get on a plate fried whole down south at the all you can eat places. But a few were really nice. I also caught a great big carp on the crawlers.
The next day I would catch an even bigger carp that I didn't get a photo of. Wading, fishing the head of a riffle casting a hair jig I hooked into a freight train. What is this I thought. It's spooling me that's what it is. I waded after it as fast as I can. Down the riffle it went. The line went under a tree and thru the weeds. Somehow the line held. I began to run. Splat! flat on my face in six inches of water. And the line held. When I landed it I was a hundred yards away from my pack that held the camera. And way to whipped to get it for a photo.
That second day I began fishing hair jigs tipped with a bit of nightcrawler. I'd tied a couple hundred of these over the winter to smallie fish with but the catfish couldn't stay off them. I'm not going to put a number on how many catfish I caught on the jig and crawler combo because I don't want to be branded a liar but it was a lot. Mostly channel cats but over the three days I caught ten shovelheads also. It just goes to show how complicated the river is and how little we know. It seems ever catfish in the river was doing it's best to wear out my tackle
I find if I camp for any length of time on the river I begin to see just how little we know about how things really are. Safe at home, it's easy to make broad statements and know it all. Things like. "Well there's crayfish in the river and smallmouth eat crayfish so fish crayfish imitations". But in real life, out in the real world, I find my mind filled with unanswered questions. What are those bugs hovering over the stream in a cloud? What are those dimples midstream? Are they chubs or shiners or something else? And those tiny mud colored commas, are they tadpoles? Camped along the river I find first a dozen things that might affect the fishing. Then a hundred, then my mind reels under the realization there might be thousands.
I know that two different energy sources mostly feed the web of life found in my river, terrestrial plant detritus (dead leaves, bits of wood, associated fungi washed into the river from the land) and algae attached to the rocks in the river. I read once there are over a thousand types of algae in the Little Miami alone. That energy thru a gazzilion different pathways ends up becoming smallmouth bass and catfish. If I ever find myself hot and tired and just a little bored along the river I try to slow down and picture this process. Maybe turn over a few rocks or look closely at the stems of some underwater plants and just look at all the things we see everyday and take for granted. Almost every single thing along the river is amazing if we take the time to contemplate it's hows and whys.
If camping on the river shows us how little we know it also inserts into that world, at least for a while. For a few days our little fire ring becomes a capital for our new found kingdom. Camp is our Pequod from which we lower away each day to chase our own personal white whales. Every morning we sally forth to new adventure and retreat to the safety of firelight every night.
But the longer I stay at a place the less strange the night. As I fish thru twilight into darkness the landscape becomes less imposing and more familiar after a few days. Indeed after a couple days of spending all day every day at one camp and one stretch of river, it becomes at least temporarily a home of sorts. Then the night, so daunting just a day or so before becomes a new adventure. Big fish stir. Shallow pools, vacant of life during the day, fill with life. I jump, scared silly, as huge fish spook out of the shallows at my approach.
I begin to know the river in a way the day fisherman never will. The small tent, the fire ring, the log that serves as both table and chair, all stake a more serious claim to the river. Till finally, stinking
of mud and fish, I stagger home sunburned, happy, and bugbit. Only to find my own bed feels a little strange at first.
Camped, I begin to realize this one place is many. Like any beautiful woman the river is full of mystery and changes moment to moment. The lovely clarity of morning light gives way to the glaring mid day sun. Which in turn then softens into the sensual forgiving light of a long evening. All to then be covered by the blanket of night. Sound, like the light, changes. The refrain of bird noise that greets the sunrise ends mid morning without our somehow noticing. Till we hear the first calls of evening followed by the trills of frogs as the shadows of night come slipping thru the trees.
If I'm there. On the river a while, more than a day, I find myself doing what the other animals do, spending a lot of time sitting and watching. Seeing things as they really are before we change them simply by blundering thru oblivious.
Then after catching a fine fish this way somehow it means more. You have insinuated yourself at least partially into the environment. And catching something using wit and reason rather than just pounding the fish into submission with cast after cast. Or at least I like to think so. After catching a couple good fish you begin to feel you are a crafty bastard. Sometimes it's even true.
Camped, I find the earliest religions, the Druids and the Native Americans concept of us all being part of a greater whole in nature makes sense. Out here more than our modern religions do. I once described a section of a small river I like to a friend. And then added that about a half mile wade upstream is where God lives. I was only half kidding.
I do not often keep fish. But once or twice a year while camped on the river I will. Evening will be approaching and the fish god will offer a channel catfish or a good saugeye. Fishing is at it's essence a predatory act. Only recently have we had the luxury of turning fish loose. Those few fish baked by the fire make the circle of life a reality and not just an intellectual exercise. I find myself looking into the darkness and unselfconsciously thanking the river.
When it comes to the actual camping while out fishing I'll admit I'm not much of a camper. I have a backpacking water filter and a ziplock bag with a little firestarting kit stowed in my pack. If the weathers going to cooperate I'm likely to spend the night out with just that and a bit of something to eat. I have a harmless habit of being okay wherever I am. So if no rain is on the horizon, a bit of soft ground, a jacket to lie on, and a small fire are all the shelter I need. I know for a lot of people having the right equipment is all part of the enjoyment. For me too much equipment becomes an anchor weighing me down. If it's going to rain a ultralight tent made for backpacking is often all I'll use. I think it's called a bivy to differentiate it from a real tent.
“The secret of happiness, you see, is not found in seeking more, but in developing the capacity to enjoy less.”
Socrates 469 BC
Finally wore out and smelling like roadkill I reluctantly left.
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