The old jon boat I kept chained to a tree. I unlocked it and drug it the seventy yards or so down to the river and began to unload my stuff from the truck. Trolling motor and battery, food and water filter, two rods, a tarp, some nylon rope, a minnow seine, bucket, and the old pack with everything else stuffed inside. An hour later I was where I wanted to be. The jon boat beached on a rock bar, not a house in sight, the only sound that of the river.
Camp was simple and quickly made, The tarp strung lean-to fashion between two trees, everything piled underneath and a pile of driftwood gathered from up and down the rock bar for the fire.
The river itself was up just a bit and off color. Not enough to be unfishable, just not perfect. I waded in and began fishing. Here the water isn't one of those stretches where you can just get in and wade all day. Instead there are three or four specific spots and you fish each slowly. Dissecting each completely with a variety of tactics before moving on to the next. But this was water that had produced in the past some very fine fish and was well worth the effort. The fishing was slow with the heat and the muddy water. I caught a few fish though, some small bass and a good channel cat that hammered a willow leaf spinnerbait. About an hour before dark a pretty good smallie thumped a four inch clear with gold flake grub. It was a fine fish, fat and pretty with a ragged tail. I don't know really how long, I quit measuring all but the very biggest fish a year or two ago. Does it really matter that a fish was 17" or 18"? Does it make it worth less than an 18" if it was 17"? I think I'm pretty close to leaving the tape measure at home for good, there's more to fishing for me than keeping score. After snapping a photo and releasing the fish I headed back to camp. I gathered the seine and bucket and headed up stream to a small channel behind an island. I seined a few shiners and two darters which I admired for a second before letting go. The shiners went into the bucket for the nights fishing.
Behind the rock bar was an old overgrown tractor path leading back thru a grove of very big sycamores. Once I walked in a hundred yards or so you could hear high in a sycamore tree the cries of great blue heron chicks hollering to be fed. I imagine they are getting pretty big by now but I couldn't find them in the treetops without wading thru a sea of nettles to get below the rookery. I could see parents coming and going every now and then. A few more steps and I spooked a doe that had wandered out into the tractor path while I stood still watching the birds. She bounded off with her tail bright in the darkening woods. I headed back to the river.
I threw out a shiner on one rod. The bail open with a small flat pebble on the line to keep it from coming off the spool but a fish could yank free.
Back at camp, I filtered water into a bottle and started the fire. It was a fine night. Across the river thousands of lighting bugs began flashing on and off. It was more fireflies than I've ever seen. I wandered down to the waters edge and sat on a log. It looked like to entire opposite river bank was covered in Christmas lights flashing on and off. I sat for a long time just watching and listening to the river. Finally I wandered back to camp in the dark and dug out my headlamp by the glow of the dying fire.
I walked down to find a decent channel had taken the bait. I unhooked the fish and carried it back up to the rock bar to clean it. I sprinkled the fillets with some pepper and spices from a zip lock bag and wrapped them in heavy duty aluminum foil. Cooked over the coals from the fire it made a grand feast. I caught and released several more channels thru the night.
The next morning I fished for a couple hours till the sun got above the trees and the heat began to set in again. I caught a few more smaller bass and a small shovelhead on the gold grub. All in all it was a fine trip.
No comments:
Post a Comment