No good deed goes unpunished....

I really needed to go fishing. But the rivers and streams as everyone knows are up and visibility is zero. What to do? Catch some channel cats of course! A baitholder hook, a splitshot 8 inches up the line and a tub of chicken liver. The river looked about as bad as I've ever seen it and I was thinking this was a horrible idea. But a few big handfuls of ripe razzberries convinced me being outside wasn't too bad of an idea. Then, bump, bump, and a small channel cat was swung up out of a muddy eddy. Hey maybe this isn't such a terrible idea. I mean if the fish didn't bite in muddy water this year they would have all starved to death weeks ago. I ended up catching a half dozen channels and in a deep eddy close to main current a pretty nice hybrid decided it wanted some liver too. I rested the spot where the hybrid ate about a half an hour and came back with a big curly shad on a jig head. 15 casts later a dandy hybrid hammered it almost right under the rod tip. It streaked out into the swollen main current where I had a heck of a time turning it. Then it got tangled up in a stick floating downstream and towed that around for thirty seconds before finally getting free of the snag and I was able to beach it. 20 minutes later thunder was rumbling loud and the sky was jet black. I decided to head back for the car. Too late. I got absolutely punished. It turns out frog togs will only keep out so much rain. I guess they are water resistant instead of water proof. I know that by the time I got back to the car I'd have felt drier if I'd simply jumped in the river. Enough rain had run down my legs into my rubber boots that back home on the porch I'd turn them up and pour a cup or two of water out of each boot. It was a pretty eventful trip for a flooded muddy river!