Old Man River

I took an unforeseen bonus canoe trip down the local river again on Saturday. It was Chief Many Little Bottles' 50th Birthday and everyone has been so busy not much celebrating had gotten planned. On Friday afternoon, I struck a deal with my wonderful bride regarding parenting duties for Saturday, made some phone calls, and set up a river trip for Saturday. Chief MLB, Captain Karkov, and the Professor joined me for the float.

We met up in the morning and got my vehicle shuttled to the takeout. It was another beautiful, warm, sunny day. We floated the river, ran some rapids, and fished continuously. The river, once again, did not disappoint. We caught many smallmouth bass, a few northern pike, a couple walleyes, and a couple channel catfish. I caught four bass that were bigger than I had ever seen on the river before, and man do bass that are in current fight. There were a couple other anglers on the river, and even a big group of people camped on a grassy peninsula, but overall, the river was very quiet again. We stopped at a rocky spit near the takeout and shared a growler of Brewhouse Starfire Pale Ale-a great end to a great day in celebration of a great guy's 50th Birthday.

It started to rain just as we packed up the truck.

Nature Moment: This trip reminded my that this particular stretch of river has an unusually high population of bald eagles. They are often sitting in the trees overlooking the river, and because the river is small, narrow, and curvy, you often get very close to them before they fly off. Up close you realize how big and powerful they really are.

Rolling Down the River

Officer Friendly and I took a day trip down a local river on Monday. This trip has become an annual event sometime around the Fourth of July. In the morning, we shuttled Officer's car to the takeout point and then put the canoe in upstream. We floated down the river, casting a tiny torpedo and jigs as went. Officer caught several smallmouth bass on the surface bait. We anchored in a few deeper holes, catching several more bass. We ran a few small rapids and and pushed through some shallow riffles. We stopped for lunch at the pool beneath the biggest rapids. The best fishing was there-we caught bass as soon as we could get our line back in the water. The average size is small, but there were some decent ones mixed in. I did some experimenting with Gulp! Alive leeches versus real leeches. The Gulp! Alive did just as well as the real thing, even when just hanging below a bobber. This is the first time it has really worked well. The big issue is that it doesn't stay on the hook any better than real leeches, and the Gulp! Alive leeches are much more expensive. After eating sandwiches from Northern Waters Smokehaus, the world's greatest eatery (www.nwsmokehaus.com) we continued on our way, taking in a beautiful sunny day as we went. We caught many more bass, ran a few more rapids, and enjoyed the day. On the final hole before the takeout, I finally caught something other than a bass-a walleye and a channel catfish. Both fish came on Gulp! twister tails. On the final stretch of river it clouded over and began to rain. We re-shuttled the cars, loaded up the gear and headed home just before dusk. We covered just under six miles of river. Another very good trip.

Nature Moment: A mama merganser and her brood of ten ducklings met up with us on the first section of the river we paddled and basically followed us downriver for most of the trip. They would pass us when anchored to fish, and we would pass them when we shooting rapids or paddling through shallow sections. They kept going downstream when we reached the takeout. We also saw eagles and a hawk that had caught some type of rodent.