Rule #1:  The most important thing is God.
Rule #2:  The most important thing is family.  Figure that out--it's the most important thing. 

Wednesday, 5/28/2014

I went fishing this past Monday: It was one of those days that just couldn't make up its mind.  Over three hours, there were two downpours, and about 45 minutes of high blue skies!  The wind blew consistently, but the direction was nearly impossible to predict.  At one moment, I'd be casting with a good stiff breeze behind me and the light lures I was tossing would fairly shoot off the rod.  The next cast would be directly into the wind, and I'd be lucky to get ten or 15 feet from shore.

I started at the lone Sycamore tree where I left off last time, and as usual, made my way upstream.  I tossed the same lure I had on when I left that spot: a 1/8 oz. Beetle-Spin type lure with a pink head and 1 1/2" or 2" curly-tailed pumpkinseed body.

Nothing.

And that's surprising.  That lure will, at the least, usually get a small bluegill or rock bass to strike.  So, I thought, maybe something with a little more flash, and I threw a #1 Panther Martin in a black body with the gold blade.

Again, nothing.

Actually, less than nothing.  I snagged that lure and couldn't get it free, I had to eventually break off . . . and you know how I hate that!  I would have gone in after it, but it caught onto something in a deep pool (Deep for the White River, in this case was about 5 feet deep.  Doesn't sound like much, but I have made that walk back to the truck in totally wet clothes too many times in my youth.  It has lost its allure--hah!)  So, I did the smart thing and clipped off my line.

Next, I tried a Rebel Tiny Craw.  About 1 1/2" and maybe 1/8 oz., this can be an effective lure.  But not today.  The Tiny Craw is meant to imitate a crawdad trying to escape predators.  It seems to be neutrallly bouyant, and a quick crank or two will bring it down to the bottom.  It "digs" through the mud and muck, bouncing off rocks well, and leaving a good clear trail.  The only problem I have with this tiny crankbait is the same I have with others of its size, the hooks become tangled with each other or they get tangled with the line.  I would say one of every four or five casts resulted in some sort of tangle.  I have heard that trimming two of the treble hooks from the front set will cure this.  I've thought of taking the front hook off completely and replacing the back hook with a larger treble, maybe red.

The next 1/4 mile or so of the river is extremely shallow, wide, with almost no ripple areas to produce oxygen in the water, and very few deeper pools.  There are fish in these shallow runs, but they're almost all very small and kind of spooky.  Also, the bank is pretty high here, and it's hard to get close to the water--so I had to cast from well above the water and that makes the retrieve steep and keeps the lure from running naturally.

I finished the day when I caught my only fish--a smallmouth bass, maybe 5" long.  Wonderful.

Imagine my pride.  Go ahead, and yes, it is as small as it appears.


Sometimes you fish and can't do anything right.  Your casts go astray and end up in the TOPS of trees, you snag every expensive lure you've brought with you, you can't manage to tie a decent knot, you lose every fish that hits--most right at the bank or beside the boat.  And you know after a very few minutes that nothing good is going to come of your efforts.  I have actually quit a fishing day after 10 or 15 minutes, because I could tell that everything was going to go to hell!

And then, sometimes, like today, you fight through the feeling and stick with it to the end.  Sometimes, you can just take enjoyment from your surroundings, the trees, the waterfowl, the river itself.  Today, though, as I walked through innumerable piles of goose shit, and listened to the traffic above me, I struggled to find deeper meaning in my day . . . to say the least.

The sad thing is that the section of the river I face next is dreadfully shallow, wide, and slow-moving.  At least until I get another third of a mile behind me, there is really no discernibly "fishy" water.

Yeah, that sucks, but still, I'm fishing!