River Fishing with Andy and Denise

May 01, 2012

River Fishing with Andy and Denise

Andy and I like to think there's nothing better than going out fishing; catching enough to eat; cleaning and filleting them and frying them for supper that night. Fried catfish, hush puppies and slaw sitting at the picnic table with the river beside us just can't be beat!

Hush puppies, catfish in the middle and crappie on the right.

Since it was "supposed" to rain Friday, we ended up going down on Saturday. We finally brought our "new to us" fishing boat down. I'd had enough of dock fishing and now that the water was up to summer pool, I couldn't wait to get out and fish the banks of the Elk River. Andy got rid of Darla, our trusty little fishing and log pulling boat over the winter. She was a good one, but when either of us shifted, that tipping sensation just about got to me. I must have some weird inner ear thing going on, who knows?

Darla's gonna bring a lot of fun to her new owner.

Our unnamed new boat was a blast. This one is definitely a keeper. No matter what you did, it didn't rock. That's probably a good thing where I'm concerned, because I get ten kinds of excited when I have one on the line.

Saturday was kind of a wash, as this was just the second time we'd stayed this Spring and Andy still had a lot of work to finish on the lift before we could even put the boat in the water.

We got out early Sunday morning. If you are on the river, you know a few minutes after 6 AM the fishing boats are running wide open out of Sportsman's Park for tournament fishing. Nobody I know can sleep through that.

Sunrise looking to the east from our "Rocking Chair" landing.

Fishing with Bologna
As we were getting stuff together for the day, I noticed I had left a piece of 1/4" thick bologna from our last stay. (Perfect for fried bologna sandwiches) I asked Andy if he thought I could catch a catfish with the old bologna. My thoughts were if they'd eat nasty livers, why not some really good German bologna? He kind of laughed it off. I threw it in the iced down worm cooler as the ace up my sleeve. We headed out and I started fishing with worms and Andy went with minnows. We made adjustments to how deep we were fishing and finally, Andy caught a pretty nice catfish and we starting thinking about how good the fish was going to taste that night. I was having no luck at all. So, I got the bright idea to reel my line in and add a chunk of bologna to the hook. Lo and behold, I caught one immediately and that sucker was RIGHT! That fish gave me a pretty good bit of fun bringing him in. Since our net was on the pontoon boat back at home...I was relying on Andy to help me get it in the boat. I will take any fish off a hook...except a catfish. They scare me half to death. They can HURT you!

Image Source: Proper way to tie a hook

Now, when Andy and I started fishing, he taught me how he tied a hook; plus he has one other little knot he tied to secure it even more. Well, I never did master step two. When he picked that catfish up, it literally dropped off in the boat (thank God!) and all that was on the end of the line was a curled up piece of line. Needless to say, that won't happen again.

As many hooks as I've hung in logs that took an unbelievable amount of pressure to release, I couldn't believe I just about messed up and could have ended up with a "one that got away" story on my hands.

Step two is to make a loop, run the hook through and carefully slid the knot up the shank of the hook so that it stops right below the eye of the hook.

Squirrel fishing
Andy started catching a few Crappie and we were satisfied we had enough fish for supper that night.My luck was running out and all I could think about is this one spot we caught a 7 and 10 lb. catfish in.

Andy had his hands full with this 7 and 10 lb. catch! He's 6 feet tall...to help put these fish in perspective.

He knew I wasn't going to be a happy fisher until we fished that area. We arrived at our destination and the air was still. We both cast and the wind got up a little. The best spots to fish in always have limbs hanging over the water. Next thing I knew Andy was squirrel fishing...and I unfortunately joined him just a few seconds later. (To the un-inititated; that means our hooks, line and sinker got caught up in a tree.) I was carefully trying to pull my line down when I felt a sting in my upper right shoulder. I reached around and felt a hook! Luckily the whole barb hadn't sunk in. I told my husband, in as kind of words as possible, that he'd already caught me once, what was he trying to do?

It was at that point we decided to pack it in for the day and clean some fish. We had enough for Sunday night and froze the rest for another day.

The rest is history....