After Work Fishing
On my drive home from work yesterday I felt an urgent need to go fishing. I told myself there was a lot of work to do at home and I should catch up on those jobs before hitting the water…but by the time I walked into the house I knew where I was heading. I quickly looked after the horses and gathered up the fishing gear.
By the time Darrell got home the rods and tackle were sitting on the front porch and we only had to throw the canoe in the truck and go.
It was a quick walk from the truck, down the trail, to the river (at least it was for me, I wasn’t the one carrying the canoe!). The water level had dropped since we were last there a week ago and was much slower. Knowing we only had a few hours before dark we quickly climbed into the canoe and set out.
The first catch of the night
Only two casts in and Darrell managed to hook into a decent brown trout. It took me a few lure changes and many more casts but I finally hooked into a brown of my own a little while later. We had quite a few hits but didn’t have the best gear for catching the browns that night – we would have been far more successful if we had brought our fly rods. We watched them surfacing on the hatch everywhere.
There is some amazing scenery on this stretch of the river.
The canoe enabled us to get into stretches of the river we can’t normally reach. The views are stunning and the rock faces are awe-inspiring. I spent of a lot of time looking around at the rock walls instead of focusing on my retrieve.
The advantage of having two people in the canoe is one gets to sit up front and take pictures and enjoy the view, while the other is stuck in the back having to steer . Darrell's always in the back seat.
When we reached the waterfall and the fast water I decided to throw on a crankbait. I had heard some good-sized walleye are in the area and I was looking to land one. I took a few casts into the fast water before deciding to throw my lure into an eddy…and wham…fish on! Instead of the walleye I was looking for I found an incredibly ticked-off smallmouth bass on my line. They just don’t realize their season doesn’t open until Saturday!
My first smallie of the night. Darrell had to grab it because I couldn't get it near enough to the canoe for me to reach. My balance, while never great, is even worse in a canoe and I didn't feel like twisting around too much to grab the fish.
After a quick picture and a release, Darrell moved us back up to the waterfall to try it all over again. And again I had a solid bite and found another acrobatic smallie on my line. This one put in a few jumps before letting me grab it. They may not have been the biggest smallies, but catching them made me pretty darn happy.
It turned out to be an absolutely awesome night, the kind we rarely get to have during the work week. It just goes to show that every now and then we need to cast off the responsibilities for a night and just enjoy ourselves. Fresh air, the outdoors, time on the water, and catching fish…it’s hard to beat.
argosgirl
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I’ve grown to love the before/after/lunchtime fishing trips over the past few years as it’s gotten much harder to just blow off a whole day to fish. Sounds like a great night out to me!
That’s exactly what I’ve been finding…there’s so much to do that it’s hard to get a whole day for fishing…but even a short trip makes for a great time…I should try the lunchtime trip at some point 🙂