The stars aligned, the weather was decent and the river was perfect. Time to go fishing… not some fishing show. For years I used to wonder why people went to these fishing shows mid winter when the local waters were fishable. When the striped bass action was at its peak in early 2000’s, it was like shooting fish in the barrel at the local power plants all winter long. Not so much anymore but we would often poke fun at the people that didn’t fish to go buy a few lures or hear someone spew bull sh!t. Sometimes though, if it’s someone you really want to meet, or talk to, well, then you gotta go. But even then, you need to get them drunk so they tell you all their secrets they didn’t tell everyone else. I’ve successfully and unsuccessfully tried that before, you’d be surprised. It always works some of the time.
Anyway, John C and I hit the River in what I like to call “Ground Zero” area, right smack in the middle of the highest concentrations of musky in my opinion. We played around with the idea of Power Plant fishing but with the big winds on Saturday, most everything was too muddy, all except the main bay and our boats are not up for the run there. A friend is getting into multiple 40-50” fish per trip all while casting light tackle at one certain power plant now but it’s a long run in big water to get there and you have to go at night. Once upon a time maybe… So John and I get to the preferred ramp and mud, over 3 inches thick is covering it over 30 feet up the ramp from the river. Remember my 4x4 is on the fritz. But when we got there in the morning it was frozen and John also drove his Silverado. No problem, that thing could pull an 18 wheeler out of this ramp I thought. He’ll just pull me out later if I need it when this stuff thaws. I had no problem launching, the mud was rock hard. We had 21 degree reading on Johns truck. We fished hard all morning. Never taking a break, never sitting down. Maybe it was just too cold? We did however spend sometime studying the stonefly hatch. It was epic. Thousands upon thousands of nymphs up to a size #12 were squirming in the surface film trying to get to shore. We made some video with John’s camera. That kind of thing is interesting to us fly fishermen, even though we didn’t see a rise all day. John told me how it’s a common theory how the origin of the evolution of flight started with the stonefly. Something to do with how stoneflies could successfully use only one wing if the other three are damaged, to flutter or sail across the river’s surface towards shore. From shore they climb the first tall tree or branch and take flight to mate, lay eggs and die. How were the exothermic bugs not too cold to hatch but the fish were far too cold to feed? How did the bugs know in the morning it was going to be a nice day? What if a cold snap hit and killed them all? It must be advantageous to hatch in the mid winter like this while all the predators are too cold to feed on them. I’d suspect they wouldn’t last a second in the summer.
John and I were basically skunked. No follows, nothing and it was near 1pm and John had to be at work at 3. We pushed the envelope, fished till 1:15 and I knew we would still have problems at the ramp. Another friend was supposed to come and possibly meet me down river but he was a no show. Well, sure enough I drive down to the ramp and can’t even turn my wheels, headed straight off the ramp towards the river. Not good. John had to physically push me out and somehow managed to do it. Then we switch the trailer to his truck, Z71, with every option, but also wide profile street type tires that have 50,000 miles on them. Sure enough, here goes John flying down the ramp as cops are incapable of driving slow. I yell at him to slow down and not go beyond dry land as I won’t be able to pull him out past my 20’ pull rope. He tries to stop…..too late, we’re done. He’s stuck. There’s no way I’m manually pushing a full size truck on my own. My rear wheels were still just barely on clean pavement and I reversed and somehow pulled him out. If he would have gone another few feet, he’d be swimming for sure. Me too I might add. So, now what? I have to float down to the next ramp and call a cab when I get there. Where’s the nearest taxi company? Not close, put it that way. Oh well, always wanted to see what was around that next bend, don’t have anything to do until 730 dinner plans with the family.
I quickly worked past the areas John and I worked but did spend sometime at the last spot. It’s perfect, on an inside bend, deep water near shore and very deep fast water mid river with that perfect shore eddy. We worked it hard. John even said, “this looks perfect.” I thought about what we already tried. I crossed gliders, spinner baits, bull dawgs and crank baits off the list. I need a different presentation. So I started throwing a large chatter bait, with a 6 inch shad as a trailer. It seemed right, could comfortably touch bottom and the wobble from the blade sent pulses through the rod handle like a miniature jack hammer. This thing should get noticed. No sooner did I take my second cast in the house size eddy did Mrs. Big rise from the deep and inhale my lure a few feet from the boat. The fight at first was very lazy, the fish was even kind of pale. But then she showed some power with a few short but powerful runs. I’m solo remember so getting the net alone wasn’t easy but not impossible. SCORE. First musky of 2013 ( I just wrote 2011 like an idiot.) Not bad, I’m a happy man now. I caught that fish an hour after dropping John off and after we worked that whole stretch very hard. Funny how things work out and how 20 seconds can change your whole day. The fish was 41 inches with an enormous girth. I had to take terrible cell phone pictures because John took the only camera. I need to set up a tripod.
I continue to work downriver in a virgin to me section of river. I’m fishing the sunny side of the river but clouds have just moved in and the wind picked up. But not 30 minutes later I have encounter number 2. Decent fish but I have complete reel failure. The whole handle on an almost bran new shimano Cardiff
Time to go now. I floated to the next ramp, not knowing if it too was caked in mud or not. If it was, I was screwed. I had to quickly pass over a very productive spot that’s been good to me in the past. The perfect deep pool winter spot. I didn’t give it the attention it deserved and felt bad about it. The river is perfect, big fish green perfect. God I love February now. So I get back and have to call a cab. I had no idea how far he was coming from or how much it would be. When I was in West Virginia
