A "Fishing" Trip
The sun was shining, the wind was calm and there was NO ONE at work last Friday. After talking with a fella at length about fishing, I couldn't take it anymore and left around noon. I had seen a very large fish jump in Blue Creek Bay a couple days prior, decided it was a pike, and concluded that would be a good place to try.
I raced home and got my gear together and headed out to said spot. The little dispersed fishing access was flooded more than I thought it was, so I kinda had to perch on the bank, which jammed my toes into the front of my boots. Incredibly comfortable. There was also a log about 10 feet or so from shore that I had to cast over, then JUMP the lure over it on the retrieve. After getting rigged up with a steel leader and a rather large spoon I started hucking. Everything was going really well for about...oh...five casts, when I got hung up on that damn log.
Hmmm...I'll just wade out there and get it unstuck! I emptied my pockets, then noticed the water was a LOT deeper than I expected...dropping off sharply right before the log. To do this correctly would require stripping down a little more than I wanted = nekkid. There was no way to move positions on the bank to shake the hook because of the high water and brush, so I just stood there and wiggled the rod back and forth furiously to try to free it (yeah, despite NEVER having that work...we all continue to try.)
Well, all that did was to wiggle the top half of my rod loose and down the line, up against my lure, on that damn log, ten feet from shore, in five-feet of icy water.
Fan-f***ing-tastic!!
Alright, stripping was now becoming a very likely possibility. The idea of swimming in snowmelt must have triggered my neurons into working just a BIT harder when I finally figured I could rig a handline with a heavy jig to toss over the rod tip and at least recover that. After a few tosses I became tangled in all the brush around me and out of frustration, pulled on that 30lb test monofiliment (it was all I had) until it broke...launching my expensive steelhead jig into the icy depths...never to be seen again.
By this time the folks out on boats were probably wondering what in the hell I was doing. Up to the truck digging around in the tacklebox, down at the shore stringing line in the brush like Christmas lights, back to the truck, back to the shore unstringing line from the brush...pacing, sweating, cussing. I imagined hearing, "What's he doing with a handline? Why doesn't he use his rod? He's been here for an hour and all he's done is mess with his gear. It's not fishing unless it's in the water buddy!" I started to sweat...and get REALLY frustrated with my obvious inability to figure out a simple problem.
So I finally got the 800 yards of line untangled from the brush, got another expensive steelhead jig, and finally managed to lasso the rod tip. Who knew, just moving the position of my pole so the rod tip was PERPENDICULAR to me would work better! Kind of an indication on how frustrated and pissed off I was. I darn near cried out, "I just want to FISH!" I finally got the pieces together and still couldn't do anything about the lure. Long story short, I broke the line and put on some bait. Hucked that out there, sat around for about 30 minutes before a.) the clouds moved in, b.) I was bored, and c.) really tired of all the boats milling around. Overall, I got a good 35 minutes of actual "fishing" out of two hours.
*sigh*
So I went home and did some yard work so I could feel like accomplishing SOMETHING that afternoon.
I raced home and got my gear together and headed out to said spot. The little dispersed fishing access was flooded more than I thought it was, so I kinda had to perch on the bank, which jammed my toes into the front of my boots. Incredibly comfortable. There was also a log about 10 feet or so from shore that I had to cast over, then JUMP the lure over it on the retrieve. After getting rigged up with a steel leader and a rather large spoon I started hucking. Everything was going really well for about...oh...five casts, when I got hung up on that damn log.
Hmmm...I'll just wade out there and get it unstuck! I emptied my pockets, then noticed the water was a LOT deeper than I expected...dropping off sharply right before the log. To do this correctly would require stripping down a little more than I wanted = nekkid. There was no way to move positions on the bank to shake the hook because of the high water and brush, so I just stood there and wiggled the rod back and forth furiously to try to free it (yeah, despite NEVER having that work...we all continue to try.)
Well, all that did was to wiggle the top half of my rod loose and down the line, up against my lure, on that damn log, ten feet from shore, in five-feet of icy water.
Fan-f***ing-tastic!!
Alright, stripping was now becoming a very likely possibility. The idea of swimming in snowmelt must have triggered my neurons into working just a BIT harder when I finally figured I could rig a handline with a heavy jig to toss over the rod tip and at least recover that. After a few tosses I became tangled in all the brush around me and out of frustration, pulled on that 30lb test monofiliment (it was all I had) until it broke...launching my expensive steelhead jig into the icy depths...never to be seen again.
By this time the folks out on boats were probably wondering what in the hell I was doing. Up to the truck digging around in the tacklebox, down at the shore stringing line in the brush like Christmas lights, back to the truck, back to the shore unstringing line from the brush...pacing, sweating, cussing. I imagined hearing, "What's he doing with a handline? Why doesn't he use his rod? He's been here for an hour and all he's done is mess with his gear. It's not fishing unless it's in the water buddy!" I started to sweat...and get REALLY frustrated with my obvious inability to figure out a simple problem.
So I finally got the 800 yards of line untangled from the brush, got another expensive steelhead jig, and finally managed to lasso the rod tip. Who knew, just moving the position of my pole so the rod tip was PERPENDICULAR to me would work better! Kind of an indication on how frustrated and pissed off I was. I darn near cried out, "I just want to FISH!" I finally got the pieces together and still couldn't do anything about the lure. Long story short, I broke the line and put on some bait. Hucked that out there, sat around for about 30 minutes before a.) the clouds moved in, b.) I was bored, and c.) really tired of all the boats milling around. Overall, I got a good 35 minutes of actual "fishing" out of two hours.
*sigh*
So I went home and did some yard work so I could feel like accomplishing SOMETHING that afternoon.
posted by geotracker12 at 11:16 AM
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