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Written by Bob Ellsberg
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Tuesday, 01 November 2011 00:00 |
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 Rounding the bend in the river, I could see that the hole I had targeted was unoccupied. My favorite stream could get a little crowded during the October run and having the little pocket all to myself gave me a pretty good chance at success. While I was more than happy with the two small silvers I had taken the day before in a drift just upstream, the guy fishing the beat just below me had hooked, and lost, several really big fish. Now that I had that piece of real estate to myself, I figured my chances of landing a bragging-size fish were pretty good!
The fellows fishing my old hole had done pretty well earlier in the morning. A half-dozen jack and adult silvers were cooling at the water’s edge. With my insomnia, I was starting a few hours late, but the fish ran in from the bay all day long, so anytime was pretty much as good as any other. But for quite a while, I was starting to doubt my strategy.
Fishing with a bobber, drifting eggs down about 20 yards of river, I was getting nothing at all. I ran my egg clusters down the river till they got soggy and fell off the hook. Nobody above me was doing any better. We were pretty sure that fish were going up the river, even in the relatively low water, but we weren’t seeing or feeling anything.
I was about two hours into the effort when my bobber popped under water. I set the hook and a little jack silver did his best to fly away. For a fish of some two pounds and maybe 18 inches, he was zipping up and down the river, giving his best tarpon imitation. Although he’d make a good breakfast, he wasn’t the big boy I was hoping to entice. But maybe this was the start of something good! After another two hours, that hope was going downhill, fast.
People (sane people, not fishermen!) often ask me how I can spend hours on a river or lake watching the water flow by, as I mindlessly make cast after cast. Little did I know, but something was about to happen that would provide a lifetime answer to that question.
Action Arrives
On about my five hundredth futile cast, my bobber disappeared. I swung my rod tip to set the hook, but whatever it was, I missed. It floated a few feet farther, and down it went again. Raising my rod, I felt a solid pull before my bobber came to the surface. Reeling in, I put a new cluster of eggs on my now empty hook, and cast again.
The bobber had barely hit the water before it again dropped out of sight. This time I was ready and slammed the hook home. I saw a flash down near the bottom and felt a heavy fish resist my attempts to haul him in. But after a few seconds, he somehow worked free. Not to worry, I had a lot more chances in store. For the next 20 casts, I couldn’t get a bobber more than 30 feet downstream before something grabbed my bait. Every time I cast, it went under; it was every fisherman’s dream!
But all that action wasn’t filling up my catch card. Time after time I either missed the fish or had it on for 10 to 20 seconds before it pulled lose. The only fish I actually brought to shore was another 18-inch silver that jumped into the air and gobbled my nearly empty hook as it popped back to the surface after yet another big fish had managed to get free. After that, I had a couple of more takedowns and then nothing.
Never had I enjoyed more action. A whole school must have moved into my little slot and attacked my bait as it floated by. Why hadn’t I hooked anything? After giving it some thought, I finally figured that I must have been using the wrong rod. With little current and a very short cast, my 12-foot long float rod just wasn’t driving the hook in deep enough. It had a bit too much flex, and over such a short distance I couldn’t get my sharpest hook to get very deep. I had changed hooks twice, figuring that they must have gotten dull, but even the slightest test drove them deep enough into my fingers to draw blood!
One More Story
As much as I like fish, I like stories even more, and this had been a dandy. Who knows where the fish came from, or where they went after the bite suddenly died, but what a rush when they moved into the neighborhood. Moments like that, perhaps as rare as hen’s teeth, are why I keep plugging away.
After another hour of nothing, I glanced at my watch. I only had five minutes left to fish. I had promised my big curly retriever, Moe, that I’d take him pheasant hunting that afternoon, and he doesn’t take getting stood up lightly!
I made a last cast into the drift and the bobber went under and upstream in a hurry. This fish was going to make an effort to hook itself! Hanging on for dear life, I did my best to set the hook as a silver slab went airborne. Hoping against hope that I could land this last fish, I chased it up and down the river, finally beaching a wonderful 15-pound chinook, just in time to head home for my “business meeting” with mighty Moe.
To make the day perfect, my huge black dog managed to flush me up a beautiful rooster just before the rain hit. I had to spend better than an hour at home afterward cleaning game and taking care of my messes, but it was well worth the effort. It would be a day I would remember fondly for a long time. That’s why I’ll spend a whole lot of really slow hours, just watching the water flow by!
Bob Ellsberg’s column, Fishin’, appears monthly in RV Life and at rvlife.com.
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Me too!
-Joel
"The curious thing about fishing is you never want to go home. If you catch anything, your can't stop. If you don't catch anything, you hate to leave in case something might bite." - Gladys Taber 1941