FTA – 2/8/04 Fox River

From the Archives – I have 100’s of posts that were made on fishing forums starting around 1998. When I have nothing new to say, I thought I would start putting them up on my blog. I hope you like them.
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2/8/04 Fox River Warm Water Discharge

Air temperature 28 degrees, water temperature 34 degrees in the river and 56 in the discharge, cloudy, water normal, visibility unlimited in the river and unlimited in the discharge, 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., split shot with hook and small plastic trout worms.

All the signs were there telling me to stay home, but I didn’t listen. Total:

1 smallmouth bass.

A few weeks ago we had an ice storm. Left a nice layer of ice on the trees, bushes, lawn and the stairs leading to my house. Been here before. A few years earlier I almost knocked myself out cold during a similar situation. My last footstep came off the last stair and my legs shot out from under me. The back of my head missed the edge of the bottom stair by an inch and instead slammed onto the sidewalk. Stars are a good way to describe what you see after a blow to the head, but more like shooting stars for me. They’re always moving.

So, I was all prepared to walk down the stairs on this day. I grabbed onto the rail with my left hand, took one step down only to have my feet go out from under me. I landed sprawled on the stairs, at least I missed my head this time. I felt an ache along my whole left side. My ligaments and muscles were all yelling “let go of the fence rail stupid.” I think the delayed reaction did me no good. Three weeks later and I still have a dull ache running the length of my ribs. This was sign number one.

Sign number two happened a few days ago when I went down a snow hill on a sled with my daughter ONE LAST TIME only to wipe out half way down the hill. I turned to keep from landing on top of her and crushing her, put my arm to my side and landed on it. My elbow drove itself into my ribs and I could hear a crunching noise. I laid on my back in the snow gasping for air as the pain shot through my chest. This can’t be good. My daughter and a kids voice behind me somewhere were both asking if I were alright. “Just let me lay here for a minute, just don’t touch me,” I said. I started laughing. I always seem to laugh when I get hurt. I almost never get hurt due to accidents. I don’t recall having accidents. I usually get hurt doing something stupid. At least that’s what I always hear, “that was pretty stupid.” I always think of it as fun and daring and sometimes just down right brave. Maybe that’s what they are when you’re under 25 years old. After that, it’s just stupid.

So at this point I have pains going all around my rib cage. I had to cancel speaking at an outdoors show out of fear of being bumped while squeezing through tight aisles. As it was, just about all I was saying while laying around the house for two days was “don’t touch me, don’t make me laugh, ooohhh this hurts.” So of course I was bored. I can’t just lay around, I have to get out, move around a little, work out the stiffness. In other words, I had to get out to do a little fishing, something deemed stupid by the other members of my household. Like my wife.

But the last sign telling me to stay home was the complete lack of activity outside my windows. No rabbits, squirrels or birds could be seen anywhere. A week earlier there was wildlife everywhere, even some hold over robins. This time, nothing. I went out to the river in spite of all the bad signs.

The river was still half frozen. No tire tracks in the parking spot and no foot prints in the snow leading to the best fishing area meant nobody had bothered coming here in the past week. That is normally a good thing, but there was still no activity along the shores. Nothing was moving around. I didn’t even hear any birds. I still had to give fishing a try.

You don’t realize how much you use your rib cage for as simple a thing as walking until you’re walking with sore ribs and every step feels like someone is punching you. The occasional slip up sends shooting pains radiating all the way around. Simple little slips, like slipping on small rocks on the bottom of the river, may as well be steep falls from boulders for all the pain they cause. I was breathing heavily when I made my first few casts, worn out from the effort of getting here. Luckily the smallie decided to take the worm on the third or fourth cast. That was the only hit for the day.

A week earlier, even though the fishing had been slow, at least I had a good dozen tugs on the line to keep me interested. Also a week earlier you could see fish activity all over the river. Carp and suckers were jumping out of the water and as you walked, their huge wakes would be radiating out in front to get out of the way. Today there was none of that. I went looking for the fish and found them all tucked up tight to the shoreline or sitting almost motionless by the downed trees. Still another sign telling me I should go home.

Which I basically did, only slowly. By now all the muscles around my rib cage, front and back and sides, were all in one big cramp. Slow was the way to go. Besides, even with the pain, I was in no real hurry to go home. It was a nice day to just wander. With the water crystal clear, I started looking for fish hunkered down on the bottom. I noticed that if you walk slow enough, catfish won’t bother moving out of the way. I came across what looked to be an albino catfish. At first I thought it was a sucker, but when I got closer it had the distinct flattened head of a catfish. It drifted very slowly backwards to a downed tree and tucked itself under a branch. Nothing I cast to it could get it even remotely interested.

A little further upstream I practically stepped on a flathead catfish. I nudged it with my foot and it just slid over an inch to get out of the way. I dropped a worm in front of its face and it basically just laid there staring at it.

My arms were now starting to go numb. The pain was getting a little out of hand. I waddled down the shore line, it was easier than lifting my feet, got across the river and dragged myself up onto the ice. A couple of hundred yards and I’m back at the car. I could make that without fainting. By the time I was sitting behind the steering wheel I was dripping in sweat from the exertion of trying to do things as painless as possible. I put the car in reverse, backed up and hit the brakes.

Did you know that you use your chest muscles to hit the brakes?