I wish I could know in advance that I would catch a couple of decent sized catfish even though I was pursuing smallmouth bass. These cats came from a creek that was running relatively clear and cool. They were miles up from the main river, which was running summer ugly and warm.
These cats didn’t stink like the river and didn’t have much of that protective slime. The slime must protect them from the river. That slime must dissipate with time spent in cleaner waters.
Interesting, to me anyway. Sounds a lot like my migration from my once upon a life in the city. Only my cleansing is mental rather than physical.
I wish I would have known about these cats in advance.
I would have brought a stringer.
After the second one I truly regretted not carrying a stringer. If this was going to continue, I’d have to figure something out. I quickly put together a makeshift, sturdy stringer made of the tall grasses around me. Not that I had a clue what I was doing, but whatever I did worked pretty well.
Only I caught no more cats. That figures.
For the rest of the wade I kept hoping against hope. I had beer battered catfish chunks pictured on a plate. Nestled along side were a handful of hush puppies. Piled on the edge was home made cole slaw, it has to be made with Hellmann’s Real Mayo or don’t bother. Overseeing the platter was a cold Sam Adams. This image was with me for the rest of the night.
I got to see and miss many more smallies than caught.
The occasional trash fish would hit in the sluggish areas of the creek.
At the end of May we had a pretty good rain. It did a good job of raising all the rivers. It did a better job of blowing out the creeks. Normally the creeks come down to normal within a week. This time it took almost a month.
I hang around the creeks so much that I could document the effects. Normal water with landmark versus blown out water with landmark, maybe I need to find better things to do with my time.
The bend in the creek is practically a right angle. Two of them in a row not one hundred yards apart. This area has already been dramatically transformed during a flood in 2008. One of the bends had completely filled in, while the other became a huge scour hole. The first bend has become a natural debris filter. Trees over fifty feet in length are starting to collect on shore.
A little further down an indent in the shore is collecting as many of the smaller logs that it can hold.
The second bend has seen the most dramatic change. It is completely different than the last time I was here only 6 weeks earlier.
All the rock on the left wasn’t there before. This was knee deep water that led to a shin deep run. About two feet of rock had been dumped along this shore.
The pool to the right used to be a wadable run that was also knee deep. As far as I can tell, it’s now about 4 feet deep.
Along the back all the water of the creek is now passing through a chute less than 10 feet wide. What was once ankle deep water and easy to walk through is now scoured down to over 3 feet deep and far too fast to even attempt stepping into.
The plan was to wade another half mile down stream. This watery road block put an end to those plans. Negotiating a way across and through debris littered woods suddenly had completely lost their appeal.
No fish were caught for the rest of the wade, but the damsel flies were out in force combing the tall shore grass.
A crazed bird with a broken wing wouldn’t leave me alone till I gave it a safe haven.
Sitting on the edge of the woods was a tall plant with white flowers that I’ve been seeing all over the area. For some reason I can’t recall seeing them before, but then this is a screwed up growing season and everything is behind.
I decided to sit on the rail of the bridge that crosses the creek. This road gets little traffic and doing things like that is no issue. Every few minutes a car would go by, slow down a bit and wave and sometimes ask “didja catch anything?”
I’d hold my hands apart about 20 inches, “two cats.”
“Didja keep ’em?”
“I wish.”