Fishing in High Water and Rain

There’s more than one way to get to a favorite fishing spot. It all depends on what options are available.

Option 1:
Wade across the river. This assumes the river is at a level that can be waded at your personal comfort level. Of course, you should be fishing as you wade. When you get to the opposite shore and start the quarter mile hike to the favorite fishing spot, you should fish all along that shore as you walk. Don’t spend a whole lot of time fishing, the goal is to get to your favorite spot where there are more, bigger, better fish waiting for you.

Option 2:
The river is flooded and wading is out of the question. Where you park butts up against railroad tracks. You know the trains daily schedule since you’ve been fishing at your favorite spot for years at all hours of the day. So you walk across the river via the train bridge. Then one day you walk across the bridge. From either direction are blind curves, can’t see or hear a train till it rounds the bend and is practically on the bridge. You’re off the bridge and down the path 50 feet. You hear a noise behind you and turn around. A train is going by. A minute sooner would have required jumping about 20 feet into the river.

Option 3:
The river is still flooded and wading is out of the question. Skip the train bridge from now on. Got to get out and fish. Shortest distance from car to favorite fishing spot requires parking in a lot in front of a one story office building. Windows face the lot and you didn’t layer up for wading before getting here. Need to strip down, layer up and get waders on. Got to get out and fish. Not like they’ve never seen a guy in underwear before. Okay, maybe not in their parking lot.

Option 4:
Options 1, 2 and 3 are out for whatever reason. Parking is a mile from favorite fishing spot. Doesn’t matter, the fish will still be there. The exercise is needed and the walk clears the head. Requires walking over half a mile on the railroad tracks, but at least there’s no bridge.

Option 4 was called for this day. It was one of those gray, drizzly days with clouds low enough to touch if you jumped. A long hike was needed just to feel leg muscles in use and tightening. The head always could stand a good clearing.

According to the sign, Illinois Railnet would prefer that I not walk along the railroad tracks. I first remember walking tracks when I was about 6 years old. In 49 years of taking these walks I’ve never run into anyone from Illinois Railnet. Safe bet I wouldn’t today.

Railroad tracks cutting through semi-urban areas offer some of the only wildlife corridors around. This one had nothing but old and abandoned manufacturing sites running along it. Between the tracks and the old sites were thin strips of untouched woods. Birds build nests of grass and garbage that must resemble grass. A nest no more than waist high in a bush seems a bit cavalier, but then I’ve walked past it during the summer and never noticed.

The animals use the tracks like a critter highway. Coyote, coon and deer tracks zig zagged across the railroad tracks with the occasional critter walking along like I was. I’ve had deer come bounding out onto the tracks only to stop within 20 feet of me and stare me down. One of us apparently shouldn’t be there.

Once along the river I took my time to get to the favorite spot. There was plenty of water to fish along the way, only with the water temperatures still below 40 degrees, it was an exercise in futility. At least it was exercise. Bug hatches kept hinting that things would be better, but the bug hatches may have been premature.

Once reached, the spot must be approached at water level. Dropping off the shore into waist deep cold water requires skill, so I sat on the edge of the shore and slid my ass down the incline, spooking all the carp that were lined up along the shore when I hit the water. I wasn’t fishing for carp anyway.

This time of year this really isn’t all that good of a favorite spot. The water’s still cold and there just aren’t that many smallmouth bass around. It’s a favorite spot based on possibilities, not always reality. Forty feet away was some slower moving current heading down stream. The river bed had a hump of gravel, then an indent that was about 2 feet deep. You only had one chance to catch that fish sitting in the indent. A precise cast to the top of the gravel, let the lure swing into the current and wait for the tap.

A 12 inch smallie decided to cooperate. For the first week of March in cold water conditions, this was a welcome sight. I knew this was going to be the only fish caught in the area, but an effort had to be made to prove that observation. Which I did.

By now the drizzle was more of a light rain. I was already a mile from the car and debating on whether or not to go the next half mile. Down stream a couple of anglers appeared on shore. Though they saw me wading down this stretch, they decided to get in the water and throw a seine net. That pretty much did in that part of the shore.

As they walked by, one stopped to chat. Both of them were dressed in waders and both carried 3 rods each. While wading and fishing rivers, I can’t recall a single instance where I had wished I had brought along 3 rods to fish with. I didn’t want to know why they thought it was necessary and the question was avoided.

“Downstream there’s a backwater that’s my secret spot,” I was told.

There are no secret spots.

“Oh, this one is. I catch 18 inch smallies out of it all the time.”

Is it the spot around the bend with the log that sticks out at a 45 degree angle? A few feet away is a log pile that necks down the water and makes a nice pool behind the logs. I’ll bet that’s where you get the 18 inchers.

“Well, yeah.”

I was going to tell him about the other nearby spots that held flathead catfish and walleye, but I suddenly wasn’t up for the conversation. Told him it was nice meeting him and moved down stream.

A few feet down stream and the phone rings. I have to answer, it’s business. A longer than usual conversation ensues as I get soaked by the increasing rain. I fish while I talk till I get hung up on a log, then stand there getting wetter.

“What are you doing? What’s that noise?”

I’m standing in a river, fishing.

“Really? I like river fishing.”

Then we’ll have to get out, you’ll enjoy this.

“Only if you promise not to take me out in the rain.”

Sorry, I make promises about meeting deadlines. I make no promises about fishing. I’ll call you.

After freeing the hang up, I waded about 50 feet and was getting close to the area where the other fishermen had been throwing around the seine net. Further down were a couple of my own secret spots, but the rain along with the next stretch being ruined pretty much destroyed my interest in going any further. So I sat on a log in the water and listened to the water flowing by. The rain pelted the hood on my head in no apparent rhythm. Sitting on a log in a river, in the rain, listening to flowing and falling water seemed illogical, but necessary.

It was a mile back to the car, but it didn’t matter. It would still be there when I got there.