Eric called yesterday, asked me to bring my big canoe and utrla lite fishing gear and meat him at the river parking lot. Told him I had not gotten around to making a carrier for the glorified grocery cart yet. He said to put it in the back put a couple concrete blocks in it and ratchet strap it in and tie a red flag on the end. Well it worked for the 16 mile drive where Eric met me. We unloaded the canoe and launched it tiring it off to a near by tree then ran Eric’s truck with the full bed cover and carriers down river about 5 hours. Ran back to the park and loaded our gear in the canoe and started our float. Eric said he had been told the smallies were on the bite. We went a couple hundred yards before Erica had the first fish on his crawler rig. Landed the first one a nice eating size about 2 pounds. Soon after I had one on my buzz bait bending the light weight rod tip a goodly bit. The drag is buzzing as the fish made a run for a log jam on the opposite side of the river. I was able to stop it and get it coming back to the canoe, getting it along side to see a small northern pike about 18 inches. The river is real high and still cold water temps was running in the high 40F range highest I saw when the probe went in at a low place was 52F. This low place we usually have to get out and drag a canoe across about 150 feet of sand and gravel and we had a good 3 feet of water under us. By the time we had been on the river a couple hours we had 3 eating size smallies in the bucket, two nice sized perch and about 12 blue gills. We had release 5 small pikes in the 22 inch and under size. All are a lot of fun on ultra light gear, using buzz baits, jigs and areas we know are fairly clear of under water logs and such crank baits. We are having a good time, talked about the up coming cook out at Johns farm Cheryl insisted on having once the hay was off. Eric said He, Dean, Mike and Brent were going to do the haying mostly. Cheryl can run the haybine, rake and probably even the round bailer but wants a bit more training on it’s use. We make it to where we left Eric’s truck and had a good mess of fish to clean and fry up. We had 8 smallies all 1.5 pounds to 2.5 pounds. Had released several 3 pounds and up. We had 15 good Perch to clean and had released a good 25 to 30 small ones and 25 blue gills we had also released a bunch of those too. We had caught about a dozen Horned Daces which we released as they never get more that 4 or 5 inches long. As we finished loading the canoe on Erics rig I call Kare and tell her to meet us at Erics for a fish fry supper. clled Dean and told him to come over also. We get back to Erics and clean the fish the blue gills we skinned and gutted the smallies we deboned and skinned same with the perch. Eric had oil smoking hot in his turkey fryer by the time we were finished. We deep fried the fish in the oil while the girls fixed some sides or potatoes also to get the hot oil bath. Figures Dean showed up when all the work was finished. Nothing like setting down to a meal we provided for our selves after a nice time on the river. Is hard being able to find time to get to gather and have a good time with all the rain makeing it hard to get all the chores done around the house. Al
We released a bunch, all the hammer handle pike went back, along with the hored daces. Eric's wife made up a batter (no Beer used in it's making) with butter milk and butter milk pancake mix. sure tasted good and don't dround the fish flavor either. Al
