Misadventures in Catfishing, part two

Misadventures in Catfishing, part two

All too often, my outdoor escapades seem to involve some sort of calamity. The embodiment of Murphy's Law in action. Bad weather. Lost car keys. Record cold temperatures during summer holiday weekend camping trips. Tackle boxes left behind. Capsized canoes. Damaged motors. In retrospect, it's often when things that went wrong that made those times more memorable. Misadventures in catfishing.

 

The legend of Old Blue

According to some old papers, $119 was all we paid for the brand new Appleby aluminum boat our family purchased in 1971. It was a turquoise colored lightweight jon boat that was easy to row and moved along quite nicely when powered with a trolling motor. My sister and I would ride in the back of the pickup truck when we drove out to the local Sportsmen's club lake a few times every summer. Over the years, we covered every inch of that place and had a lot of fun catching small bass and other species. We sure got a lot of enjoyment and good times out of that modest investment.

One of my earliest boating memories was falling out of the boat one time. I was probably about six years old, upon falling in I began thrashing about wildly in the water. My Dad, unflappable, just hollers "Stand Up!!!"
(I was only in about 18" of water.) Another unusual occurrence was when a big bass, apparently jumping at the drain plug of the back of the boat, ended up in the boat. Every time an angler talks about how the fish "were practically jumping into the boat", I'm reminded of that day one actually did!

I'll never forget when my great uncle Oscar and I took Old Blue out for a spin on the "New Hillsboro Lake" (later named Lake Glenn Shoals) one spring around 1980. The lake had only recently filled, I'm not sure if any of the access areas were even fully developed at that time. We put in behind an old tavern and powered the boat with his 10 hp Mercury outboard. Didn't really fish a lot that day, but we ran all over that lake. He let me "drive" most of the day and with his motor on the back of such a light boat, it felt like we were practically flying across the water!   
 
When I was old enough to drive myself, I bought an old (1953) Johnson 5 horse outboard to use several of the nearby lakes in central Illinois. All you had to do was load the boat in the back of the pickup and you were ready to go off for on an adventure. Whether it was fishing for cats at the lakes at Coffeen or Taylorville, bass in Hillsboro, crappies at Lake Shelbyville, or bluegills on crickets at Sangchris lake, my friends and I had a lot of fun in that little boat.

Several years later, my friend Terry and  I hauled Ol' Blue to a bridge crossing the Kaskaskia river. Call it youthful optimism, we weren't even sure there was a place to put a boat in until we got there! We carried the empty boat down to the water and loaded it up with gear. I rowed upstream until we got to a shallow and swift riffle where we either had to get out and drag the boat, or start fishing. We started fishing. Working our way back downstream, we spent most of the time fishing at a deep snag near midstream. We caught a stringer full of nice channel cats that day, then finished up and headed for home. I guess this was one of my last trips with Ol' Blue.

 
When I moved to northern Illinois, the boat eventually came with me. Not having a truck or a trailer, I wasn't really able to take it out. I still had my outboard to use with rented boats and my garage space was limited. For a few years the empty boat hovered above my car, suspended from the ceiling of the garage. We finally waved goodbye to Ol' Blue when it was donated to a charity auction.

 

 

Misadventures on the Mississippi

Savanna, Illinois is a beautiful old town situated on the east bank of the Mississippi river upstream from Clinton, Iowa. Northwest Illinois is fairly rugged country, similar to central and western Wisconsin. Huge limestone bluffs line the east shore of the river here, there's a beautiful state park there with great hiking and camping. I've camped at the park on a few scouting trips over the years. In two early nineties fishing trips to Savanna, we couldn't have had more different experiences.

For both fishing trips my friend Peter and I drove out and rented boats. We camped at the same spot, known as Santa Fe Island, both times as well. The island is a great camping site in the middle of pool 13. Even though you're only a mile or so from the launch and just outside of town, once you're out on the river it's as if you've escaped from civilization. With all the beautiful scenery around, you feel like you've entered God's country, for sure!






The first trip out, we had sunny weather perfect for a quick swim. A respectable stringer of small catfish was caught, cooked, and enjoyed. We were afraid to motor far downstream with my ancient Johnson Sea Horse 5 hp motor, which I had paid a whopping $35 for back in 1982. Still, its proudest moment had not yet come. As we were about to return to the launch, we ended up giving a rescue tow when a couple guys on the river were having boat troubles...
with a much newer engine! The rest of the weekend trip went downhill fast, after some car keys were misplaced.

Okay, fast forward to the same location two years later. Peter and I are sitting in a tavern impatiently looking out the window, waiting for the pouring rain to stop. Pondering whether we should stay, or should we just go. Finally, we became resolute enough and decided to just go launch the boat in the middle of the downpour anyway. We figured the rain must stop eventually, right?!? We get our gear loaded and start the mile long cruise out to the island for camping. As we get to the island to set-up camp, as if on cue, it slows to a light drizzle, the even sun comes out just a taste, and we're treated to a rainbow! We even managed to get a nice fire going (with all that wet wood)...things were looking up! Later, in the solitude of the quiet night, we woke to the sound of splashing along the shore. It was hard to tell in the dark, but we thought it was a river otter just playing around by the boat. Having poured down rain all day, it was so quiet on the river that night.



















During that entire trip, there was almost no one (except the occasional barge) else on the river. We fished several hours the next day, with only a bit of action the trip. I had a larger motor this time and we ran up and down the river pretty good. We got to cover some water and found some promising looking spots. With the cold front, the fish were less cooperative this trip. About all we managed was a small channel catfish and a softshell turtle the entire day. Still, having an island all to ourselves in the middle of the great Mississippi was a real treat! 

  

 

 

 

Canoe Tripping 

In college, during the late 1980s, my friends and I would visit the local state park on a number of occasions. Fox Ridge State Park was an expansive park with a lot of hiking trails, woods, and included a section of the park along the Embarras river. We often would hike down to swim in the river and sit around the campfire (with a cold beverage or two, of course). Sometimes we would even cook things like steak kabobs over the open fire. Good times. We talked about making a canoe trip to the park from Lake Charleston a few times, but for whatever reason that never happened. A few of us even camped out there the night after graduation, when I lost my keys down by the beach then hiked back down there backtracking my steps right to the spot where they were. Right at dusk.

In my last year of college, which was the spring of 1988, my college friend and I planned a canoe adventure on the nearby Kaskaskia river. Seemed like a great idea to go on a trip like this before graduation. Once we had everything mapped out, we checked out some canoe equipment from the school and took both of our girlfriends along for he canoe camping trip. We all met at my apartment for a hearty breakfast of homemade biscuits and gravy then headed out. Our plan was to put the canoes in the water at Cook's Mills on the Kaskaskia river. We would then paddle for a few hours and camp at the upper end of Lake Shelbyville. Cook up some dinner and maybe relax by the campfire. Well that was the plan...

Deteriorating weather conditions quickly quickly eroded our confidence and spirits. A recent ice storm resulted in more portaging than paddling. Then my wife and I got stuck on a big log in the middle of the river for a while and became separated from the other couple. Great. We paddled, carried, and pushed that canoe down the river in earnest for a couple hours trying to catch up with our companions.

Finally, we rounded a big bend (of which there were many in the river's circuitous route) and there they were. They were talking to a local couple that was bank fishing below the nearby bridge...just upstream from a HUGE woodpile that stretched from bank to bank and was yards deep. In that moment, and I'm sure it wasn't my preference, a group decision was made to get a ride to the car from the local folks and call it a day.

And to think how the trip started out so pleasant and promising. Of course, we did have quite the memorable adventure. And it probably comes as no surprise, but that was the last time I got my wife into a canoe. We did go on some future camping trips, but that's another story!

Good eats

My mom always said "hunger is the best sauce." A deeper understanding came to me on a Rock river canoe trip in July 2001. We had a very pleasant paddle to Castle Rock state park. The scenery was beautiful, but the fishing was slow. I had made a brief scouting mission a few weeks before and managed to land a few fine channel catfish. It was the first time that I had ever fished the stream. However, the river levels had drastically dropped during the week before the trip. I did land one nice catfish on the way to camp, but we decided to release it since it had a few leeches hanging on. Not exactly appetizing. 


After some more canoeing and a few more hours of fishing, by the time we were ready to set-up camp no other fish had been caught. We were famished. And catfish was the meal plan for that night. Guess we had spent too much time fishing the wrong spots, when dropping water levels had drawn the fish into different locations. Sure, we had ample provisions, but we really wanted a nice catfish dinner. Not cold sandwiches.

 Once camp was finally setup, we had a dandy little spot too, we decided to put some baits mid-stream in the side channel right in front of the tent. We baited up with Sonny's catfish bait. In about 45 minutes of fishing, we had 3 nice eater size fish to go with some fried green tomatoes for dinner (which we finally ate around 10 o'clock!). Back in business!!! We could have eaten the fish raw by then, we were so hungry! Was it worth the wait? You bet. Nothing beats a little fresh caught catfish, rolled in corn meal and quickly fried in hot oil. And enjoyed while you're sitting in camp watching the river currents drifting along.

I only have a few photos of this trip because my camera (that was supposed to auto-advance the film) didn't. There should have been pictures of rock formations, bluffs coming straight down to the river, an eagle's nest, all kinds of gorgeous scenery. Misadventures in catfishing strikes again! I've thought about going back there for a float trip with the boat, but except for a few holes, much of this stretch of river is shallow and rocky. The only way access to the canoe campsites is from the river, which makes for a lot of extra gear in the boat. Still, it would make for a great adventure sometime...