minner
Well-known member
Had everything ready and loaded last night for an all day trip today but as the alarm clock went off early this morning I could still hear the winds howling from the front pushing through and figured the waves would be unmanageable at that point. I rolled over and went back to sleep hoping the winds would die down for a late morning start instead of an early one. I ended up leaving the driveway by 9:30a.m., and was fishing by 10:30; after a stop to get 3 dozen minnows in hopes I could catch a little of the sauger bite that I'd been hearing about. I knew the middle of the day couldn't be a worse time to try to find sauger but I gave it a shot. By 2:00 I had gone through all 36 minnows on an assortment of sauger, white bass, small stripe, and a couple skipjack. I probably caught 10-12 sauger with only 5 that were keepers. Most of the time a stripe would take my bait before I could get it in front of my quarry. Out of minnows and down to only jigs I decided to leave as boats started pouring into the dry lock, making things crowded. in Not disappointed in the least bit with my success, I motored out in pursuit of other game.
With fresh skippies on board I figured I might as well go feed some blues down stream.
With my boat in place along a bluff wall in 33' of water I dropped anchor. (BTW I fab’ed up a "snagless" 45+lb anchor that works superb in heavy current during Thanksgiving) Not wasting any time, I readied two rods with fresh skipjack and slung them out the back of the boat on angle. As I set the second rod down to move on to rigging 3rd rod, I hear the clicker singing on rod #1. I quickly jump into action and clutched the rod tightly as I battled current and fish. No match for my rod and Penn 10, I made quick work of bringing a nice fat 16lb Wheeler blue into the boat. Bait still intact and relatively fresh I decided to "recycle" it and chunk it back out into it's previous territory. "Now I can eat my lunch I thought". Not so fast though, as rod #2 starts making sweet music of it's on. I welcomed the challenge and soon found myself in combat with an even larger fish than before. Shuffling rods, reels, tackle, and nets, I bring the fish to the side of the boat and awkwardly net him and bring him aboard. After weighing her in at 64lbs. and taking a self pic, I let her swim. “Wheew”, at this point I was a little tired. My fatigue instantly wore off when seconds later rod number #1 started humming an all too familiar tune!!!! Again I grabbed the rod only to estimate another sizable fish on the other end. This fish did not want to near the boat and took quite a while (4 -41/2) minutes to get boatside after she'd changed her mine 3 times on which side she wanted (dang females ). I was fairly tired by now and trying to get the 57lb. blue in the net proved to be too much of a challenge. So I went Ike on her ... and "lipped" her and struggled to pull her over the side. I took another self pic and let her swim. That made a total of 3 catfish in less than 15 minutes totaling 137 lb. Not bad for a Friday off from work. Enjoy............I know I did.
With fresh skippies on board I figured I might as well go feed some blues down stream.
With my boat in place along a bluff wall in 33' of water I dropped anchor. (BTW I fab’ed up a "snagless" 45+lb anchor that works superb in heavy current during Thanksgiving) Not wasting any time, I readied two rods with fresh skipjack and slung them out the back of the boat on angle. As I set the second rod down to move on to rigging 3rd rod, I hear the clicker singing on rod #1. I quickly jump into action and clutched the rod tightly as I battled current and fish. No match for my rod and Penn 10, I made quick work of bringing a nice fat 16lb Wheeler blue into the boat. Bait still intact and relatively fresh I decided to "recycle" it and chunk it back out into it's previous territory. "Now I can eat my lunch I thought". Not so fast though, as rod #2 starts making sweet music of it's on. I welcomed the challenge and soon found myself in combat with an even larger fish than before. Shuffling rods, reels, tackle, and nets, I bring the fish to the side of the boat and awkwardly net him and bring him aboard. After weighing her in at 64lbs. and taking a self pic, I let her swim. “Wheew”, at this point I was a little tired. My fatigue instantly wore off when seconds later rod number #1 started humming an all too familiar tune!!!! Again I grabbed the rod only to estimate another sizable fish on the other end. This fish did not want to near the boat and took quite a while (4 -41/2) minutes to get boatside after she'd changed her mine 3 times on which side she wanted (dang females ). I was fairly tired by now and trying to get the 57lb. blue in the net proved to be too much of a challenge. So I went Ike on her ... and "lipped" her and struggled to pull her over the side. I took another self pic and let her swim. That made a total of 3 catfish in less than 15 minutes totaling 137 lb. Not bad for a Friday off from work. Enjoy............I know I did.
