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PITTSBURG —
If you have the ambition to get away from the air conditioning and get your body acclimated to summer, find an isolated section of river where canoe rental people do not operate, and plan a two- or three-day trip in the middle of the week with a friend who is inclined not to complain much about sleeping in a tent and having wet feet.
By doing so, you can actually get off away from the world’s problems. Float downstream and find a gravel bar or sand bar to camp on, where there is some shade of course.
In the cool of the evening, find a deep shoal and wade out up to your waist above it or below it and cast a topwater minnow or a little popper of some kind with a spincasting outfit or maybe even a fly-rod. There will be bass waiting to jump all over that lure, I’ve seen it happen!
When it gets dark, push your boat or canoe out into a big eddy fed by that river current, where there’s some deep water and rocks, and fish without lights, letting your eyes become accustom to the night. Cast a jitterbug toward the bank with a casting reel and a stronger line, and work it steadily across the surface. If there’s a big bass anywhere close, he will jump all over that jitterbug.
This time of year, the rock bank towards the upper end of the eddy where the current feeds it will hold the smallmouth, but the lower sections of a big deep hole, on the opposite bank where there might be logs and limbs, are where you will find river largemouth, and they canπt pass up a jitterbug either.
If the eddy is good and deep and has a bluff, chances are there’s a big flathead catfish, or several, maybe up to 25 or 35 pounds. I have caught a few catfish from small Ozark rivers that exceeded 40 pounds. Flatheads can be caught on trotlines set deep, across the eddy and baited with LIVE bait, like chubs or sunfish, or even small suckers.
There are channel catfish in many streams too, and they will take nightcrawlers or dead bait, even chicken livers. It takes a lot of work to set and bait a trotline, and it involves some danger, as you can get entangled or hooked and pulled under by a weighted line.
If you have the ambition to get away from the air conditioning and get your body acclimated to summer, find an isolated section of river where canoe rental people do not operate, and plan a two- or three-day trip in the middle of the week with a friend who is inclined not to complain much about sleeping in a tent and having wet feet.
By doing so, you can actually get off away from the world’s problems. Float downstream and find a gravel bar or sand bar to camp on, where there is some shade of course.
In the cool of the evening, find a deep shoal and wade out up to your waist above it or below it and cast a topwater minnow or a little popper of some kind with a spincasting outfit or maybe even a fly-rod. There will be bass waiting to jump all over that lure, I’ve seen it happen!
When it gets dark, push your boat or canoe out into a big eddy fed by that river current, where there’s some deep water and rocks, and fish without lights, letting your eyes become accustom to the night. Cast a jitterbug toward the bank with a casting reel and a stronger line, and work it steadily across the surface. If there’s a big bass anywhere close, he will jump all over that jitterbug.
This time of year, the rock bank towards the upper end of the eddy where the current feeds it will hold the smallmouth, but the lower sections of a big deep hole, on the opposite bank where there might be logs and limbs, are where you will find river largemouth, and they canπt pass up a jitterbug either.
If the eddy is good and deep and has a bluff, chances are there’s a big flathead catfish, or several, maybe up to 25 or 35 pounds. I have caught a few catfish from small Ozark rivers that exceeded 40 pounds. Flatheads can be caught on trotlines set deep, across the eddy and baited with LIVE bait, like chubs or sunfish, or even small suckers.
There are channel catfish in many streams too, and they will take nightcrawlers or dead bait, even chicken livers. It takes a lot of work to set and bait a trotline, and it involves some danger, as you can get entangled or hooked and pulled under by a weighted line.
Have two sheathed knives on your belt to cut yourself free if you need to. If you set trotlines and run them in that deep water, DO NOT DO IT FROM A SMALL CANOE, USE ONLY A VERY STABLE CRAFT. I would never ever trotline from a 17-foot double end canoe! Actually, I wouldnπt even float the river in one.
I know it is hot, but I am tired of staying inside. I have fishing to do, and I have missed it. I don’t know that it was as hot when I was a youngster, fishing up and down the Big Piney River in July and August.
There was no reason to hole up in the house, because we didnπt have air conditioning, and maybe everyone could stand the heat better because of that fact. What man has done to make life easier for himself has gone a long way toward destroying himself
My website is www.larrydablemontoutdoors.blogspot.com, and you can e-mail me at lightninridge@windstream.net. Write to me at Box 22, Bolivar, MO. 65613
