I called in sick yesterday and went to a super-secret fishing hole of mine. My spot is just below the outlet of a little man-made reservoir down here. I was the only one there all day. I'd say the river is only 15-20 feet below the top of the levy so the slough I fish off of is pretty small. Every time we get a lot of rain the bass just start boiling but I've never seen so many fish as yesterday! It looked like an upstream salmon migration with fish trying desperately to make it up the slough. Literally hundreds of bass congregating in the foam where the water from the lake above hits the river below. I've also heard of jumping catfish before, but never seen it. At first I thought they were giant bass jumping out of the water every five or ten minutes, until I hooked into my first cat of the day.

The bite was definitely on! Final score: Three 5 lb+ cats (all released) and five bass (took three home, ate one for supper last night). The catch of the day was a 7 or 8 lb monster of a largemouth, although I can't be sure. I grew up a trout fisherman and you measure trout by length, not by weight. I'll post a picture as soon as I get the film developed. I'm just glad I switched over to 20 lb line before I went. As it was two grandaddies got off. One of them broke the line, the other broke the hook! All the fish were caught on various plastic minows, even the cats, but the large (I'm talking 4-5 inches) red tinted ones seemed to work the best.

Fishing also gives you a chance to reflect on priorities. I've come to the conclusion that too much of my time is devoted to this blog. I love to blog, to put my thoughts down in a public forum, to get feedback, to be part of a national conversation.... but clearly blogging can't be the most important thing in my life. However, if time is an indication of our priorities than an objective observer might think my life's greatest priority was blogging. So, somewhere between the fish that got away and the discovery that I was standing on an anthill I made the commitment to spend less time blogging. No, I'm not giving it up, I'm just going to cut down a bit. I average 6-10 posts a day. Expect 3-5 in the future.

More time fishing, less time blogging. More time with my family, less time with the public. More time devoted to the job that pays the bills, less time to my hobby. All blog and no play makes Rusty a dull boy..

UPDATE: All blog and no play also make Bill a dull boy. Oh and screw the Llama Butchers, I'm just keeping it real yo!

Posted by: Rusty at 08:54 AM | Comments (15) | Add Comment
Post contains 490 words, total size 3 kb.