3/27/10 Fox then DuPage
Posted: Sat Mar 27, 2010 8:23 pm
This week I spent almost 45 hours sitting in front of a computer at work. Another 12 to 15 hours was spent sitting in my car going to and from work. The human anatomy isn't made to sit idle like that for such extended periods of time. I'm not used to sitting idle for such extended periods of time. Watch a group of kids 5 and under playing at a playground. Just because we get older doesn't mean that we don't need that kind of all out joy at being physical.
But circumstances get in the way.
When I get out fishing I have a choice, do it the easy way or the way that's not so easy. My daughters don't understand my distinction between something being hard and something being not that easy. When confronted with something you want to do and then say "that's going to be hard" almost gives you an excuse not to do it. If you say "this isn't going to be easy" then there's a good chance you're going to do it anyway. I don't know. Makes sense to me.
Today, after a week of sitting on my ass for almost 60 hours, I chose to make things not so easy. Rather than take the easy short cut to where I wanted to fish on the Fox, I chose to take the long route. This added another mile of walking to the fishing excursion, but it was a mile that was desperately needed in order to feel like an active human being again.
When I was a kid, there was a columnist in one of the Chicago papers that I read all the time. I can no longer remember his name. Now and then he would do a column that he called "Things I learned on the way to looking up other things." I looked forward to that one the most.
That's how I treat my not so easy routes to fishing. The things I have come across over the years while taking my not so easy routes is what keeps me doing it over and over. It's got to the point where getting around to fishing at the end of one of these routes really isn't all that important. Today the long route put me about a quarter mile upstream from where I wanted to be. Now I had to walk the shore, a shore that is a perfect high water fishing spot. When the water is warmer. Today it was a chance to prove to myself that the water was too cold to be successful at catching fish. I proved myself correct.
I did get to check on a pipe that has been seeping what looks like raw sewage for years. Years ago I contacted somebody about it. They said thanks and we'll take care of it. I think it's been six or seven years now. I guess they must be busy.
They did put up a sign warning people to not fish around or go in the water in this spot, might be raw sewage. Why fix it if you don't have to I guess.
When I finally got to the area I wanted to fish, my initial casts were met with hard hits and tugs and nothing to show for the effort. This time of year missing a fish or two could mean missing the only chance you had at catching a fish for the rest of the day. I started heading down stream to comb a shore line made up of steep undercut banks. I kind of resigned myself to the fact that I may have blown my chance for the day. Thought it would be more of a day to just check out the emerging green of this year through the dying remains of last year.
Not far into my wandering down stream a fat 12 inch smallie hit hard and put up a good fight.
I thought this was a good sign and gave up looking for spring greenery to concentrate a little harder on casting close to the shore without hooking every root ball along the way. The only thing I had to show for my efforts an hour and a half later were a half dozen carp scales that had come back on the end of my hook.
By ten o'clock I was back at my car. Far too early to call it a day. I needed the exercise and I wasn't going to get much hanging around the house all day. So I headed to a stretch of the DuPage River in Shorewood that Sam was good enough to map out for me. It had been at least 11 years since I had been in that area, fishing anyway, and it was an easy ride to get there.
Well before eleven I was in the water. The DuPage was in perfect condition. I wouldn't call it low, but it was clear enough to see the bottom in 3 feet of water. I had forgot how much chunk rock was in the river in this stretch. It made wading along the shore a real test of my leg strength after such a long week of sitting. You could see out in the middle of the river that it got even deeper. The river was that dark color that comes with the deeper water. The current flow wasn't that bad out in the middle so I concentrated all my casts there, letting the jig and twister swim in the current and bounce on the bottom. I swam it back up stream on the edge of the shallow/deeper water in case anything was sitting on the edge.
The current out in the middle slowed in this one stretch making it even easier to get the lure to the bottom. That's when I got the hard hit, pulled drag and a heavy fish swimming up stream. Smallies don't jump much when the water is colder and this 16 incher hugged the bottom shaking it's head from side to side before I was able to get it up next to me.
As soon as I reached down to lip it I could see that one side of its mouth was pretty well deformed and it had a good sized knob on the it's head between it's upper lip and eyes. This only comes from lures with 2 treble hooks on them. One gets embedded in the side of its mouth and the other catches the fish somewhere in the head. Trying to get a well set treble hook out of the corner of a fishes mouth can completely destroy the spot where the lips come together. I quit using lures like that years ago when I would catch a fish and find that the other set of trebles had one of its hooks stuck in the fish's eye. Not fond of blinding fish for sport.
With the near god-like status bestowed on the smallmouth bass in rivers around here, you would think if you're going to beat anglers into catch-and-release submission that anglers doing the beating would be harping on discontinuing these fish butchering lures. Unless you're catching dinner and really don't want them to get away. I think I've proven over the years that you can land some pretty good sized fish with nothing more than a 1/0 hook. Usually even smaller. For the most part you're going to be catching smallies in the 1 to 4 pound range. The 4 pounders are 20 inches or over. That's the way it works in rivers. Your chances of ever landing a 20 inch or better smallie out of a river around here are slim to none. I've only landed 3 in 14 years and lots of river fishing.
Their fat lake counterparts are the ones that weigh more at 20 inches. Do you really need all that hardware to land fish in the 3 pound range and under? Hell, I've landed 20 to 30 pound salmon on #6 octopus hooks.
After about an hour of walking on the chunk rock of the river bed my back was twinging. Bad back, too much sitting, this is what happens. It got to where I couldn't put my weight on my right leg without a twinge of pain shooting up my hip and making my leg give out. If I'm careful I can control it, but I also didn't care to find out if today I was wrong.
I hobbled my way to a lift in the river before it spilled over the next set of riffles and into another pool. I like casting into the lift and just hanging the lure in the current. Move it up and down and back and forth a little. Looks just like a minnow sitting in the current doing the exact same thing. I was rewarded for my patience with a fat little 14 inch smallie.
The initial plan had been to make my way down into the next pool and work the shore line. Lots of chunk rock. Lots of current breaks. But my back disagreed with my plans and said it wanted to go home.
I don't argue with my back when it's in a pissy mood.
But circumstances get in the way.
When I get out fishing I have a choice, do it the easy way or the way that's not so easy. My daughters don't understand my distinction between something being hard and something being not that easy. When confronted with something you want to do and then say "that's going to be hard" almost gives you an excuse not to do it. If you say "this isn't going to be easy" then there's a good chance you're going to do it anyway. I don't know. Makes sense to me.
Today, after a week of sitting on my ass for almost 60 hours, I chose to make things not so easy. Rather than take the easy short cut to where I wanted to fish on the Fox, I chose to take the long route. This added another mile of walking to the fishing excursion, but it was a mile that was desperately needed in order to feel like an active human being again.
When I was a kid, there was a columnist in one of the Chicago papers that I read all the time. I can no longer remember his name. Now and then he would do a column that he called "Things I learned on the way to looking up other things." I looked forward to that one the most.
That's how I treat my not so easy routes to fishing. The things I have come across over the years while taking my not so easy routes is what keeps me doing it over and over. It's got to the point where getting around to fishing at the end of one of these routes really isn't all that important. Today the long route put me about a quarter mile upstream from where I wanted to be. Now I had to walk the shore, a shore that is a perfect high water fishing spot. When the water is warmer. Today it was a chance to prove to myself that the water was too cold to be successful at catching fish. I proved myself correct.
I did get to check on a pipe that has been seeping what looks like raw sewage for years. Years ago I contacted somebody about it. They said thanks and we'll take care of it. I think it's been six or seven years now. I guess they must be busy.
They did put up a sign warning people to not fish around or go in the water in this spot, might be raw sewage. Why fix it if you don't have to I guess.
When I finally got to the area I wanted to fish, my initial casts were met with hard hits and tugs and nothing to show for the effort. This time of year missing a fish or two could mean missing the only chance you had at catching a fish for the rest of the day. I started heading down stream to comb a shore line made up of steep undercut banks. I kind of resigned myself to the fact that I may have blown my chance for the day. Thought it would be more of a day to just check out the emerging green of this year through the dying remains of last year.
Not far into my wandering down stream a fat 12 inch smallie hit hard and put up a good fight.
I thought this was a good sign and gave up looking for spring greenery to concentrate a little harder on casting close to the shore without hooking every root ball along the way. The only thing I had to show for my efforts an hour and a half later were a half dozen carp scales that had come back on the end of my hook.
By ten o'clock I was back at my car. Far too early to call it a day. I needed the exercise and I wasn't going to get much hanging around the house all day. So I headed to a stretch of the DuPage River in Shorewood that Sam was good enough to map out for me. It had been at least 11 years since I had been in that area, fishing anyway, and it was an easy ride to get there.
Well before eleven I was in the water. The DuPage was in perfect condition. I wouldn't call it low, but it was clear enough to see the bottom in 3 feet of water. I had forgot how much chunk rock was in the river in this stretch. It made wading along the shore a real test of my leg strength after such a long week of sitting. You could see out in the middle of the river that it got even deeper. The river was that dark color that comes with the deeper water. The current flow wasn't that bad out in the middle so I concentrated all my casts there, letting the jig and twister swim in the current and bounce on the bottom. I swam it back up stream on the edge of the shallow/deeper water in case anything was sitting on the edge.
The current out in the middle slowed in this one stretch making it even easier to get the lure to the bottom. That's when I got the hard hit, pulled drag and a heavy fish swimming up stream. Smallies don't jump much when the water is colder and this 16 incher hugged the bottom shaking it's head from side to side before I was able to get it up next to me.
As soon as I reached down to lip it I could see that one side of its mouth was pretty well deformed and it had a good sized knob on the it's head between it's upper lip and eyes. This only comes from lures with 2 treble hooks on them. One gets embedded in the side of its mouth and the other catches the fish somewhere in the head. Trying to get a well set treble hook out of the corner of a fishes mouth can completely destroy the spot where the lips come together. I quit using lures like that years ago when I would catch a fish and find that the other set of trebles had one of its hooks stuck in the fish's eye. Not fond of blinding fish for sport.
With the near god-like status bestowed on the smallmouth bass in rivers around here, you would think if you're going to beat anglers into catch-and-release submission that anglers doing the beating would be harping on discontinuing these fish butchering lures. Unless you're catching dinner and really don't want them to get away. I think I've proven over the years that you can land some pretty good sized fish with nothing more than a 1/0 hook. Usually even smaller. For the most part you're going to be catching smallies in the 1 to 4 pound range. The 4 pounders are 20 inches or over. That's the way it works in rivers. Your chances of ever landing a 20 inch or better smallie out of a river around here are slim to none. I've only landed 3 in 14 years and lots of river fishing.
Their fat lake counterparts are the ones that weigh more at 20 inches. Do you really need all that hardware to land fish in the 3 pound range and under? Hell, I've landed 20 to 30 pound salmon on #6 octopus hooks.
After about an hour of walking on the chunk rock of the river bed my back was twinging. Bad back, too much sitting, this is what happens. It got to where I couldn't put my weight on my right leg without a twinge of pain shooting up my hip and making my leg give out. If I'm careful I can control it, but I also didn't care to find out if today I was wrong.
I hobbled my way to a lift in the river before it spilled over the next set of riffles and into another pool. I like casting into the lift and just hanging the lure in the current. Move it up and down and back and forth a little. Looks just like a minnow sitting in the current doing the exact same thing. I was rewarded for my patience with a fat little 14 inch smallie.
The initial plan had been to make my way down into the next pool and work the shore line. Lots of chunk rock. Lots of current breaks. But my back disagreed with my plans and said it wanted to go home.
I don't argue with my back when it's in a pissy mood.
)
