Wading, Catching, Chatting - The Movie!

Ok, so the title is a bit dramatic but I finally got the video edited in a way that pleased me so without further ado I present Wading, Chatting, Catching - The Movie!

If you like movies about rivers, wading, channel catfish, or smallmouth bass this is the movie for you!

If you don't at least you can watch my friends and me fish, chat, and catch all set to a quirky beat that my Avid software provided for me once I picked it.  Hooray for technology!

In case you missed the first report about this trip you can find it at this link.  

Also most of the video footage and some of the still camera shots were captured by PivotHead Video Recording Eyewear.

7/29/2012 USGS 10.88 ft 279 cfs @ Montgomery Gauge

8.5.2012 Wading and Drifting with Dave

This past Sunday started off early but at a different spot; still the Fox river but a few miles north of some of our usual spots.  We caught a small channel cat and a dink smallmouth but the insult came when two guys in a canoe floated right past Dave and a 15" smallmouth jumped up from directly behind him right into the canoe.  The guys were riding the drift and were just beyond earshot when they finally got the bass to stop flopping around and held it up for us to see before they put it in their catch bag.  My voice couldn't get loud enough to tell them smallmouth are a catch and release only species on the Fox.  I doubt they would have cared anyway.  Ignorance is the game played when confronted with rules nevermind all the yellow signs you walk past when entering the river that tell you creel and slot limts.  

At least there was this cool spiderweb that brought me back to nature and grounded me a bit.

I was bummed.  We'd been fishing the area for a few hours and were doing worse than two guys in a canoe that had a fish jump in it.  A change of venue was in order and we loaded in the car and drove a few miles south.

This spot was better as Dave and I both hooked into a few more small catfish and smallies.  Then my float drifted my 1/2 worm around the end of a bridge piling.  It didn't even look like a big take; the float went under but not with any vigor.  I reeled in my slack and performed the "free hookset" as you often hear when talking to fisherman; try to set anyway, hooksets are free.

Fortunately my hook found it's home in the mouth of my largest channel catfish to date. Based on fish caught and weighed the last few weeks my guesstimate for this cat is 8lbs.  I fought for 10 minutes letting drag pull then bringing the line back so I could just see my float before line went out and the cat began another run.  Finally my patience was rewarded with this beautiful Fox River Channel Catfish.

Since it was the week of my birthday and I didn't go fishing on that day I consider this my birthday fish.  The head was huge and the body matched.  A big belly indicated this cat was having no problem eating.  In celebration of my fortieth year on this earth I thanked this catfish for eating my half-worm and eased it back into the water and watched it slip from my hands back to the water it came from.  Hopefully I'll get to come back when I'm 45 and catch it again when it's bigger!

8/5/2012 USGS 10.89 ft 289 cfs @ Montgomery Gauge

7/29/2012 Wading, Catching, Chatting

Last Sunday Dave and I met Dan (Pondboy) at the Fox River.  Marty (Wacky Bass) showed up after a half hour or so.  We hadn't gotten into many fish yet but the tides would turn that day.


It was fun standing mid-river with someone ten feet to my right and left.  Chatting, and wading happened effortlessly.  Catching did too.


I'm being slow at editing the video we recorded from this excursion so here's a slideshow of some of our catches.

7/29/2012 USGS 10.88 ft 279 cfs @ Montgomery Gauge

Father's Day Wadeapalooza!

My friend and fishing buddy Dan (who is also known as Pondboy) and I got together and planned a day of wading and exploring the Kiswaukee River in north western Illinois to take place on Dan's annual day to do whatever he wants; Father's Day.

I restrung my spinning reel with fresh Triline 6# mono and tied on a #4 Gamakatsu Octopus Circle Hook and set up a button pattern of small B and BB sized split-shot to weigh down the line and thus the bait. Finally a small Thill spring float completed my river float rig. I was ready to fish, now I needed to figure out what time to go to bed when I am meeting Pondboy at his house at 3:30 AM.

Once I realized what was going on when my alarm went off in the two o'clock hour I jumped into the shower and then quickly on my way out the door.

The video tells the rest of the story of our Father's Day Wadeapalooza!

Cattin' with Pondboy

Get off the Metra in Naperville and walk to car.

Go to Jewel and ask the fish counter if they have any smelt.  Find out they don't.  

Drive home, call grocery stores along the way to find none of them have smelt either and Domnicks says they don't even order any.  Stop and buy baby-wipes because Pondboy asked me to....

Baby-wipes????   We ARE fishing, right!?!  Why the baby-wipes????

OH!!!  That's why the baby-wipes!  We're cattin' and carping tonight.

First things first, we tie on a heavy lead sinker to a rod strung with braid.  This is the base of the Wolf River Rig without a three-way swivel.  Then a Palomar knot is tied 16-18" up from the sinker around the loop end of a snelled hook, the same thing is repeated on another smaller and shorter snelled hook a foot or so up from the first.  At this point you think about bait.

There is dough bait, stink bait, pool bait, dip bait, some kind of stringy stinky stuff, chicken livers, and night crawlers. Any of the above goes on either hook and gets cast out into the lake.  We were also thinking that we might catch carp if there was no cat bite so we had some corn to bait and chum with.

Our rods were in rod holders with copper bells clamped to the tip of the rod.  This way when a cat slams the bait the bell rings like crazy.  When the bite is subtle the bell rings too so you know when to pay attention for a hook set.

Tonight no carp were caught but Dan got a pleasant surprise in the form of a far more juvenile channel catfish than he expected to be in this lake.  Poachers routinely come and take fish in the night.  I think I scared one off with my flashlight.:-)

Dan and his channel cat and Dan and his crazy headgear!

Carping and catting is fun. Messy but fun.  We spent about four and a half hours listening for the subtle difference in tones of bell as made by the breeze, the bluegills, or in the one instance that night a fish.  It'll take a weekend, a 5-Hour Energy, and a lawn chair for me but I'd do it again.  I like all types of fishing I've tried so far and catching cats sounds like a nice way to spend a summer night to me.