Randy C, a friend of mine since the early 70's, came over for our annual fishing trip. We loaded my little quad trailer with everything we would need for three days of hot weather. I loaded my ice box with about 6 gallons of frozen water to keep our fish fresh, and figuring on thawing it out as we needed for drinking water. The rest was stoves, fish cleaning table, tents and other comfort items. Quite surprisingly we only took 12 beers with us, and ended up bringing 2 of them back. Randy has cut back a lot lately. Nothing like a bit of advancing age to temper one's excesses.
We parked my truck at the last ranch on the road, and headed out on a two track down to the river. It is a 7 mile ride with the last part down a pretty narrow Canyon to the river. The spring waters had changed the river a bit. The sand bar that we normally camp on had narrowed to almost nothing. Apparently the river channels had changed a bit as well. We had to do our Cat fishing in a bit of a different spot than before.
The temps were in the high 90's by the time we got our stuff carried down to the River, and the tents set up. Then it was time to do some fishing. I had in the past used Panther Martin lures to catch Bass, but I have since gone to plastic worms. With the Small Mouth Bass, I find a shorter worm in the 5 inch range works best. Randy started out with the lure while I started with a worm. I soon found out that a form of " Dabing" was the most effective. I had waded out into the middle of the fast water to a point where the water dropped off to slow. I spent a bit of time throwing way down stream, but kept getting my strikes as I was lifting the worm out of the water. After having this shown to me time after time, I finally just gave up and stripped off about 10 feet, and promptly caught all the Bass I wanted.
After a time Randy got tired of watching me and came over to see how I was using the worms. He soon caught his limit as well. Randy had brought a little plastic picnic table, probably made for kids, and we set that up in the river to clean our fish.
When the sun went down, we both went out in the river to bathe and wash some of the stink off us. We then watched the shadows lengthen and all the Nighthawks and Terns flying up the River. The Quail all fly to the steep side of the river for their night roost. When the Mosquito's came out, we retired to our beds to listen to the night chorus of Bull Frogs, and the Beaver that has claimed that stretch of the river. An occasional Coyote added to the chorus.
I had brought my Drift Camera with me, and put it on my hat to see if I could get anything on film. Unfortunately I did not have anything to view the finished product and after the fact, found that I did not have it positioned very well.
The Catfish population seem to be down a bit, but the Bass made up for it. Randy did catch a really good Cat, and the rest were in the 18 inch range. We caught enough fish that we didn't fish on our last day, just concentrated in packing up and getting out of the Canyon before it got too hot.
https://vimeo.com/46947649
The link above will take you to the video. The password is:
owyheeflyer
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