Floated All By My Lonesome On 11-11-08

[FishinCricket]

Hey all, sorry if this report is late for some of you, but...

The Gasconade river was LOW on 11-11... I didn't realize the gravity of what I was doing when I put my 5 hp B&S and my 16 foot john boat on that river at the Hazelgreen access and began my journey to the 133 bridge, all by myself for the first time in months! I was so excited...

So excited, in fact, that I didn't put my fishing pole down until I realized it was getting dark and that I still had a ways to go.. That's when I figured out that the rivermay have been high enough to use the motor, but not if you can't see the channels! It started getting dark quick, and I was forced to used the oars to paddle my way in.. I started paddling at the corner with the Huge steeple on the hill (about halfway along the 4 mile float) and continued to paddle until almost 8 M (between bouts of paranoia and anger at myself) I had to get out four or five times to pull the boat off of a stump or rock or sandbar that I had hit, in the dark, at full speed (which is considerable with two oars)...

It wasn't the smartest move I had made in a while.. However, before the worst part, I did manage to catch some fish... Mainly Goggle eye, but man did I hit a hole of them! I cast in the same spot almost 50 times, and hooked up almost 50 times! Litterally batting 1000 for like, an hour! Here's a pic.. (It was cold outside, you can see I brough my space heater...)

I hooked two pretty largemouth and almost managed to get one in the boat, but they weren't hitting the topwater very hard (sorta slurping it in, to cold outside) and they kept spitting the hooks... The week before I was banging em, here's a pic of that, one mile upstream from the 133 bridge... Not the greatest picture, but all we had was mom's cell phone...

A wonderful place to fish, that stretch of river..

May I politefully ask that we keep the fish where they are though? In the river, I mean... Keep the future in mind, and put my big ol' largemouths back!!!!!

Thanks for listening, tight lines...