Transition day

[Al Agnew]

I expect that once Mary begins treatment for her medical problem, I'm probably going to be pretty busy taking care of both her and the house and business and fishing will be farther down on the list, so when I got a chance to go on a long float trip today, I took it.  I expected it to be too long to fish effectively the way one usually has to fish this time of year, though.  It was as much just to get out, clear my head, and soak up some very early spring weather, with the river flowing strongly and the trees just beginning to bud.  I love floating this time of year, when you can see all the bluffs and notice things that you never see in the summer when the leaves obscure a lot of the landscape around the river.  It's a stretch I've floated probably every year since about 1968, so it's intimately familiar, but still I've only floated it a couple of times when the trees were still bare.

Out of my stable of 6 canoes at the house, I chose the old Oscoda glass canoe, because it's the fastest and easiest to paddle straight.  I knew I'd be paddling through a lot of water to fish the good spots.  When I float this stretch in the summer, most of it is productive water, but I suspected the fish would still be near or in their wintering holes and not in some of the long, fast stretches.  I got a late start, and realized I'd have to really pace myself to fish all the spots I wanted to fish and still make it to the take-out before dark.

So...forget the jigs and such, this was going to be a power fishing day, and if the fish didn't cooperate, so be it.  I tied on a spinnerbait, a crankbait, and a jerkbait.  The first fish came on the crankbait, a nice spotted bass.  Two more quickly followed, and then I caught the first smallmouth.  I switched to the spinnerbait and immediately caught two largemouth.  The fish were in the kinds of places I expected, near stronger current but in slow eddies.  I continued down river, hooking one now and then, paddling quickly through water that I figured would be less productive.

There was a little rocky point jutting out into strong current, with a deep green little eddy on the downstream side, and I thought to myself that the eddy should hold a good fish.  I cast the spinnerbait into the pocket and got a hard strike almost immediately.  Sure enough, good fish.  I boated the smallie and measured it at a bit over 17 inches.

Then it was back to picking up a fish now and then.  Most of them were nice fish, 13-14 inchers, and about equal numbers of smallies, spots, and largemouth.  The jerkbait picked up a couple, but they didn't seem to be on it like they were the crankbait and spinnerbait.  Possibly, though, that was because I kept moving and wasn't slowing down enough to really fish the jerkbait well.  The spots and largemouth were right up against the banks and would hit either lure in the first couple of feet of movement, almost like they would in the summer.  The smallmouth seemed to be a little farther off the bank and deeper.

A little more than a third of the way through the float, I came to a long, deep, relatively narrow pool along a bluff.  I've caught a couple of big ones out of this pool over the years, and one year it even had a school of resident walleye, but usually it's not very productive in the summer.  But it should be a wintering pool, and I hoped for one that hadn't left it's winter area yet.  I was casting the crankbait parallel to the rocky bank, about 5 feet off the bank, when it stopped dead, so solidly I thought for a second that I was hung up.  Then I felt a surge and set the hook, and knew it was a heavy fish.  It came to the surface and turned its side, and I thought it was...huge.  The fight took some time, and every time I saw the fish it looked wide, but not too long.  Finally I boated it.  It was the thickest 19 inch smallmouth I've ever taken from an Ozark stream.

The fishing continued slow but steady.  I tried a few different things; I put on one of my homemade twin spins, and caught a spotted bass on it on the first cast, and another soon afterward, but then it lost its magic.  I put on one of my homemade shallow running crankbaits, caught a 16 inch largemouth, hooked a bigger fish that looked like a largemouth and lost it, and then had a 18-19 inch smallmouth follow it in and hit it at the canoe.  I had it on briefly but the hooks pulled out.  Then it lost its magic.  The deep diving crankbait that I'd caught the big one on seemed to lose its magic as well, and the spinnerbait was all that was producing for a while.  I was fishing it along a nearly vertical clay bank in fairly strong current, above a nice, deep, rocky pool, when I got a savage strike.  It was an 18 inch smallie.

I looked at the clock on my cell phone.  It was 4 PM and I still had about three miles to go.  So I started paddling more and fishing less, and as the shadows lengthened and covered much of the water, the fishing became pretty slow anyway.  I caught a couple more in those last few miles, including a nice 16 inch smallie in the last pool before the take-out.  I reached the take-out a little after 6 PM.  My left wrist was sore from this first day of the season of true power fishing.  It will get toughened up as the season progresses.  I ended up with about 40 bass caught, not a red-letter day for numbers, but I'll take those bigger fish any day!

 

[Ketchup]

Nice write up Al.  Sorry to hear your fishing will be cut short, but glad to hear it's for a great cause " taking care of your spouse" I agree, those healthy larger fish are a memory those smaller fish can't make.  

[rps]

She needs to be well. Do the things you need to do. When you have, come back to the fishing and writing. We are patient. And we pray you the best.

 

[MOPanfisher]

Believe me I understand Al.

[Mitch f]

Fantastic report and very nice smallmouth!

I know it's much easier for you and Mary facing this treatment knowing that the cancer is already contained.

FWIW, There is a new Proton Therapy machine installed at Siteman Center in downtown STL. This technology is kind of a newer form of radiation. It's very precise and maps out the tumor completely, then apples more power to the tumor than traditional radiation, because it's so precise there is less collateral tissue damage like traditional radiation. The cure rate is like 90% on certain cancers. The company who sells the machine, Mevion, hires my company to laser calibrate the machine. At 25 million a pop, there are only a few throughout the country. You might want to ask about it for Mary.

[msamatt]

Al, 

Great report! Glad you had some time to get out into the healing waters.  My wife and I got together with Rick Werner and his wife last night and they are praying for you both.    Was your Oscoda glass canoe made in South Carolina?  One of our older members donated his really nice 16' tandem to us about a month ago and we're giving it to one of our members who is a biology teacher and takes his H.S. on float trips.  .  

[mjk86]

7 hours ago, Mitch f said:

Fantastic report and very nice smallmouth!

I know it's much easier for you and Mary facing this treatment knowing that the cancer is already contained.

FWIW, There is a new Photon Therapy machine installed at Siteman Center in downtown STL. This technology is kind of a newer form of radiation. It's very precise and maps out the tumor completely, then apples more power to the tumor than traditional radiation, because it's so precise there is less collateral tissue damage like traditional radiation. The cure rate is like 90% on certain cancers. The company who sells the machine, Mevion, hires my company to laser calibrate the machine. At 25 million a pop, there are only a few throughout the country. You might want to ask about it for Mary.

The advances in cancer treatments in recent years is nothing short of astounding.  The problem will never be solved....but just in the last 20 years most cancers have gone from terminal to largely treatable.  It's been one of the great success stories in modern medicine.  Much like the invention of antibiotics.  There has been a revolutionary change in the understanding and treatment methods of cancers.  So many people now get cancer,  get treated, and go on to live the rest of their lives.  Other than antibiotics it's the only thing medicine has ever really cured.  Typically treatments focus on symptoms more than the root problem, but antibiotics cure most infections,  and combination cancer therapy cures most cancers.  It just blows my mind.   I worked on a class of chemotherapy drugs when I was in graduate school....and that entire class of treatments is totally obsolete cuz there are such better options.  This was 5 years ago.  The advances are happening on a monthly basis.  In fact,  it's hard for doctors to say exactly what the prognosis is because if you wait a year there are new and better options.  They will underestimate the prognosis actually because of this.

 

[mjk86]

Thanks for the report btw.  Nice fish, and best wishes.

[Johnsfolly]

I pray for the best for you and your wife as she begins her treatment. Great report and photos.

[Brian Jones]

That is an ABSOLUTE stud 19 incher.  Reminds me of some of those northern smallies I've seen from your brother.  Praying for strength and peace of mind for both you and Mary.