Yesterday, I met an old friend at a launching ramp in a city park on the local. Each, provisioned with a thermos and socially distanced in our folding yard chairs, my bud, 85, and I, 69. spent a delightful if atypical,( 63 deg) couple of hours ranging on a wide range of topics. I only met this guy a few years back while we both did volunteer work for the IDNR, but we have both fished the same water for over 60 years. It made for an interesting chat. Owing to the day, there were a couple of boat anglers and several kayakers out. We departed and I returned home and worked around the house some.
At 4:oo I decided what the heck, grabbed an ultralight with a F/F already rigged and return to the river. The water temp was 50 deg and the visibility maybe 2 ft. I picked a deep hole out of the current and began assaying the fish population therein. A one hour trip yielded numerous dunks and about a half dozen bluegills - one a 9 inch dandy. Of interest was the pattern. I was using a casting bubble and a 1/32 oz home tied hair jig set to run at a depth of 3 feet. The first 15 minutes was a wash, then I remembered I had a small bottle of crappie nibbles left over from who knows when. I opened the jar and was greeted with what I can only call "rotten fish smell". I put one on the jig and after washing my hand in the river to remove the stench, tossed the loaded jig up against the same stump that had yielded nothing and promptly caught a fat bluegill. The next half hour proved rather enjoyable as the "noogies" delivered. All in all, a nice December afternoon.
Fish on,
rivereddy
