Little Big Fish
Filed under: Adventures — admin @ 11:55 pm
Some people spend their free time on the golf course. Some folks just work themselves into the grave. And some of us take every chance we can to enjoy the outdoors river-fishing style. I don’t believe there’s a more relaxing way to spend time than floating down a river. The scenery is ever changing. Yesterday we saw deer, eagles, kingfishers, cedar waxwings and countless other species. The serenity was periodically jolted by bonecrushing attacks from hungry riverine bass.
Oh yeah, did I mention we were fishing for big mean Mississippi smallmouth? I sweet talked a pretty young lady into accompanying me the other day. Her name is Sienna Miller, my fourteen year old daughter. She claims fishing isn’t for her - but I make her come along anyway.
At this age, there’s a bunch of things she’d probably rather be doing. I try to explain that there’s a lot more to fishing than catching fish. By the time the float was over, after about five hours, I could tell she was really enjoying the whole experience. She rarely put the rod down after the first encounter with a surface busting smallmouth.
This day the fish were looking up and they were all business! The first couple good looking spots produced savage strikes from torpedoing smallmouth - bumrushing surface lures and flies. Sienna’s 19 1/2 incher (pictured) hit the lure three times before finally managing to get hooked. She had two others bomb her Pop-R within a few feet of the canoe - one of them actually frightened her…good stuff!
Dad managed a few himself, but of course Sienna caught the biggest one and several others as well. We both probably missed 6 - 8 fish that exploded and missed or refused our blurbling poppers. It was a very beautiful and exciting summer day. Sienna’s cousin Matt Miller added to the youthful competition guided by his dad, my brother Bruce. Matt landed seven smallies and had one 18 incher. Uncle Bruce picked up a few, but was largely paddling as was I.
Putting people on to fish like this is something that can alter someone’s perspective forever - watching them as they take in the beauty, grace and excitement of fishing and being outdoors.
Emu Deceiver
Emus (Dromaius novaehollandiae) are the missing link between a dinosaur and a bird. I understand they don’t take kindly to feathers being plucked off of them while alive. Furthermore, word has it - they don’t particularly care for plucking when they are dead, either.