A bunch of us met up at the Island 22 boat launch this morning and headed off for some barfishing. Methinks nets do good work as early in the day nothing was going on, that was followed up by a bunch more nothing and then some more nothing. Finally guysfishing below us got one on, then it was off, and then there was more nothing. Couple hours later my rod starts dancing.
Picked up the rod, reeled in slack, set the hook...FEESH ON!
Took a cursory run down river but not much of one, played the fish for a couple minutes as the crowd gathered before the fish finally showed itself to be a mid-teens spring, first with a swirl on the surface and then clearing the water with a nice jump. Score cards weren't handy but I give it an 8. While I'm fighting the fish I hear talk of a net and the lack of one, I was asked if I needed one and as we'd have had to borrow one and the closest people were a fair distance away I said no, I can just beach it. The fish wasn't giving me a whole lot of fight so I decided to get it over with and get it on the beach. It came easily into the shallows and I was just about to take a number of quick steps back to beach it when 1 last flop
and out comes the hook.
It was one of those things where the fish had about a second to make it's break and that was all that was needed. Another 2 seconds and it would have been on the beach, so close I could already taste it. Moral of the story, NEVER say no to a net.
The fast action was quickly followed by gobs more of nothing going on. 5 were left out fishing when I left. Hopefully they have better success to report.
Author
Topic: Fraser July 16 (Read 5897 times)