I am again running two weeks behind posting here, as frankly it is not much fun to sit down and write about slow fishing days, and it has been a tough year so far. Mix that with work, sick kids and then sick parents, and an unexpected kitchen remodel and well… you know. That said, I committed when I started Shad on the Fly to keep honest accounts of my fishing adventures, good, bad, or indifferent. I have post dated this blog entry for my record, and while the fishing was not great, it was a fun day!
I decided to take a half day off on Friday to fish with Todd. With slow fishing both experienced and reported down by CS Lee, we decided to try upstream, and met at Hatbill around 12:30. As we were loading up the gear in to the canoe, I realized in my haste to get everything loaded in and on the Jeep, while also listening to my weekly showcase meeting, I inadvertently forgot to grab a paddle… smh. This is not the first time I have done this either, nor is this the greatest place on earth to be “up sh!t’s creek without a paddle” if something was to go wrong.
After some deliberation and a vocal comment by me that I need to buy one of those little emergency paddles and just keep it in the truck, we decided what the heck… I have a brand new motor that is running well, we should be alright. Todd grabbed a stick so we would at least have something to push off with, and off we went. Oh boy.
As we made our way downstream through the first set of turns with all of the high reeds, we had a close call with a gheenoe that decided to take the inside of a blind turn while I took the outside. Nothing major, the sponsons again did just fine with the wake, but another reminder of how difficult it is to see and be seen in this claustrophobic section of river. I need to get a new flag for this boat.
The water was still a bit high for this section of river with the guage at SR 50 showing around 4.0ft. This can make finding the channel a little challenging in some areas where there are sloughs, creeks, and junctions so we found ourselves in skinny water… you know, where a paddle comes in awfully handy. 8\
It took us about 15 minutes to make it to the first junction where we found great current and fished for about 30-45 minutes, covering the water well with switch rods and a spinning rod and only managed a small panfish.
We decided to make the run down to the second junction by way of the west channel to check things out. The west channel takes longer but it is deeper… you know, where a paddle is less necessary… smh. It took just another 20 or so minutes of motoring to make the trip.
When we arrived, we found even better current, a fair amount of surface activity, as well as a 5 foot section of PVC in the shallow water… a perfect push pole and replacement for the stick Todd donned at launch. We fished for about an hour and found that the surface activity was just crappie, likely in a feeding frenzy as the receding river swept grass shrimp and minnows off the grass. Unfortunately we did not find shad.
We continued motoring downstream, not very far from where the Indian mounds are. While we found decent current and surface activity, we did not find shad. While we there, we could hear an airboat off in the distance really going to town… revving, slowing, revving, slowing. As anyone that frequents the river can attest, the sounds of airboats are common place on the St. Johns. Love it or hate it, it’s just a part of our river culture. I am pretty sure I have said the phrase… “you hear that Todd… that’s the sweet sound of horsepower,” quite literally every time I have been on the river with him since we met. However this was something different enough that it made me stop and study what was going on.
Instead of finding an airboat doing doughnuts or some other BS off in the distance, I noticed an interesting symphony of horsepower, barking, whistling, and hootin’ and hollerin’. At first, I figured they must have been hunting hogs, but then saw what looked to be someone riding a horse way off in the distance. As the airboat continued revving, I soon saw that what was actually going on, was a roundup. The airboat was working in unison with a couple of guys on horseback and a dog or two to get cattle to cross the river. I found it fascinating. I never really considered an airboat to be anything more than an annoying, noisy, utilitarian vessel to navigate otherwise difficult to travel wetlands, and here it was, being used as a versatile tool the same way a cowboy uses a horse. I stand corrected.
On the way back upstream, we chose the west channel again… for obvious reasons, and with the slightly higher water level, found ourselves off the beaten channel path. As we wandered around what seemed like a small pond looking for a cut back to the main river, we spooked what seemed like 50 large bass or gar that gave us serious pause. Note to self, I need to go back there… you know the spot on the map.
The sun was getting low and the water skinny. Thankfully we had our new push pole aboard which made short work of the shallow water we needed to cross to get back to the river. After finding the channel and a brief scare with a motor that would not restart (8|), we made our way back to the launch by dark, questioning where the heck the fish were.
If you have been around a while, you know I have a unique relationship with this section of river around Hatbill. This is yet another feather in that cap. Every trip is an adventure… sometimes, no maybe most times, of my own making. Fish or no fish, I can’t help but smile as I write this, as I am already planning another trip to Hatbill, in to the wild… no one for miles!