Fishing Journal Entry 11 - Chased From The River

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June 20th 2016

After work this afternoon I decided to take my son to the river for a bit of fishing.  Being the first day of summer I figured there was no better way to welcome the season.  I drove down to the parking area  and my son and I began the half mile walk to one of our fishing places.  Upon arriving at the waters edge the day seemed perfect....well almost. Thank goodness I had my ThermaCELL Other than the mosquitos, the scene was picture perfect.

Inlet To The Missouri River

The temperature was 92 degrees with mostly sunny skies.

Mouth of the Inlet to the Missouri

The barometric pressure was 30.20 and slowly falling. 

Missouri River

The wind was blowing SSE at eleven miles per hour.

The river was up more than I had expected as it has been rather dry and hot around here for a while now.  I baited each of my lines with a minnow which resulted in one missed gar about 18 inches long.  My son also missed a gar that was similar sized. After fishing for about 15 minutes or so my brother arrived.  Sneaking up on us he decided it would be funny to scare the life out of me by reaching out with the tip of his fishing pole and poking me in the shoulder blade.  Yep....It caught me off guard!  I thought he was going to fall over from laughing so hard.  I have to admit...It was pretty funny.

My son enjoying fishing time on the Missouri River

Once the excitement of missing the gar had passed, I decided to bait one line with shrimp which seems to be an off-and-on favorite meal for the catfish in this particular spot.  It worked.  Not long after sending this morsel upstream I was helping my brother out and noticed my line had a lot of slack in it.  I began reeling and by the time I had the slack line back on the spool I noticed that the business end had moved quite a ways downstream.  I pulled the rod up and set the hook on a channel catfish that would make a couple of good filets.

Perfect eating size in my book

After catching this one I managed to reel in a soft-shelled turtle that was about ten inches long.  I should have taken a picture of it but I was too busy removing the hook from its mouth while trying to keep from getting bit.  When my brother and I were much younger I watched as my pet turtle bit into his knuckle and decided right then that was something I could live without experiencing.

I re-baited my hook and the weather began to change in a hurry.  A storm was moving in.  We attempted to wait it out as the wind began to push through, but when the lightning began to flash on the other side of the river it didn't take us long to decide to pack up our gear and head for the trail leading back to our vehicles.

The storm began to arrive

The Storm Arrives

Another view of the storm's arrival

Although we found it necessary to head for the hills before we were ready to leave, the time spent with my son and brother was a lot of fun.  We decided we'd rather head out than to take a chance on being struck by a stray bolt of lightning.  There will surely be another day to head back down to the river and pick up where we left off.

- Any day in the outdoors is a good day.... Even when mother nature chases you from the river.

Fishing - An Unlikely Catch

While fishing below the Truman Dam on the Osage Arm of Lake of the Ozarks, I had one line in the water specifically for catfish.  I wasn't fishing with any special bait.  I simply placed a medium sized minnow on the line and sent it to the bottom of the lake.

After half-an-hour or so I noticed the familiar sign of a fish on the end of the line as my pole began dancing about.  I knew I had one, but as I began to reel in the line there seemed to be no resistance. "I guess I missed it" I told my wife.  However, as I continued reeling in the empty hook, a fight broke out that would end in the biggest catch of my life so far (I'd love to think there may be more giants like this one at some point).

The "first glance" at a big spoonbill

The above picture shows the spoonbill as it first reached the surface and decided to begin swimming away from me.

Almost have it landed

Shown above is the point at which I began to regain the control in this battle

"The Big One"

In the picture above I had the spoonbill almost all the way in to the dock.

Right up to the dock

The final picture shows this large spoonbill just before I released it.

The spoonbill was scarred and its "bill" was broken.  It seemed to have had a hard life. I'm sure it had been snagged a time or two in the past and I felt as though I should release it without removing it from the water.  I carefully set the giant free without adding to its timeline of scars leaving it to continue swimming somewhere below the Truman Dam in Lake of the Ozarks waiting for the next person to come along and surprisingly catch the biggest fish of their life.

- Any day in the outdoors is a good day