Fishing Alone

This morning I decided to do something I normally don't do - fish alone.  Usually I bring my fiance along - he helps me tie setups, de-barb hooks, remove hooks from fish-lips/eyeballs/faces, take photos, yada yada yada.  Of course, this means I don't get to fish nearly as often as I'd like, for two reasons:

1. My fiance does not care much for fishing.  He loves it when he catches fish, and he likes to play with them when I catch them, but he hates hurting them, hates waiting around, doesn't care for keeping them/cleaning them, and doesn't usually see the fun in sitting around in the dark/cold/heat/wind while I throw a line in the water.  I don't mind, but I don't like making him do something he doesn't particularly like.
2. Our schedules almost never line up.  He's usually just waking up when I'm going to bed, and I'm getting ready for work by the end of his day.  Bleh.

That blows, for someone with a newly developed passion for fishing.

Anyways, this morning after work I decided I NEEDED some alone time by the water, so I packed up the camera, the tackle box, my favorite pole (Marcy), and my fishin' license and headed out to one of the less frequented fishing ponds - right by the police station.  It's less frequented because it's terrible fishing and there are police everywhere.  = Less overfished.  Unfortunately there are an abundance of turtles and very little structure, plus the water is incredibly low and the morning was blowing in rainclouds.  Oh well.  I had to be in the area anyways.  Someone drove too tired and didn't notice the school zone sign in time to slow down.

(That someone is me.)

ANYWAYS.  Fishing by yourself is a lot more fun than I'd anticipated.  Instead of worrying about making conversation, scaring away fish, boring my fiance, or being rushed to leave - I just got to focus on fishing.  I tried some new lures, mostly shooting for those elusive sunfish and bass I KNOW are in there somewhere.  I got a lot of turtle nibbles, but thankfully, none of them felt like ripping apart my lures or line.  It was nice.

Toward the end there when I'd mostly given up, had fished all the way around the pond from every angle and depth and determined nothing was biting, I was daydreaming and letting a gulp minnow on a tiny hook with a crappie nibble sit about a foot or so away from a bobber out toward a shallow side of the pond.  Since I wasn't paying attention or keeping my line tight (not so easy from bank with a bobber, imho), I didn't so much notice that I had a bite as realize something was swimming away with my minnow.

Whatever it was swam sideways and toward me, making it easy to reel it in.  When I got it toward the dock I realized it was a catfish.

BECAUSE I CAN NOT CATCH WHAT I'M GOING FOR, NOT EVER.

It's cool, though, because I freakin' adore catfish.

So I pulled the little guy in and *duh duh duhhhh* got my very first hook out of a fish all by myself without getting spined!  Go me!



I wound up heading home around noon because these weird city folks were backing up a boat of some sort to the pond and gesturing wildly about...and I didn't really want to hang out for that.  That, and some restaurant had started to cook food that smelled AMAZING and I had not yet eaten.  So I went home.

I think this should become a regular thing.  Extremely relaxing.  :)

-CC

Navasota River, 11-20

I picked a rotten day for fishing the 'sota, but the weather for us was grand!  My fiance and I took out the new puppy dog (check her out!) to chill under the hwy 30 bridge.  We didn't catch more than nibbles, and thankfully for my pride, neither did any of the other folks fishing out there.  Okay, one dude caught a couple of foot-long cats, but that wasn't exactly the exciting catfish/gar day I had hoped for.  What can you do?  It was cloudy, a little windy, and the water's so bloody low there isn't much luck anywhere, at least for yours truly.

We did have a great time, though, and it really was beautiful.  There were a lot of bodies, though.  The spot we were fishing by was apparently where people cleaned their fishies, there was a deer leg, the rest of the body a ways off, and its organs further off in a neat little stack.  Oh, and there was a wild boar, equally ripped up.  *shrug*  I caught a lotta branches!

It's a pretty easy river fishing spot, though, so you can bet I'll be out there more.  A new friend said he could probably boat us out on Somerville in a couple of weeks, and another new friend said eventually he'd invite us out on a weekend canoeing trip - sweet!

Yay for making fishing buddies!  :D

-CC

Photos from the Weekend of Catfishing

Hey!

You remember that hole I got in my hand from holding a cat wrong?  Well, earlier that weekend I'd been out at a city pond fishing them out for the channels TPWD had just stocked it with.  They were depressingly small, but once I found where they were hanging out, it was loads of fun pulling one after another out of the water!  I finally got the pictures I took of them, so here are the results (for all of 2 or 3 hours fishing, heh - they didn't start biting until the sun actually came up):

All caught in the AM of October 23rd

He had some really pretty green on his face.

No fun!!  Someone nibbled and when I set the hook, I snagged his tail.  Ouch!

This guy was a croaker.  I remember him.

Some day I'll stop obsessively taking photos of every single fish I take out of the water, but in the meantime, I hope you enjoy the pictures!  :)

-CC

Skunked!

I skunked out harder than I have ever skunked before yesterday.

I started at about 9 AM (I tried to get out sooner, but work prevented me) at the same lake I caught the crappie and catfish that spined me.  Expecting similar results, I was pretty displeased with the tremendous lack of success.  I'm blaming the weather.  It was freezing and the wind made casting a serious pain.  I tried to use it to my advantage, but I don't think I have the mad skills.  Banking in the cold and wind kinda sucks.

I got three bites over the course of that trip - all crappie I believe.  Makes sense, considering what I was fishing with.  The first one let go after the first grab.  The second one put up a fight for a bit, jumping out of the water halfway in and DROPPING OFF THE HOOK.  Yay, barbless.  The third was a pull and release, just like the first.  I just can't set in those guys.  Everything else, but not them.

I moved on to fish the pond I caught the bass in for the afternoon and into the early evening.  It's small and has a great variety in cover, shade, sun, and depth, so I thought surely I could find something that wanted to bite.  I started at one end (since last time I only got to fish two spots) and worked my way ALL THE WAY AROUND.  Nothing.  I spotted one fish, but couldn't get it to bite, and got a few nibbles from something that couldn't get its mouth around my hook.

It chewed off the tail of my lure.

At least no one else out there caught anything.

Finally I fished for an hour or two back at the lake again after dark, since the wind had calmed down, the water had had time to warm, and, well, why not give it one more shot?

This time, not so much as a bite.  That might have been attributed to my inability to cast further than 15 feet due to the cat behind me that hung out with us the whole time.  Actually, we still have her.  Hoping to figure out where she belongs by the end of the weekend.

...I caught the wrong sort of cat.
-CC

First Trip Since Mah Injurah!

FINALLY got back to fishing today!

I wasn't sure I'd be able to, since finishing my antibiotics meant my fiance could immediately get me sick with this awful chest thing.  But, hacking and sniffling aside, I got to fish.

We tried the Brazos River first, but couldn't for the LIFE of us figure out where to park in order to fish beneath the bridge.  We determined it wasn't worth getting towed - there weren't many good spots for banking anyways.

We then decided to try a pond near our apartment that we'd actually never been to.  I'm sincerely glad we did.  While the bite was not extraordinary, I did pull this guy outta the water:

Caught on a crappie grub lure on a small white-headed hook

He was a 13.5 inch LMB caught in the shallow, separated end of the pond.  There actually appeared to be several fish his size over there, which was surprising, given how shallow it was.  My theory is the weather - it was about 60-65 degrees and windy.  The sun was just starting to warm up the water, and I think they dug the different temperatures on that side.  Oh, and minnows!  He was released to continue to grow big and strong.

The silly thing is - I was going for sunfish at the time.  I gotta work on this whole "catching what you're aiming for" thing!  I'll be heading out to that private lake I got spined at tomorrow hopefully, to do that place the right way.  I'll let you know how it goes!

-CC

Oh Dear

We're sitting at over $3,000 right now for the ER bill to pull the silly catfish spine out of my hand.  It may go up.

I know hands are fragile, and mine are important, and infection is highly likely, and blah blah blah...but next time?  I'm just gonna try harder to rip/cut the sucker out.

3k?  Gonna put a serious dent in my goal of buying a canoe!

-CC

"Catfish Gloves"

My fiance's father heard about the hole in my hand, and bought me a pair of "Catfishing gloves."  How freakin' nifty is that?  I haven't seen them yet, but I'll take them out with me the next time I go (soon...sooooon) and let you know!  Hopefully they won't take too much slime off the catfish (they need that stuff, donchaknow), but most importantly, hopefully there won't be any more doc trips for me!

Hmm...you don't think I'll be teased too much for wearing them?

I think before I go out again I ought to also buy me a scale and a big net for pulling out big fish.  Not that my hopes are particularly high, but those are a couple of things one should probably have on hand, right?  Ya?

See ya!
-CC