So, Jared called me last week, asking if I wanted to go fishing. \u00a0I\u2019ve known Jared for 25 years or more, ever since he was a teenager.\u00a0 Funny thing is that I used to fish with his dad, now I fish with him.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat do you have in mind?\u201d I asked hesitantly\u2014his idea of a fun day of fishing is often a lot different than mine.\u00a0 I was once like him, young and filled with fly fishing hype, drinking the Kool-Aid by the gallon.\u00a0 I still like to fly fish, but for me it has always been A way to fish, not THE way to fish.\u00a0 And I almost always prefer to fish from a boat that is powered by something other than oars.<\/span><\/p>\n

His response was \u201cHow about we do float trip with my raft?\u201d<\/a>
\n<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cA raft?\u00a0 A raft.\u00a0 You want me to fish from a raft. Who are you, Huckleberry Finn?\u00a0<\/a> <\/span><\/p>\n

You do know that I have two boats- complete with motors-that don\u2019t get used enough as it is? \u201c<\/span><\/p>\n

He was persistent, \u201cWe could float down the Rapid River, it has a bunch of smallmouth and muskies.\u201d\u00a0 I had been to this river, was not impressed.\u00a0 \u201cNo.\u00a0 What else have you got?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHow about floating the Pine?\u201d\u00a0 Hmmm, that sounded a little more interesting.\u00a0 \u201cWhat do you know about it?\u201d\u00a0 Turns out he hadn\u2019t been there yet, but had some good intel that the section we would fish was off the radar and had a bunch of smallmouth, and maybe muskies. \u00a0\u201cNo access other than carry-in, so the raft is perfect.\u201d \u00a0I was tempted.\u00a0 I had had heard some decent reports over the years about this river, somehow never made it there.\u00a0 It was a little father than I wanted to go for a day trip, but I gave in.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We Google Earthed potential put-ins and take-outs and decided on a nice 6-mile section of river.\u00a0 I was concerned about water level, \u201cI do not want to end up dragging a raft down 6 miles of river\u201d.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNo worries\u201d, he said, \u201cthe level is well above average for this time of year\u201d.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve got kayaks.\u00a0 We could take kayaks.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ll like the raft.\u00a0 Everyone likes the raft.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAlright, you be Huck, I’ll be Jim.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Saturday morning found me heading east into a rising sun.\u00a0 Jared had wanted to meet at 8, I insisted on 7.\u00a0 Exploratory trips often take longer than anticipated.<\/span><\/p>\n

The signs of autumn were starting; a few maple and ash trees were showing their fall colors as the morning fog gave way to weak sun. \u00a0\u00a0I was at the meeting place first, a spot where the road came close to the river and it was where we would take out.\u00a0 The river was close, and I took a look over the edge of the drop that led to the river.\u00a0 It was a sheer drop of about 8 feet that evened out into a tangle of brush and mud.\u00a0 <\/a>There would be no way to get up or down that hill, even without a raft.\u00a0 I soon found a path that skirted the bad spot, it would still be tricky but plenty doable.\u00a0 Jared showed up and we loaded what little gear I brought into his truck that had his raft strapped in the back.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

We drove up to the put-in, and it was easy enough to carry the raft and gear about 50 yards to the river.\u00a0 Jared was gathering a few last items from the truck so I took the opportunity to get something tied on a favorite rod.\u00a0 The rod in question was a short, 6-foot baitcaster that is super fun to cast.\u00a0 It is light but strong, and allows for very accurate one-handed casting of hard baits like topwaters and crankbaits.\u00a0 I had seen a couple of leopard frogs in the grass and rocks along the river bank, and I chuckled as I tied on the only topwater in the small tackle box I had brought– a frog pattern Chug Bug.\u00a0<\/a> Match the hatch, right?\u00a0 Another rod was a heavy spinning rod for fishing a jerk-shad, and I also brought a muskie rod.\u00a0 My muskie tackle box consisted of one spinnerbait roaming in my tackle bag.\u00a0 I made a test cast off the bank.\u00a0 A cool thing about fishing rivers is that once you learn how to catch fish in one river you can catch them in any river, as rivers have a way of behaving the same way, and creating similar spots.\u00a0 Everything about this river looked fishy, but I threw to the fishiest looking part of the pool where the current came in.\u00a0 The bait didn\u2019t go 10 feet before a nice smallmouth ate it.\u00a0 Jared got back as I hoisted the 17-incher.\u00a0 \u201cThey\u2019re heeeeere!\u201d I said.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

We shoved off, Jared at the oars, me armed with a Chug Bug.\u00a0 To say the fishing was good would be an understatement.\u00a0 Almost every fishy spot produced a fish, and there was really no reason to try anything other than the topwater lure.\u00a0 I made the decision to not bring a fly rod since this was an exploratory trip, probably should have brought an eight weight, as those smallmouth would have torn up a cork popper.\u00a0<\/a> <\/span><\/p>\n

We came into a bend that was deeper and slower than the riffle water above, it looked like as likely a place for a muskie as anywhere so I started straining the water with the big spinnerbait.\u00a0 There were some tasty looking logjams at the top which produced a nice pike.\u00a0 The heart of the deep bend produced nothing, but as the water got shallower at the bottom I ended up with a small but spirited muskie on the line.\u00a0 The ten-pounder got off pretty quick which was fine by me.\u00a0 At least it showed that there were muskies in there.\u00a0 I guess it should have been no surprise, as all other rivers in the area are known for the long fish.\u00a0<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

I gave Jared a break from rowing and watched him froth the water with first a big fly on his ten weight, then a big muskie lure on a heavy muskie rod.\u00a0 The smallmouth liked both of these enough that he switched over to his eight weight with a flashy streamer.\u00a0 The gold flashabou looked just right to me in the whisky colored water, and the smallmouth thought so too.\u00a0 One time a big pike tried to take away one of Jared\u2019s fish, he let it go before too much damage could be done.\u00a0<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

After a bit Jared took over the rowing duties and generously rowed the rest of the way, allowing me to continue the Chug Bug clinic.\u00a0<\/a> <\/span><\/p>\n

One time I went to unhook a fish and I found something strange\u2014the front treble was gone, but somehow the fish was \u201chooked\u201d on the split ring that was still there.\u00a0 How this could have happened I can\u2019t imagine.\u00a0 And I had to use a pliers to get the split ring out of the fish as it had gone in a half turn.\u00a0 A deer crossed the river just in front of us once, and a Cooper\u2019s Hawk kept us company for a while.\u00a0 We agreed that the whole area was very squatchy.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

It was a fun day, one of the best of the summer.\u00a0 The raft really was perfect for this venue, it floated through just few inches of water, it was easy to maneuver, and was very stable.\u00a0 I also like the fact that we were able to load it into my truck at the take-out, cutting down on shuttle hassles.\u00a0 There\u2019s no way I\u2019m buying a raft\u2026but there\u2019s also no way I\u2019d pass on an offer to make another float in Jared\u2019s.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

You can get in touch with Jared at https:\/\/www.fishingdoggs.com\/<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So, Jared called me last week, asking if I wanted to go fishing. \u00a0I\u2019ve known Jared for 25 years or more, ever since he was a teenager.\u00a0 Funny thing is that I used to fish with his dad, now I fish with him. \u201cWhat do you have in mind?\u201d I asked hesitantly\u2014his idea of a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1357,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wildsmallie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1346"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wildsmallie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wildsmallie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wildsmallie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wildsmallie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1346"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/wildsmallie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1346\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1365,"href":"http:\/\/wildsmallie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1346\/revisions\/1365"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wildsmallie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wildsmallie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wildsmallie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wildsmallie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}