Corn is in, beans are done. I would start mowing hay, but calling for lots of rain this week. What to do? I decide to finally take up brother-in-law’s fishing offer. I send a message and before I can get the tractor out of the bean field, Brother-in-law’s Tahoe skids to a stop in my driveway with camoflage boat in tow. I unhook the bean drill while he checks over supplies, charts a course, and practices some knot tying. “I already set a trap in your pond for bait”, Brother-in-law advises. I help extricate him from some rope, pull the bait traps full of small bullhead catfish, and we are headin to the river!
At the boat ramp, we discuss the serious side of fishing on the Missouri River. We run through the checklist again; Flotation devices, “Yep”, Cutout switch, “Yep”, Beer cooler, “Of course”, Is the plug in the boat, “yep”. Its getting to be late afternoon, so we expedite our launch. Brother-in-law jumps in the boat, and I throw the Tahoe in reverse and start my patented serpentine descent down the ramp. This ramp has helpful concrete curbs. When I see Bro-in-law bounce in the air, I turn the wheel the other direction. Sploosh! He and the boat are launched! I gently pull the trailer back up the ramp. I walk back to the boat through the white smoke and inform my brother-in law his speedometer is broken. “I was barely movin”, I explain, “but your speedometer read 60 the whole way up the ramp!”
I gotta admit, Bro-in-law spent the bucks and has a nice 4 stroke outboard. We careen up the river, holding our hats with tears running in our ears (heard a song like that somewhere…). Every so often we set jugs and lines until we are almost out of bait. Then, at the back side of a wing dyke it happens.
An Asian Carp (invasive nasty fish) flies 10 feet in the air and lands in the back of the boat! With a flip of his tail, I see both the plug and the carp arching to the middle of the craft. Three or 4 more flops and the flotation devices are in the river. Wedged between the side of the boat and the beer cooler, the big headed carp intinsifies his attack. Simultaneously Brother-in-law and I dive from opposite ends of the boat to save the beer cooler. “That was close!” we agree. We limp back to the boat ramp and then home.
Honey bunches is amazed by our heroic recitation of the trip. At least she said she was. All we had to do was go back in the morning and run our lines. To our disappointment, all we caught was a 3 pound flathead… until the last 10 hooks we set on a trotline that evening. On that line we pulled in almost forty pounds of catfish. What can I say, Asian Carp are good bait!
Try and get away now!
Salt Creek 