I had to go to the VA for some lab work(routine) and decided I needed to pick up some fish for the smoker. From the VA clinic to the lake is a little two lane highway through the mountains, twisty and a number of 10-15 mph switchbacks and just pretty, it took me nearly two hours to go 59 miles.. I got to the lake and it was really cloudy as they are releasing water from the reservoir up stream, too cloudy to shoot carp so I decided to fish from the bank for them. I made up a batch of pack bait and fished a hair rig on my 7" ultralight spinning rod, 6lb test line. I caught five yesterday afternoon all but one in the 6-8 lb range what fun, they fight like bulldogs. I camped by the lake and this morning put three large ones and a nice channel cat on the stringer.
It's monsoon season so there were thunder storms circling the lake but none hit. We are in a serious draught down here and even some of the streams in the mountains were dry. So it was nice to see a couple of playas along the highway on the way home with some water in them.
I cleaned all the fish at the lake so I just have to chunk them up and get them in the brine tonight and smoke them tomorrow. The catfish gets fried tomorrow night.
Now back to honey do's, I need to get irrigation in my wife's flower beds to we can go to a hotrod show and fishing in CO in Aug.
I do have to tear down my reel and lube it, by the ninths fish it was getting pretty sticky, I had to back reel on some of the big runs as the drag wanted to grab also. It is a fun way to beat up a reel though.
Friday night fresh out of the smoker, I had too much for the smoker so filleted one and chunked it for catfish bait.
The smooth skinned one was a smallmouth buffalo.
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