Fish ON!

Considering I injured my horse on Friday and wouldn't be able to ride him for a few days...My Honey and I decided to do a little something different over the weekend...

My oldest brother was telling us that the catfishing on the river had been really good, so we decided to set up a little camp on the river and try our luck. We used to do this all the time when we were kids. It was kind of my dad's thing. And of course we all loved it. We just got out of the habit of doing it.

Since the catfish usually bite the best right at dusk, we jumped in the mule and decided to try our luck at some of the little stock dams around our ranch.
The first dam we went to was one my other brother said was good fishing. We were expecting to catch large mouth bass, which is the local favorite when people stock their little dams. I caught a few fish. Kinda small little guys though, so I threw them all back. Pretty quick Chris reels one in, a nice sized fish and as soon as he lands him, he exclaims...These are Perch!
Needless to say, I felt pretty dumb for throwing all of mine back, because they were perfect pan-size for Perch. A master fisherman, I am NOT-LOL!

We headed up to another little stock pond, which everyone told us had been dry a couple years before, so we really weren't expecting to stop there to fish. But lo and behold, we saw some activity, so decided to try our luck.

What do you think?...
We actually threw about 1/2 of what we caught back. We had more than enough to clean for one night and they were all the same size. That dam is over-full, so will need to be fished out some.

It was pretty fun though. Every cast you reeled one in. Whenever anyone hooks a fish, we call out...Fish On! But that little dam kinda wore the thrill off of that saying-LOL.

It had gotten pretty late by the time Chris finished cleaning all those fish, but we went catfishing anyway. We just dropped a bunch of tree branches over the edge of the riverbank and started us a bonfire so we could see.

Sadly, this is the only size we caught...
I suspect that the last time the river came up, the big cats headed back toward the Missouri for the winter. Darn!

We called it a night, went to the camp and pigged out on a stew I had put on the coals earlier. The plan was to get up at the butt-crack of dawn and try the catfishing again.

Yeaaa....that didn't happen. We were wore smooth out from the day before.

So after breakfast, we headed back out to the "Perch" dam to try our luck again. Apparently those Perch really liked my red spinner and I caught 4 nice ones. Chris caught ONE.

We stopped at the over-full dam again, just for giggles, but threw all of them back in.

We really wanted to try this bigger dam in a different draw, so we headed there.

A couple of casts into it and the ringing cry of...Fish On started up...

That's about the big and the small if it right there...
Chris caught himself a nice 3 pound large mouth and my poor brother caught his newborn brother-LMAO!

I caught a nice 2-3/4 pounder...
Ughhh-I wasn't holding him right, so you can't really see how big he was. And that pic is a little embarrassing. What you can't see is that I am soaked from the knees down. My bass buried himself in the moss and I waded in to dig him out. I really had no idea he was that size, but I was using my favorite red spinner..."the perch getter"... and I didn't want to lose it. And that water was c.o.l.d!!

I apparently am out of the "camping/fishing mode" because I didn't take extra clothes, nor a....uuh-hmmmmm...brassiere. Whoops!

Brother DID end up catching a few nicer sized bass....


This little Blue Gill jumped right out of the water after my "lucky" red spinner...
He got a reprieve and was tossed back. After we all got done laughing our asses off over that.

Brother caught himself a really nice and healthy bullhead...
With a spinner no less. That very rarely happens. Like Perch, Bullheads are usually caught with worms. Nope, I didn't share my red spinner, the fish were just biting that darn good.

The fishing was definitely interesting.

When we finally got back to camp, this herd of wild horses came to visit...
I kid! It's just the "over-flow" herd. Isn't Donk just the cutest darn thing? Bless her heart. She came over, ate some bread, insisted I stroke her ears and then I had to shoosh her away. She thought she might like to check out the inside of the tent too. Bad Donk!

We cleaned another stringer of fish, fried up some fillets and then went back to the river to try the cats again...
The catfishing was lousy, but the view was beautiful.

Unfortunately, that big, "pretty" thunderhead made it's way all the way around us and then swooped in, causing Chris to have to hold the tent up for a little while...
Not much rain out of the deal though. Which, for once is a good thing in SD because we HAD to get out of there the next morning to head elsewhere.

But that's another post.;-)