Bob and I went on an adventure today. What this means is that we floated a piece of water we’ve not yet done and likely very few have which in turn means there was nowhere to get info. When you do this you could encounter some issues such as a completely blocked passageway. But Bob and I floated western rivers of MT, ID and WY long enough to handle some obstacles. Bob brought his chainsaw and I’m certain there are wire cutters in his boat as well.
Fortunately there were no obstacles other than some super shallow areas where we had to get out and drag the boat. All in all the small river is navigable. There were a lot of fish, mostly beautiful smallmouth bass. This one here was our biggest. Most were in that 10-12 inch range.
We suspected there could be muskellunge in the river despite its tiny size. I’d say we had five good looking deep pools where the bottom was covered with redhorse suckers. Depth and food are the key ingredients. But its musky fishing and it wasn’t until the second to last hole we came to that we actually saw one. Bob put the hammer down and the beautiful little guy was about 30”. Little guy – ha!
Along with our one musky and heaps of smallies, there were some pike. If I wasn’t traveling here again soon I may have thumped one so Granny could fry him up. Most were in that 22- 26” range. Just handsome toothy critters out killing everything they could lay their eyes on. Pike are super fun fish to catch on a float trip.
That’s it for fishing for a few days. As you can see the last three weeks I’ve gone absolutely nuts. My shoulder is sore as heck and I’m far behind in my work. Next week Granny and I are loading the van to drive to PA to pick up a boat that has been generously given to us by my Seychelles buddy, TJ Rung. This means a long drive through Michigan and we will fish. Expect a carp report from the east shore of Lake Michigan early next week.