Maiden Voyage

[Borch]

Well after tagging along with a few very good cat fisherman, (Dtro, Wastwaterguru, Hanson and Harvey Lee) I decided to give it a try myself with my son Travis tagging along for his first flathead trip. After a few phone calls on to get some into in water levels and hazards we launched at 6:30 pm and headed up stream. The water is really low and we really had to work our way through some real trouble spots until we found ours selves in one of the spots I wanted to try.

We set up on a current seam in a necked down strong current area and put out a couple bullies and waited. By 9:30 we hadn't had a run yet but the spot was just looked too good not to hold a few fish. So we made a small move of 75 yards and again set up on the a current seam. As we got rods back in the water a pack of yotes started howling and yipping up a storm just upstream of us so we had a little nature entertainment. After 10 minutes I heard Travis' rod shift abruptly in the rod holder and about 10 seconds later a click, click, click... With a few last second instructions he reared back and... FISH ON!!! After a few, "Holy cow this things is pulling!" Travis had his fist flat in the boat. A nice 31 x 18 inch fish. He got a nice splash in the face on the release to as she took off.

We made one small reposition after no more runs and then at 11:30 decided to make our way back to the landing hitting a few spots along the way. Our trip in the dark was more stressfull as half back my GPS trail disappeared and what was just a misty fog 15 minutes earlier turned to pea soup. We did make to the next spot with only a few bumps in the night and set up on an outside bend near a deep hole at midnight. We decided to give it 30 minutes.

At 12:30 we hadn't had a touch and I was reaching for my rod when Travis' rod did another sudden shift in the rod holder and then nothing. I asked him it he bumped his rod and he said, "no". Then the rod tip started to load and the clicker started to do it's thing. I told him he better catch his fish. When he set the hook it looked like a decent fish but then it got "small". I asked him if he still had the fish and he said he did but it was small. But when it got near the boat it got bigger again. So at Travis now had Flat #2 and it was a little bit bigger going 34 x 19.5 inched and weighed 16 lbs.

We gave the spot another hour and decided to hit one more spot before calling it a night. But as we worked downstream the fog just got so thick it was just not worth taking the chance and we felt our way back to the landing and loaded up.

Pretty slow night for us with only 2 runs but with Travis getting his first two flats it was a great night.

[wooduck26]

.....very nice fish! I hope the weekend produces some of them for us!

[Scott K]

Sounds awesome Borch!

[Shack]

Nice recap Borch Very nice coloring on the second flat.

Travis is doing great on his hooking ratio 100% so far.

[aanderud]

Nice report, Borch! Good to see a first-timer get into a couple, I imagine he'll be asking to come back soon

[DTro]

I was thinking of you guys Borch as I made my way back to the landing at 10pm and bumped a few items due to the fog already.

You had everything working against you. Low water, cool temps with warm water and no wind. That is almost always a recipe for thick fog. You aren’t going to see a whole lot worse conditions then last night, so given the fact that you were able to post a report within 12hrs. I would call it a success

Nice to see you caught a couple! Congrats to Travis.

[Borch]

I'm sure he'll want to go again soon. The second flat was very light colored and yellow. Nice healthy fat fish.

Hopefully we get some rain soon as I'm hoping to get out a few more times in the next week or so. It's amazing how fast the water water drops when we don't get any rain.

[Borch]

Other than a few deadhead bumps we did ok. Although Travis yell "stop" as we were heading downstream as a big deadhead showed itself too close in the thich fog. All I could do is steer and trim up the motor. Like I told him, This thing doesn't come with brakes." and when you downing dowstream in a high current area you go with the flow.

[harvey lee]

Great to see you made your maiden voyage and Travis got a few flats. Soon you will be a reguular on the river for flats and will be calling those walleyes pests. Darn bottom feeders.

[mplspug]

Look at the whiskers on fish #2! What a healthy looking fish.

[jr. borch]

in my own defense with the stick where i said stop dad hit the button to trim the motor down instead of up lol. and it was fun and i hope dad will take me again soon

[DTro]

hey jr, nice to see you here!

again, nice fish. Welcome to the dark side of fishing.

[Scott K]

Welcome aboard Jr B!

[Surreal Deal]

Great report and nice fish!

I agree that second one is a particularly nicely colored, healthy looking fish.

[RAB]

Two for two on your very first trip is a great night. Remember, you can't control the size of the fish. If you found a spot, put out a bait and caught a flathead, then you did everything right.