Post by Metal Angler on Feb 17, 2005 1:19:23 GMT -5
It was late summer in 1993. Missouri, along with the rest of the midwest had just been hit by "THE GREAT FLOOD OF '93". I lived in a small town in Missouri called RockPort.
After the waters calmed a little a buddy of mine and I decided we should head out to the river and see how the fishing was. Now being a dedicated Catfisherman, we set out with our heavy action rods, live goldfish, and plenty of weight as the current was raging. we fished all day and loaded out on Channels and a few small flatheads. This was on a Friday so we decided to camp out and fish all day Saturday too. We were fishing from the bank at the mouth of the Nishnabotna River, As well as in a few "flood pools" that had been created when the "Mighty MO." broke the levy. We fished all day Saturday and never caught a single fish. We tried Shad, Goldfish, Nightcrawlers, Crawdads, and a plethura of processed "stink baits" finally about 4:00 PM, we were at wits end. Then the "Fishmonger" showed up. This old man was scarry to all of us kids. First of all because he always stunk like rotten stuff, and Second because he was just scarry. Any way he showed up where we were fishing and asked us how we were doing. When we told him we hadn't caught a single fish all day he reached in his truck and threw us a small baggie full of these little white cubes. He said to push a trebble hook through them and fish them with a tight line on the bottom in the middle of the current. When we asked what it was he said "IVORY SOAP". We almost fell over laughing. I can't count the number of times we told him we wouldn't catch anything on soap and how much of a "crazy old man" he was for thinking we could. Then he offered to give us each a 6 pack of beer if we tried it and didn't catch any fish. Well, What more motivtion do 2 teenage boys need to prove an old crazy man wrong. So we baited up and cast out.
After about 15 min i was all ready starting to taste the beer we were gonna get, when my line came wizzing off the reel and i almost lost the pole in the river. When i tried to reel it in it would not budge, so i immediatly thought i must have gotten snagged on a log floating buy, so after about 10 minutes of not gaining any progress i reached for my knife to cut my line when the old man said "just get it in" "trust me" so i kept trying. About 35 minutes went by and i had reeled in most of the line when i noticed that it was moving pretty violently close to the bank. I knew i had something big there.
Then i saw it's head. It was the biggest fish i had ever seen. I started jumping aroung trying to get to the water to get ahold of it when the fish monger showed up with a grapple on a rope. He swung it down there and hooked it first time. In a few minutes it was on the bank and I was staring at the ugliest fish i had ever seen. It was a Flathead. after the excitement died down a little we loaded the fish on the Fishmonger's truck and took it to his shop where we weighed it. 86 lbs. I couldn't believe it. Then the fishmonger handed us a beer and said "congratulations". So we got our fish and a beer. What a day.
Catkatcher
After the waters calmed a little a buddy of mine and I decided we should head out to the river and see how the fishing was. Now being a dedicated Catfisherman, we set out with our heavy action rods, live goldfish, and plenty of weight as the current was raging. we fished all day and loaded out on Channels and a few small flatheads. This was on a Friday so we decided to camp out and fish all day Saturday too. We were fishing from the bank at the mouth of the Nishnabotna River, As well as in a few "flood pools" that had been created when the "Mighty MO." broke the levy. We fished all day Saturday and never caught a single fish. We tried Shad, Goldfish, Nightcrawlers, Crawdads, and a plethura of processed "stink baits" finally about 4:00 PM, we were at wits end. Then the "Fishmonger" showed up. This old man was scarry to all of us kids. First of all because he always stunk like rotten stuff, and Second because he was just scarry. Any way he showed up where we were fishing and asked us how we were doing. When we told him we hadn't caught a single fish all day he reached in his truck and threw us a small baggie full of these little white cubes. He said to push a trebble hook through them and fish them with a tight line on the bottom in the middle of the current. When we asked what it was he said "IVORY SOAP". We almost fell over laughing. I can't count the number of times we told him we wouldn't catch anything on soap and how much of a "crazy old man" he was for thinking we could. Then he offered to give us each a 6 pack of beer if we tried it and didn't catch any fish. Well, What more motivtion do 2 teenage boys need to prove an old crazy man wrong. So we baited up and cast out.
After about 15 min i was all ready starting to taste the beer we were gonna get, when my line came wizzing off the reel and i almost lost the pole in the river. When i tried to reel it in it would not budge, so i immediatly thought i must have gotten snagged on a log floating buy, so after about 10 minutes of not gaining any progress i reached for my knife to cut my line when the old man said "just get it in" "trust me" so i kept trying. About 35 minutes went by and i had reeled in most of the line when i noticed that it was moving pretty violently close to the bank. I knew i had something big there.
Then i saw it's head. It was the biggest fish i had ever seen. I started jumping aroung trying to get to the water to get ahold of it when the fish monger showed up with a grapple on a rope. He swung it down there and hooked it first time. In a few minutes it was on the bank and I was staring at the ugliest fish i had ever seen. It was a Flathead. after the excitement died down a little we loaded the fish on the Fishmonger's truck and took it to his shop where we weighed it. 86 lbs. I couldn't believe it. Then the fishmonger handed us a beer and said "congratulations". So we got our fish and a beer. What a day.
Catkatcher