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| The Young Man and the Old Man |
The Boy (now a young man) has been home from school for a week, laundry is
done, final grades are forthcoming, and he doesn’t start work until Memorial
Day. I guess I knew last year that this
time in May would be a good time for him to fish for a day with Glenn. I was worried about the proximity to spawning
season for bass, but the local bass have been done for a couple weeks at least,
and fish on the Susquehanna are all over the calendar based on location. Most seemed done too, but Glenn did avoid banks
and certain shoals in favor of grassy islands and mid-river rubble, places they
would/will be post-spawn. He did really
well yesterday, of course, so we did not give up on the types of spots that had
produced for him. We did not move around
a lot, partly because he knew there were fish here, but also because he had to
diagnose an electrical problem with the engine of his jet. It ended up that a few contacts had vibrated
loose and the system was throwing a code to protect the engine. This is why I pay Glenn to take us out and
don’t own my own boats anymore! This time
last year almost to the day, Young Kenny and I tore them up in the same general
area of the river. Of course, it wasn’t
day two or three of a heat wave last year. The pitch counter only hit 22 today. Kenny and I have regularly hit 100, and the
boy remembers 88 last year later in this same month.
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| Tried to do math on me and tell me the percentage of big fish was higher with only 22 total. |
Because of the forecast and the fact that Glenn had fished
Sunday in the heat, we launched about 5:30 AM and only fished until noon. By 10 AM it was already uncomfortably hot, so
the last couple of hours were a chore.
The boy, who does not have my one last cast genes, sat out a bit the
last hour. I cannot do that, but I wish
I could sometimes. If I had stuck a high
teens or 20, he would have gotten up, I am sure, but I did not. He caught a couple in the 18-inch range,
which is much better than what we could expect on the Delaware. The same with 22 fish. If my dad and I hit double digits on the
Skuke or the Big D in SEPA, it was a good day.
We just get spoiled by the Susquehanna, and it is not cheap for a 6-hour
trip these days. Glenn was in contact with
our boy Chris Gorsuch, and he and his party were having an equally challenging
morning. It happens, especially in this type of weather rollercoaster of a spring. They don't know what's up any more than we do the last few years (decade?).
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| He let me catch a couple decent ones, but he definitely outfished me today. |
All the Boy’s fish came on a paddletail swimbait, which is
not my favorite lure to fish. Even a
crankbait feels like more active fishing to me for some reason. Besides the tools for the electrical problem,
Glenn had every rod out of the box, and he and I threw everything at them. I got few on the paddletail of course, then a
bug on a mushroom head, then a spinnerbait, maybe a chatterbait—there was no pattern besides fish with lockjaw. On
days like this, the little fish have to eat, so the average fish was smaller
than usual. The Boy reminded me that the
percentage of good fish to small fish was better today than a day when we notch
100 fish. I told him school was out and
stop doing math, you damn future finance bro!
It was a good day with my son even if the fishing was tough. We had lunch at quite possibly the last known Hardee’s
in North America. And we caught up about life on the morning drive. He slept on the way home, so I was alone with
my thoughts like usual. I was thinking,
a week of 90 degree days in May is not awesome.
I certainly hope the summer does not play out with these extremes again,
but it seems inevitable.
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| A good May tradition continues. |
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