A TALE OF A FEW KITTIES

It may seem strange, coming from a kid who grew up fishing in rural central Virginia within minutes of the Rivanna River and the almighty James, but catfishing is a discipline that evaded my interests and feeble efforts throughout my childhood. It isn’t a family tradition, as is trout fishing or deer hunting; I had no teacher.  And though I had countless trout and bass to my name by the time I achieved adulthood, the number of whiskered fish remained grounded in the single digits, many of which were caught by accident.

Kyle with a small channel cat taken from the Rivanna River

    For that reason, good friend, Brian Bodine, owner of Razorback Guide Service based out of Scottsville, Virginia, offered to facilitate my formal introduction to the cats that fin the James River. A heavy rain swelled the river the day before to a light brown.  Debris was running thick.  The creeks were being flushed of baitfish.

    Marginal action colored the daytime hours, but as the sun set, we found ourselves positioned downstream from a creek mouth, four bait-casting rods fanned behind the boat.  As the last bit of light faded from the sky, talk of coyote hunting, shooting, trail camera pictures, and family took over.  The sound of a clicking drag was an anticipated interruption. 

    Unfortunately, that sound didn’t surface.  Instead, a raucous splashing broke us off in mid-sentence.  A head lamp shined behind the boat revealed a surge of whitewater, and so I sprung to grab a bent rod.  Several cranks on the reel handle confirmed that the fish had taken the bait and swam towards the boat and to the surface.  Luckily, he had hooked himself.

    Brian’s net job brought into the boat a small channel catfish of about three pounds.  Nevertheless, such a tasty morsel was relegated to the cooler.

Kayak Kitties

    Just a week later, Kyle Jenkins, a childhood friend of mine of more than 15 years, and I got together to explore a spot on my home river, the Rivanna, that I had long suspected to sport a thriving catfish population. After work, we loaded two kayaks into the back of Kyle’s Tacoma and headed for the river, which was, like the James, slightly inflated in flow. 

    Spending many summer days on this river with my kayak and no one to shuttle me taught me to paddle upstream.  It provides a workout and a fun way of fishing.  Moreover, water just a few miles upstream from public landings are often much less-pressured than water downstream, and the paddling is usually not too difficult, save for the initial takeoff from the landing.

    Our target was a major creek mouth about two miles upstream where I knew there to be large schools of baitfish holding, as well as some large carp and smallmouth—a place I had visited a hundred times.  However, due to the temporarily high flows, paddling was a bit harder than usual.  

    We paddled and pushed and sweated for a half hour before reaching the slow water that is the tailout of the creek junction. 

    There, I optimistically tied on a small yellow Beetle-Spin to begin my bait-catching efforts.  We didn’t need much.  A small bluegill would do. 

    In just a few casts, a small bluegill answered my call, and blindsided the lure in heavy current, forged downstream, and soon was captured in my hand. 

    Kyle had fallen behind a bit in the upstream paddle, and came up on me as I was landing the fish.  We beached our kayaks on the sandbar at the creek mouth, and I utilized an old, washed-up tire as a cutting board, scaling, filleting, and cutting the bluegill flesh into strips.

    A single strip was used to tip our Carolina rigs, and we once again took position in our crafts, this time pointing downstream.

    A logjam caps the tailout of the run on one side of the river, and we wedged our kayaks against the bank there, making casts straight out and across the current. Feeding slack line, I felt my egg sinker hit bottom, and flipped the bail closed.  Kyle followed suit, and we were set up.

    Catfishing is a change of pace in that it is very social.  In fact, waiting for a fish to present itself in a bouncing rod tip is perhaps the best venue for conversation I’ve encountered.  And often, such conversations don’t last long.

    Kyle’s rod tip was the first to direct attention away from the topic at hand.  Small vibrations turned to a steady pull, and as the line straightened out towards the center of the river, a sweep of his rod secured the fate of a small channel cat of about a pound and a half—his first “on-purpose” cat.

    Just minutes later, my own rod dropped, and we finished the night out with a double.□

*Originally published in the Rural Virginian

BACKCOUNTRY BLESSING

My eyes snapped open mid-morning.  The previous night found me restless—scouring charts, tables; interpreting the forecasts; weighing my options.  Tides were slight; and the weather, poor.  “Cold spell” complaints were being tossed about Southwest Florida tackle shops like lies since the day I arrived.  At 86 degrees and breezy, I found no quarrel with Florida’s sunny disposition.  Had I met the coast with an inkling of prior knowledge of fly fishing saltwater or the area, I might have.

Matlacha backcountry on a sunny fall day.  Photo by Matt Reilly.

    As I rolled from my sleeping bag on the concluding day of my sojourn, the mercury was reduced to 40.  The sky was dismal.  The air carried a briskness that rendered my featherweight Florida fishing garb useless.  The snook that finned my dreams would be stressed.

    Doubt flickered as I shouldered my kayak, and chilled water from a nocturnal storm met exhaustion.  Its weight depressed me.  I pushed on, slinging it atop the car. 

    I met slack tide at D-&-D marina in Matlacha.  A doorbell chime welcomed me to pay my launch fee to a gruff gentleman in a stained gray t-shirt. 

    “You might try it.  Tough day.

    Unstrapping my craft, I toted it to the water’s edge.  An anchor and PFD smacked the gravel with a ceremonial thud.  A milk crate took on fly boxes, Boca grip, leaders, and a dry bag.  A paddle was assembled.  I was a week-old tourist, but my routine was seasoned.

    Every moment of flux is opportunity.  The tide was rising, submerging the shoots of the tangled labyrinth of mangroves where predatory snook would take up vigil over unsuspecting prey.  My plot relied upon a northwest-oriented course winding through the backcountry.  Fighting for every inch of my kayak’s advancement north along the Gulf edge, I was reassured that the gusts would assist me, moving my craft south as I fished.  I needed only to reach the north end of the cut.

    In the tight, winding water trail, the wind was shielded.  I reached my destination inside a half hour.  Rod rigged, anchor secured to the trolley, I slid into a standing position--rod at my feet, anchor boated, paddle in-hand.

    The gloom afforded no chance of sight-casting.  Blind-casting would rule the day.  I poled to a position fifty feet from the mangroves and dropped anchor.

    Drizzle spawned rain and wind slanted it harshly.  Many fruitless casts turned me to gliding upright through an open lake at the confluence of two creek channels. 

    I heard the fish first.  Amid the timid roar of gray static stippling the tannic water of the backcountry, a beast woke and fed.  Billows of an angry sea breeze shrouded the hint and challenged my balance atop my kayak.  The brisk frontal haze thinned temporarily, permitting my strained eyes a quick study of the mangrove edge.  Dark water swirled again beneath arms of green.  My eyes brightened.

    Sixty feet separated me from the fish, and I feared clamoring to adjust my position would spook it.  I stripped line from reel and awaited my moment.

    At once, the wind reduced.  Raindrops thinned.  Losing no time, I flexed my 8-weight.  One, two, three false-casts and I punched my thumb through the cork.  A CK Baitfish uncurled, miraculously, between leafy limbs, tight to the shoots.

    The fly sank for two seconds.  Twitch.  The line went tight before my strip was through.  A surge of whitewater and unseen energy engulfed my fly.  I swept the rod outward, flexing the butt, stripping, driving the hook.  Tug-of-war ensued.  Then, the fish tore parallel to the edge, wrapped the leader, and severed the leader with a flare of her razor-sharp gill plate.

    My legs and arms shook.  Minutes passed before I could sit without tipping.  Ecstatic for fooling a snook into eating, I reconstructed my shock leader, retied my fly.

    My hopes were escaping with the tide.  The perfect ending to my story flashed before my eyes, fleeting.

    But it would be out of character to admit defeat.  The outgoing tide would pull the fish from their hideouts into the troughs adjacent.  I abandoned the lake, and poled on to another location. 

    Around the next bend, a deep drop-off grazed the mangrove shoots.  Ambitiously, I pushed a long cast out parallel to it and let the fly sink.  A few strips turned the water behind the white fly black.  

  

    My rod hand began to sweat.  The hallmark gill flare sucked in my offering.  My arm reached skyward, coming tight to a fish in the open, with nowhere to go.

A small backcountry snook taken just in the nick of time.  Photo by Matt Reilly.

    Somehow, I found the grace to kneel.  Raising the rod tip, I reached out and seized the Line-sider by the jaw. 

    On my knees, I gazed into a bronze eye as a warm emotion swallowed me—a summary of my experiences thus far.  I laughed, shakily, and shouted, triumphant.□

*Originally published in the Rural Virginian