River monsters, Part II

Last week, I told you a story from the Mississippi River involving a rather large paddlefish, caught in the middle of its paddle with a tail-spinner artificial lure.

(Click here to read that story.)   As stated, it was the largest freshwater fish and the oddest fish I’ve ever caught, all in one.

But, it is the largest only because of what happened less than a week later on the same stretch of the Big Muddy. I call this story “The one I’m glad got away, and another that I wish had.”

It is the latter that comes first, since it happened that way, pretty much as planned by my host, guide and joker Sidney Montgomery.

This trip was all about catfish, or it was supposed to be. We had our boat loaded with jugs and cut shad. We had a couple of rods for tightlining for big flatheads with live shad, which we would do while our jugs worked their way down the current.

Montgomery told me to head my boat upriver out of Chotard Lake, which I did with more than just a little trepidation. The river was low, which cut down on the size of the channel, and the barge and tug traffic was high.

“Just watch out for big rollers when we pass one,” my guide said. “They rarely get over 4 or 5 feet. We’ll be OK.”

Gulp!

We ran the 14 miles to Montgomery’s hot spot, which to approach, according to him, required a huge circuitous route around one old dike and then cutting inside another.

“When you get over there inside that one,” he said, “hug that left bank and run that old channel. Plenty of water.”

I should have known something was up when Montgomery slid down in the boat and grabbed a seat cushion… for a SHIELD.

I was still doing about 30 when I hit that channel and Montgomery slid down even further. I looked over at him to ask what was up and…

ZOOOOOM! A missile blasted out of the water and flew right past my face, landing back in the river on the other side of the boat.

Before I could slap Montgomery upside his head, missiles were flying from everywhere. I put my hand in front of my face, but couldn’t leave it because I had to throttle down. Quickly.

Zoom! Zoom! Zoom!

One after another silver carp were erupting and flying through the air. Did I say they were big? The first three that landed in the boat were between 7 and 10 pounds.

As I was looking to see if either of my rods had broken, and as the boat slowed to idle, I saw something out of the corner of my eye and cringed just in time. The carp grazed the right side of my head and right shoulder and bounced into the back of the boat.

This is the fish I wished had gotten away.

When I got the boat stopped, and the insanity ceased, I looked behind me to see the suicidal fish laying dead in my rear deck seat. It had slammed into it and killed itself, slinging blood and carp anagram all over the back of the boat and the motor, and was stuck between the seat back and bottom.

Five hours and five dollars worth of quarters later, we couldn’t get all that carp anagram or blood out of the carpet.

But that would be just the first time I narrowly escaped death or at least serious injury that trip. The second was my fault. Totally.

We were back chasing jugs on our last run and we found the main spread about three miles down from where we released them. Two had 2-pound fish and we added them to the box before going to run the other five or six down.

As we ran back up the river, I spotted two of the bright orange jugs bouncing around on a shallow flat that was on an inside bend of the river.

“Sid, those two got fish and they look pretty big,” I told my partner. “One of those jugs is going completely under before it pops back up.”

I steered the boat up between the two jugs, which were close enough that he could reach one out of the port side while I was grabbing the other from my console.

Montgomery got his, a nice 10-pounder.

I grabbed the jug on my side, but the fish felt the pressure and made a big run, pulling the jug out of my hand. I chased it down again and this time wrapped my hand around the cord and…

OK, let me stop here and give you a little bit of advice about jugging on the Mississippi River. Do not, ever, wrap the line around your hand, arm or any other body part you wish to keep.

Stupid move, as you shall soon read.

As I pulled the line up, I saw a catfish tail as big as I have ever seen or imagined. I have big hands, and I can put my thumbs together, spread all my fingers, and not create such a fan. It made a big swirl and pain followed.

“Oh &%$#,” was all I could muster, which Montgomery did translate correctly as “HELP!”

Problem was, he couldn’t move as fast as that fish, which had already taken out all the slack and was headed south to New Orleans.

And the only reason I wasn’t going with him was because I had my knees under the console and had enough leverage to keep my seat. Blood was coming out of the hand where it was bound tight by the cord.

It was at this point that I realized the boat was moving. This catfish, this monster, was pulling us down the river… BY MY ARM.

I reached over with the other hand and turned on the motor. Then I steered into the fish and got enough slack to free my hand.

“Bob, you’re bleeding,” Montgomery said.

“Sid, he’s your problem now,” I said.

The jug was nowhere to be seen. That big fish had taken it completely under and was gone. We sat waiting and watching, for about 30 or 45 seconds before the bottle popped up about 100 yards up the river.

We ran it down and I pulled up alongside it again. This time, we both grabbed the cord and held on. It was like a rodeo, and this bucking bronco was kicking our…

Then, the line went slack, almost sending us backwards out of the boat.

“Look at that hook,” Montgomery said. “That’s a 7/0 stainless steel offshore hook and it’s straight.”

We estimated the mighty fish at 100 to 125 pounds, and believe me, I do not mind not knowing for sure.

Good riddance.