fishing as of late

I find it incomprehensible that someone would limit themselves to one kind of fishing, one species of fish or one small area to fish. Having grown up poor in the lower Midwest (not south, that was a few hundred miles farther) I certainly did like catching nice largemouth bass and bluegill but really I wanted to see more species, but, I digress.

This has been an odd year to say the least. Moving from Kansas to Idaho, changing jobs to a very different thing Ive never done before and to a fishery that’s as different from where I as raised as vanilla is to chocolate. Cutthroat, steel head, king salmon, rainbows, lake trout, cutbow’s,,,,,,,, I’ll stop there but you get the point. It’s a long ways from Largemouth bass and catfish. Although, flatheads are a thing here.

That’s worth talking about, in the Midwest, catfish are certainly what some folks (many) are targeting. They reproduce like crazy, grow fast and actually do taste good. But, the center of attention is almost always bass. You catch catfish for big fry’s for many people, you catch crappie for your family and best friends and bluegill when nothing else is biting. Ran into a handful of people here in Idaho that were asking me if I knew anything about catching flathead. I said, you mean the catfish? They said, YES! I mean, you have steelhead, rainbow, lake trout,,,,,,,,, why would you want a catfish? The response: they taste great! Well, they are right but it doesn’t keep me from being shocked. Whats more is that they use crappie as bait. Don’t even ask.

But, the old junkwagon boat is official and legal. 16 feet of johnboat with 15 horsepower of propulsion is now ready to be loosed on the Idaho water. Sure, its ugly as hell but it floats and goes. Cant ask for much more than that. Its been on arrowrock reservoir, the payette river and now CJ strike. Man, I aint ever goin back there again for boating fishing. I mean, the lake was full of people, the water was rampant with algae and the fish were few.

Anyone been out?