Paddling the River

Knock another item from my bucket list, I finally was able to fish and kayak the Mississippi river.  This is something that my son and I have talked about for a couple of years, even going so far as looking for fishing kayaks on Craigslist.  This whole adventure has intrigued me for awhile and quite honestly, I am not sure why.  When my son and I visited the Sportsmen Show a few years ago, we chatted with a company who was giving away a fishing kayak and who also offered rentals for daily fishing trips.  We spent quite a bit of time at their booth and came away excited to experience a trip like this.

Move forward a couple of years and a chance visit to Groupon and before you know it, I had a coupon for a 6 hour trip from the very company we talked to, Clearwater Outfitting, www.cwoutfitting.com, located in Clearwater, Minnesota.  It was going to be a bit of a drive for us to get to the store, but we found out that it was well worth it.

We checked the weather prior to leaving and it looked like we had selected a fairly decent day.  A bit of a breeze but no rain so off we went.  It was a little over an hour drive to the store and as we pulled in, both my son and I were more than ready to ditch the car and spend a day on the river.  Now we are not big river people in fact neither of us had spent much time fishing or even floating or boating on the river.  My wife was a bit hesitant on us going from a safety point of view.  Our summer and especially the month of August has been quite wet with most areas receiving 5+ inches of rain for the month.  Since we didn’t know anything about the river, she was concerned that the flow would be fast and the depth would be deeper than normal.  We did come to find out that this was far from reality.

Once we arrived, we checked in and needed to go through a safety briefing, which turned out to be a video on what not to do when out on the river.  There was another couple in our safety briefing who were heading the opposite way of us but were also going to be spending the day on the river.  After the video, we were fitted for life jackets and then given a briefing on fishing the river and where the fish had been biting.  Another perk, which we didn’t realize how great this was going to be, was that lunch was included, and what a lunch it was.  More on that in a bit.  We signed out the equipment and down to the river we went.  By the way, the people working in the shop were fantastic.  Very friendly and you could tell they were very passionate about paddling and were intent on ensuring we had the best experience possible.

As we stood by the shore, the person helping us gave us some final pointers and off we went.  Initially, due to some bridge construction, we needed to go upstream and towards the middle of the river so that we could get around the construction obstacles in the water.  Not sure if it was the combination of going upstream, the wind blowing and me not really feeling comfortable on the river, but the first few minutes of the experience were a bit shaky to say the least.  My son and I maneuvered our way around the construction stuff and settled in on the side of the shore where the wind was minimal.

Once we moved into the shore area, we began tossing our lines in hopes of landing our first smallmouth bass.  The individual who was helping us did warn us that the bottom was fairly rocky and that if we happened to get our lures stuck, that to release the lure, we would just need to go upstream a bit and then tug it free.  I moved a bit ahead of my son and saw him head towards shore.  I waited for him as I wasn’t sure if he had landed a fish or what the deal was.  Much to my chagrin, he actually had hooked a tree limb so once he was free from that we moved downstream little by little.

Now since we were new to this whole river paddling thing, one item we needed to figure out was the timing.  We had a map of the river, but what we didn’t have was a good idea on how long it would take us to paddle and fish.  We did know that a lot of smallmouth had been caught near the end of our trek so we knew we wanted to save some good time for that.

About 30 minutes into our trip, my line went tight and both my son and I were waiting to see our first smallmouth.  I pulled in the fish and we were soon treated to our first Mississippi river northern pike, a very disappointing fish, fun to catch but disappointing from a species point of view.  We continued paddling and looking at the map.  We knew the area we wanted to have lunch so once we saw the spot, we focused on getting there as our stomachs were grumbling a bit.

What we didn’t realize about the spot we picked, was that the river and wind were going to be a bit of a challenge.  We paddled and worked our way to the sand bar and once we had beached our kayaks, we were more than ready to dive into lunch.  We ripped open the bags and to our amazement, the sandwiches packed for us looked amazing and tasted even better.  We both inhaled them, the chips and the cookie and then my son commented, “that was the best sandwich I have ever had”.  Not sure if it was because we were hungry or what, but I totally agreed with him.

We climbed back in the kayaks and continued our journey down the river.  A bit while later, my line went tight again and this time I was able to pull in the first smallmouth of the trip.  A lot of fun catching it and once it was in the boat, both my son and I hoped that it was a sign of things to come.  As we paddled down the river, both of us were enjoying the scenery around us.  The landscape around was very wooded and sparsely populate or at least that is how it looked.  Another item to note, most of the river in this stretch is very shallow.  In many areas, we could have gotten out and walked in the water, not at all what we had expected.

As we approached our landing spot and the spot which we had been told many smallmouth had been caught we both agreed we would take our turn through this area.  The current had picked up in this area so that presented a bit of a challenge for us, OK me more than my son.  You see, I actually got myself hung up on a rock and without my son’s help I may have ended up tipping the kayak, and yes I had this very vision in my head.

We cleared the faster flows and settled into a spot that was calm and was calling out to us that this was a hotbed for fish.  My son’s line went tight and I paddled back upstream to see what he had caught.  He landed his first and only smallmouth and used his GoPro to record the event.  A lot of fun to see him catch something and to be so happy to finally land a fish.

This was the last fish we caught for the day as we climbed out at our landing spot and waited for our ride.  Both of us had thoroughly enjoyed the day, I mean how could you had not.  We helped the load the kayaks on to the trailer and on our way back, our driver told us about a fishing contest they were hosting in October.  I had a couple of thoughts float through my head and could almost read my son’s mind.  We came to our senses and decided we were going to have to wait for another year for that.

On the ride home, we both talked about what a fantastic day it was.  No, we didn’t catch a stringer full of fish, but sometimes that isn’t what fishing is about.  Sometimes just spending time with your son in the outdoors weighs more than any fish you can land.  I highly recommend you give kayak fishing a try, I know my son and I are in discussions to experience this again.