6/3/16 Kelly and the Creek Monster

Kelly and I got out in the Canoe for an evening float. It was absolutely beautiful out! The weather was awesome. It was nice and quiet on the creek. It was just what I needed after a stressful week at work. We ended up catching 4 fish total with several other missed opportunities. We each caught 1 Pike and 1 Smallmouth. Kelly's Pike was by far the highlight of the evening. She was fishing a spinnerbait and we were working our way through a nice run. The water was pretty shallow next to the boat so as she was finishing a retrieve she was also pulling up on the spinner up to keep it off the bottom. No sooner was she about to pull it out of the water when a nice Pike shot up out of nowhere and made a grab for her lure. It just barely nicked the back of the bait and didn't get hooked. It sat there for a few seconds in the shallow water and then swam off back to it's lair. Kelly was bummed that she missed that fish. I told her that sometimes Pike would make another pass at a lure so I paddled her back up to the top of the run to drift that section again. On the second drift, she made probably 6 casts or so and we were losing hope. Just when we were about to give up I see the fish following her lure. I said "There he is!" and Kelly nearly pulled the lure out of the water again but somehow kept it in and kept it moving to the front of the canoe. The fish took off to the front of the boat and from the back of the boat I hear "There he is, I got him!" and see Kelly's rod bent. She hooked the fish with barely a foot of line out! The fish thrashed and splashed and generally made a ruckus before coming to the boat. It was a beauty approaching 30 inches and fat as can be. It's a really nice fish for the small creek we were fishing. I snapped a quick picture and we released the fish to fight again. It was an awesome experience and we both really enjoyed it.