It was Groundhog Day for my second day on the water with Gary as we made our way back to the Jump River to do a little muskie fishing. The weather was cloudy and overcast with light winds. A heavy mist permeated the chilly fall air. It felt like one of those days when the fish are really going to turn on. However, the weather over the past couple of weeks had been a roller coaster ride of inconsistency. In my experience fish become more active and feed more frequently when you have three days or more of consistent weather. Regardless if the weather is “good or bad”. We had very little of this stable type of weather over the past couple of weeks with fronts arriving almost every other day. This second morning on the Jump was just like yesterday. Not a sniff or follow from a muskie after a couple of ours of fishing, so again we made tracks for the Flambeau and Chippewa. The Flambeau had dropped quite a bit compared to this same time yesterday, so we spent a little more time casting to the banks. Gary had mentioned that his neck was hurting from probably sleeping on it wrong from the night before. I asked him if he had any kind of pain reliever with him. He said he had some Advil with him and decided that he would take a couple. The smallies were cooperating as we managed to catch six fish in the fourteen to seventeen inch range in about an hours worth of fishing. We continued to slowly fish our way down the west bank of the Flambeau when all of a sudden I noticed that Gary was no longer fishing. His fishing rod, still in hand, lay motionless on the gunwale of my drift boat. He was uncharacteristically hunched over and he appeared to be in some sort of a stupor as he gazed down at the dark waters of the Flambeau. Concerned I asked him if he was okay. He said that for some reason he all of a sudden he became extremely sleepy and very tired. I had never seen him this way before in the early afternoon and could not imagine what was going on. Finally, the light bulb came on so I asked him what kind of pain reliever he had taken. He reached into his pocket and to my surprise he pulled out a bottle of Advil PM! It was obvious that the fishing trip was over so I packed up our gear and ran Rip Van Winkle back to the ramp. I had to smile as I watched him sleep in the passenger seat of my Tahoe on the way back to the cabin wondering if he was dreaming about the big one that got away…
River Smallie Adventures Fishing Report October 4, 2018
