At the River by Jeff Van Den Top
There is a bridge just north of Rock Valley that was built over the Rock River. I have driven over it plenty of times but I had never fished it before. Chris and his cousin Nick were had been there a few times. They said they caught a lot of catfish. They were going back, I tagged along this time. We drove to the bottom of the boat ramp and waded until we were directly under the bridge on a sandbar. We hadn’t had much rain so the river was low. We set up a mini camp of poles, tackle boxes, and coolers.
I put on stink bait and cast into the river. It was about two o’clock and the sun was right above us. Of in the distance I saw a fawn crossing the shallow part of the river. She saw me and darted off. Chris caught a little half pound catfish right by the bridge. I moved a little closer to him but still fished directly under the bridge. Nick was about fifty yards away standing directly in the channel, which was only about four feet deep. He was letting his line go. I looked away for a split second, then looked back at him. He was trying to haul in something big. Chris and I ran over there to help him get it in. It was getting closer, finally he hauled it in. We bursted out in laughter when we realized it was just a tree branch.
I looked back and saw my line speeding of the spool, my slip bobber was being tugged under water. I picked up my rod, and set the hook. The line cut through the water to the right, then they left. My reel was unwinding line. I knew it was a big catfish. I fought for about seven minutes when finally I got it up to shore. It wasn’t as big as I thought it was, about five pounds. Although we didn’t keep the fish we caught, we put them on a stringer.
Chris connected with a few bigger fish, but his line busted on all three. It was getting dark and colder. We decided to find some dry branches and start a little fire. The first time we tried to light it there wasn’t anything thin enough to catch on fire. So went and grabbed a few leaves. It worked great, the fire was started in no time. As we sat by the fire we tried to see if we had enough money to call in for a pizza. Turned out we did but we had no way to get it. I figured they wouldn’t deliver out of town. Nick called a girl from Rock Valley he knew and she picked it up and brought it to us. We sat by the fire and ate pizza until our ride back came to pick us up.
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