I used the above title to make all my blog visitors aware that on the night of October 20, 2010, there was a fuel spill just above Harrisburg, Pa. that left a nasty odor in the surrounding area. A Hazmat Team responded and placed two water surface boons out to prevent any further damage. One boon was placed at the Market Street Bridge and the second boon one was placed at the Turnpike Bridge. The Steelton, Pa. Water Treatment Plant was closed until DEP could identify the cause... They never did! To trace such a problem in the dead of night would be next to impossible.
Josh Kreider and I were talking on Tuesday and decided to either give today or Friday a shot on the river. We chose today and met at 7:00 a.m. Josh had been working all evening hauling milk and was quite hungry. So, we stopped at Gus's Family Restaurant in Mt. Joy, Pa. for a "Special Quickie" and some good hot coffee.
It was already breezy outside when I left my home at 6:15 a.m. It got progressively windier as the day wore on. In fact, the winds rose to 25 mph by noon with even greater gusts.
Another cold front was moving through as we launched. It was cloudy, but the sun was trying to come out. As the front moved past us, the skies became mostly sunny with the addition of this tremendous wind. The air temp rose to 62 degrees, but this wind chill made it feel like 55 degrees on the skin.
We saw Dave Shindler's (Jst Fishin' Guide Service) van at the access parking lot. I gave him a quick call on my cell phone to see how his morning was going. He and his client had some decent size fish in the morning, but not many.
Our day wasn't quite as good. The fish were very uncooperative. Possibly, the front had a negative effect(?). We only boated three bass in our four hours of fishing... Very poor showing in a usually productive area.
We were able to nail this beautiful 19 1/8th inch smallie on a deep diving crankbait in about 9.5' of choppy water.
She weighed in at 3.5 lbs on the Boga Grip scale.
We called it quits around noon so that Josh could get home and catch up on some sleep before heading back into work tonight.
A big thanks to Jst Fishin' Guide Service, Dave Shindler, for heading us in the right direction on lure selection. In fact, in my picture above, that is Dave and his client n the boat just over my right shoulder. :)
Dad
