I am still laid up with this knee replacement. My PTs have not seen much improvement over the past two weeks and are now suggesting to the surgeon that he "manipulate" my knee while under anesthesia.
This is a procedure that a surgeon uses by placing the patient under anesthesia and, with the help of his operating room staff, slowly and steadily bends the replaced knee to break as much of the scar tissue as possible that has taken hold and preventing the knee from bending. The new scar tissue is quite strong and, even with a PT's assistance, will not break without a lot of pain and discomfort to the patient.
I actually had this done to the same knee 30 years ago when I had it reconstructed after a judo injury. The knee was held in an immobilizer for six weeks and then would not bend. Such post-op care no longer exists and repaired knees are placed in PT the very next day, thus preventing most scar tissue from forming.
My body tends to produce scar tissue rather quickly. This is my third surgery... two to my left knee and one to my right hand... that had scar tissue that needed to be released.
I have not heard back from the PT or surgeon yet. But once I do, I'll let you all know when the "manipulation" will take place.
In the mean time, I have plenty of fishing buddies who have stepped up to the plate and offered me fishing tales of their outings.
Today, I have a fantastic fishing adventure from our good buddy, Fat Boy (Kevin Wilson). Kevin loves chasing those big "Greenies" (largemouth) while wade fishing. He contacted me last evening and told me that he was going to send yesterday's fishing trip report to me. He described this as one of his best summer outings to date and I'm sure you'll see why.
On with the report!
My friend Howard and I met at our local watering hole and put in about three hours of fishing. I arrived about fifteen minutes earlier and caught four largemouth and a rock bass prior to his arrival. A couple of them were keepers. Howard fished ahead of me and picked up several bass before I finally landed one. I had four break offs (on the hook set) on the Nanofil, so I’m thinking about shelving this line and using it during ice season, but going to a thicker diameter and pound test. I want to feel the difference between the different pound tests before I make a decision, but I will upgrade to either be the 8 or 10 pound. Break offs during hook sets are common across all super lines, and I had the same trouble with other brands in this diameter before. I’m still a believer in this line, and even the other thicknesses should cast remarkably well.
Here’s the first one that I landed, not big, but fun:
As you can see, even after the Hurricane, the water was gin clear. The Potomac looked in good shape too, having come down a bit since Sunday and much clearer than Sunday too. The level was really low in preparation for Irene. The bad news is that the fish were spookier, the good news is that they were bunched up in some of the deeper holes. See the weed mat? Those have been hot spots all summer.
I got this next fish in a fun way. I saw it roaming around a weed mat, but when I put the ringworm in front of it, it examined the lure but didn’t hit…I got snubbed. So, I thought about casting on top of the weed mat, crawl it over, then let if fall off the edge and see if that does the trick (remember that later in the report). The bass blew up through the weeds on my worm before I had a chance to drop it off the edge. This bass was 17”, but not very fat.
We found a spot that had a huge mat of weeds, and the bass were stacked up under it. I stood in one spot, casting my plastic worm over top of the weed mat, plopping it and crawling it over the mat, and let it drop off the edge. I caught 7 bass in 8 casts doing that, then I had to work for them. I finished with 10 bass on the worm in that hole, Howard got 6. Average size was 13”, but I got one that was 18”, and one that was 17”. Here was Howard’s biggest one at that hole, caught on the worm:
During the last minutes of daylight, I decided to give the weed mat one more go, cast my worm in the same friggin spot, crawled it over the same track mark that I made several times earlier, and let it drop off the edge, and saw the bass below shoot out and grab my worm. It was friggin awesome, and I was so fired up! She went 20” long, my biggest of the evening.
Eventually, it was too dark to work the worm, and the fish seemed to slow down. So, I switched to my handy dandy buzzbait, and caught a fish on my first cast working downstream parallel to shore. It went about 14”. I tossed the buzzer way back on the weed mat, began cranking as soon as it hit the water to prevent hanging up on the weeds, and crawled it across the mat. As soon as it cleared the mat, kersploosh!!!!!!!!! This 19” bass annihilated my buzzer. I was fired up, hooting and hollering so much that I think that I spooked every blue heron along the Potomac within a mile of our location.
Buzzer bass:
That was my last fish of the evening. I finished with 19 largemouth and a rock bass, with the biggest five bass going 20”, 19”, 18” and two 16” bass, and numerous 13-14” bass. I only caught four dinks. Howard picked up a couple more on a buzzbait after dark. I had one massive blow up but the fish missed the lure. Howard had a three huge blow ups, one of them where I lost that 8 pounder a couple weeks ago. The daggone topwater explosion sounded like a beaver slapping its tail, it was so loud. Howard had the fish on for a moment, but didn’t get a good hook into it. He finished with well over 20 bass on the evening, with a bunch of them being keeper size.
Sorry for my camera (replacement phone). It doesn’t take good night pics. I need a real camera again. My favorite buzzbait of late, a Strike King Tri-wing buzzbait modified with a Fat Boy special clacker did the trick. Unfortunately, while fishing in pitch black darkness on the walk back, it found a tree and wanted to make it a permanent home. If anyone would like to take a swim, it’s yours for the taking, and I’ll point it out to you. It’s my last one, so I’ve got to get to BPS for some replacements.
What a night! One of my best evening trips there in a long long time.
What a great report, Kevin! A big "Thank You" for sharing it with all the visitors here at "Fishing With Dad".
You can find this report and many more on Kevin's site at:
Fat Boy's Outdoors
Summer is slowly drawing to an end. Although I've lost over a month of warm weather fishing this year, I am awaiting those cooler fall days when the Big Mammas start to feed for the long winter months ahead.
I can't wait to get back on the water!
Take Care and Be Safe!
Dad
