I was going to title this:
Owww! OWWWW! OWWWW! The noise Deb made each time the rod bent over…:) But knowing you guys, chose the one I did!
I found out a couple things this weekend.
1) Pulling a 17 foot boat (with very little gear) cost $89.25 more than going up to the Lockport without a boat. (35 more gallons)
2) You can make a drive that’s just under 9 hours with “the guys” into an over 12 hour trip by taking your favorite wife.
3) Saving the receipt from Stu’s Cat’s on the Red and turning it in at the Duty Free Shop at the boarder…netted me $10. US back in my pocket. For a $1. charger, you can get most all of the taxes you paid in Canada back by stopping in and talking to the nice ladies in the back.
On to the fishing. Deb didn’t get to do much fishing because of the cold weather. If you’ve met her, she’s cold when it’s 70 degrees out and it barely reached 50F with the nights going to around 37F. So she only popped out during the warmest parts of the day…from 1 pm to 1:30 pm…ok, I’m kidding….sometimes she stayed out ’till 4 pm.
We move to a couple spots in the main channel..because I was told that Channel Cat’s like “channels”..hence their name…this whole trip disproved that therory!
Here first fish was a chunky 18 pounder that gave her a good jerking.<snicker> It came from the front of an inside bend that had a nice current seam in about 8 feet of water. Deb told me that she HAD to have her picture taken with her first RR Channel…I was going to place the fish in her lap and just as the tail touched her leg…an uncontroled…dip bait curdling scream came from…I don’t know where! I didn’t think she could make a noise that loud! (anyone ever see the Excorsist?) Scared the bejeepers out of me I’m telling ya!
So she took a picture of me holding it..she knows she’s going to regret it. Back into the murky Red she went.
Stu told me not to be afraid to fish shallow…how shallow was another suprise to me. I caught up to him after dropping my wife off, about 4 miles down river. With the wind blowing across river, he had his CAT A Lac pontoon anchored with the back pointing towards shore. With a good cast his party of three could actually cast onto the bank, but there targeted area was 5 to 15 feet out from shore. It reminded me of fishing high water walleyes. In the hour I was watching him they landed 8 fish..with two of them being doubles and had one hook pop out. With Stu’s permission, I went back to that spot at dusk and they were back in there with the largest being 19 lbs…small by the Red’s standards…but a nice fight.
All in all, it was steady fishing…not the 60 fish in 2 hours as in spring…but time between bites to look around and enjoy the beauty of the Red. Honkers, Mallards and Wood Ducks were everywhere. Great weather (well I thought so) with the exception of a little sprinkle on Friday night.
My favorite wife enjoyed it so much, she can’t wait until May and she’s talking to the rest of her family about a week long trip in July/August of next year.
Although Deb won’t hold a cat (yet) she’s a real trooper to try and try hard she did! My luckiest day was at that kegger when I asked her out the first time! 
