Working on the river
Most of you probably don’t know but for the last 3 to 4 years I’ve worked seasonally as a deckhand at a grain elevator on the Mississippi River. One of the plus sides to this is that I have daily access to the river and can do all the fishing I want… kind of. Well.. I haven’t been told not to and my manager enjoys me giving him some fresh cut fillets so I should be ok.
I’ve had plenty of people suggest I do this or that like using a rod and reel or maybe I should try fishing here or there. Well I’ve learned a few things over the last few years of doing this and there are definitely some limitations to fishing from the loading tower of a grain elevator.
The first thing to note is that all employees are prohibited from walking to the bank of the river. Our facility has quite a steep drop-off and very dense foliage so if I’m going to fish it has to be from one of the platforms of the loading tower which sits in the river itself.
All that wood!
The first problem I came across was all the snags. Obviously being in an industrial environment there’s going to be all kinds of old structure and objects under the water. What makes this worse is all the timber floating down the river. All it takes is one big tree to create a pile-up and it turns into a sea of trees, sticks and everything else that comes floating down. What makes matters worse, there’s an eddy right below the loading tower that basically keeps all of this from being able to just float down river and it ends up being a death trap to send a hook into. Basically, casting is not an option.
Trotline
Obviously trotline is the way to go here. Not running it like normal trotline though. Pretty much I’m just dropping lines and tying them off to the railing. There’s a ton of current though so it requires using a pretty substantial weight to keep the current from taking the line into all the debri.
Terminal Tackle
Along with substantial line and weight I have to use pretty substantial hooks. I learned real fast that trying to man handle these Mississippi River blue cats will bend a hook straight in a heartbeat. It’s definitely not the same as fighting one with a rod and reel.
Bait
I’ll try just about anything when it comes to bait but these cats are here for a reason. Grain! Mostly soybeans and corn. When loading a barge it’s inevitably that grain is going to spill over into the river and blue cats and carp are there to scoop it up. Although I have managed to put dried corn on large hooks and catch plenty of fish that way, it’s much easier to bring a container of pre-cut skipjack.
What the future holds
All in all fishing is obviously a huge bonus to the job but it’s still work. I’d like to be able to just sell lure or make money blogging but that’s just not going to cut it for now. Usually I just work through harvest season but this time I may not be leaving for a while. Oh well, it is what it is. If you want to support me doing my own thing maybe buy a lure or a shirt in the shop.
Thanks for listening to my fishing jabber!
