Indian Cave State Park

[ChrisCarter]

Got invited to go camping with some friends down at Indian Cave State Park near Rockport, MO. Haven't been camping since i was in the Boy Scouts (20 years ago i think). Man i miss deer jerky. Its right along the Missouri River, so i might be able to get some fishing in. Never caught anything out of the Missouri River before. Maybe this time will bode better luck for me.

[ChrisCarter]

Meant to follow up on this, but i got rather busy this week.

Camping was great. Thursday night, i slept by myself in the tent while everyone else would come down later Friday. That first night was a bit tough. I've slept on worse surfaces. But the noise is what kept me up. From the crickets, to the owls, to the acorns falling off the trees making me think someone was walking around out there. I only got 3 hours of sleep. After my friend and her two sons joined me, we cooked some steaks and mushrooms, really good dinner. Finally the boys wanted to make s'mores. Something i haven't had in a very long time. Unfortunately, there was a little bit of the miscommunication. My understanding of a firestarter was one of the logs you buy at the store. She apparently bought this thing with magnesium that you scrap off and then use the flint to light it. After nearly 2 hours of her trying this. I grabbed some dry leaves and tried that, but it was burning too fast for the wood to catch fire. Finally i walked out to the car to grab some old papers and use that to get the fire started around 11pm. Got back into town on Saturday afternoon as they decided to stay until Monday.

I did try to go fishing along the Missouri River. I didn't catch anything, but the action was surprisingly active. I don't know if it was carp or catfish though. The water was moving pretty darn quick, but across the river on the Missouri side, there was two spots that were perfect. When i say perfect, i mean they clearly dug these two areas out where the water would be much calmer and not rushing so fast. It was perfect in the sense that fish could hang out in those coves if the current was too much for them. But as i said, it was across the river. So i had to try to make do with my rig. A weight, a swivel, and a hook with some corn on it. The weight was too light. I constantly felt it hitting the rocks or whatever as the current took it away. Even casting it a foot from the bank, the current was too much for it.

One thing that i cannot explain. When i threw the bait closer to the shore, sometimes the weight got stuck on the rocks (not to a point that i couldn't get it out). It was stuck to where the bait wouldn't move and fish could actually come up and grab it without chasing after it with the current. The strange thing is, the river flows from north to south, so if the weight moves it will flow south. Instead it was being pulled north, against the current. Now, it wouldn't move by itself, i never saw the line move or felt a tug. After a while i would reel it in but would realize the bait had moved further upstream. The bait was still there, but what could've possibly moved the bait against the current, rather than with the current and not set off an alarm that something had the bait?


At any rate, i had a good time, and with the cooler weather this weekend, I'll be hitting the local lakes once again.