Post # 25, Cat fishing Spencer Dam, June 2011.

My father is 87 now.  This is a 12-1/2 # fish he caught just a bit ago.  He has fished in this river, the Niobrara, all his life.  I have fished here for 55 years myself.  You have to walk down a long steep embankment, under the bridge, to get to the river.  Yesterday, when we climbed out of there with our fish, he said, "Well, I made it one more time."  My dad will never rust out, he will wear out.  I call him a 'Timex', "takes a licking, and keeps on ticking".  I always wondered what Niobrara meant?  Must be an Indian word.  Isn't it ironic.  Those sailors were extremely lost.  This is the furthest place from India you can get.  The 'Government' must have gave them their map.  Ha!  Sure you can trust the Government, just ask an 'Indian'.  These 'Indians' don't even know what curry is.

 

I'm actually standing on dry river bottom taking this photo.  The river bottom, in these rapids, is shale.  When it is wet it is soapstone, slicker than snot.  Black and slippery just like soap.  I fish just to the left of this photo, but not in the rapids, you'd have to have a 10,000# sinker and the river would still move it.  No, you fish in the stillest, deepest water.  That's where the fish are.  On the bottom.  They aren't stupid',  it's easier to hang out in the stillest water than fight that current all day.  What they eat, great big shiner minnows, actually come to them.  The just know where to hang out.  This cell phone photo is grainy but in the background is the dam, spillway, and power house.  N.P.P.D. operates this hydro electric plant.

These fish, below, are laying on a Formica sink cut out.  They would be 4 to 8#'s.  Your limit from the Spencer Dam to the Missouri River, is 5 fish per day.