The Severed Cortex

At least I didn't wake up in the middle of the night needing to pee. I didn't sleep the entire night through, but I didn't have to escape the warm confines of the sleeping bag either. I awoke around 6:00 am and after stirring the fire back to life, I decided to fish a little. For the most part it mimicked the other fishing we had done over the last two days. But, I was able to get a nice zen thing going with casting a tiny torpedo on my crappy baitcasting reel. And eventually it did pay off with about an 8 inch smallmouth as I ran the torpedo along a laydown that ran parallel with the bank. There is nothing quite like a fish taking a topwater lure, especially when it's all peaceful quiet outside and the fog/mist is rising off the cold river. Very zen like. And it helped that it was the only real fish I caught so at that point anything is Zen like.
Parker stirred around 7:30 and we slowly gathered our bearings, sat around the fire a little, then decided to cook some breakfast, which as it turned out was the same as yesterdays breakfast. We didn't even bother with trying to do the wraps. We just ate it out of the mess kits. After breakfast I washed the dishes and Parker started breaking down the camp. By 10:30, yes I know, late again, we had the canoes packed and had exhausted the banks supply of flat or nearly flat rocks suitable for either skipping or for throwing in the air so that they landed in the water making as little splash as possible, entering the water with a beloit sound. It's the same sound a fart makes in the bathtub. You know what I'm talking about.

I gave Parker the option of stretching out the day as long as he wanted but he was pretty indifferent to it. We stopped once on the last leg, skipping rocks and fishing a little. By 1:30 we were out of the river and had the truck packed up. Another group came out of the Jacks Fork just as we were arriving at Two Rivers. They said they saw very few bass below Alley Springs, but they were catching them like crazy above Alley Springs. They also said the Upper Jacks Fork was tricky in places, which is why we didn't do that river. I've only done the Jacks Fork once and that was in a kayak. We were below Alley the entire trip and there were some pretty tricky spots in that stretch, even for a kayak. Maybe if Parker gets better at canoeing we can try the Jacks Fork.

The ride home was pretty uneventful. We stopped in Houston for some Sonic Tots and Onion Rings. By the time we got to Rogersville though it was raining sideways. Southeast Springfield was no better. We sat in my parents driveway four feet away from the open garage and wouldn't get out of the truck because it was raining and hailing so hard. We learned later that a tornado touched down a couple miles away.