Thought I'd take the wife out this weekend to Fork and maybe catch some of the monster carp and buffalo that we all know are in there, also she likes to channel cat fish so since the weather was gonna be nice I booked a room. I thought I had made it clear what my intentions were when I called the place but I was greatly mislead. I even looked on a map and seen a lot of bank access so I thought this would be good.
Upon arrival I imidiatley seen that I had made a mistake and the bank access I seen was of the camp next door and the access of our place was very minimal but I tried to make the most if it. Only having about 20 yards of bank to fish and it being in the far back of a cove we chose to go with the little dock they had. I did find 14' of water in the middle of the cove but I had to cast beyond the boundary to get to it but I baited the hole anyway. I knew the boat ramp would lead people basically over our lines but I hoped that we could get around that or that not many boats put in there due to the amount of stumps but I was wrong again.
One hour in a boat launched so I reeled up, not a huge deal, a half later six kids in kayaks came from the only lot farther in the cove than us and each of them paddled over and under all the lines so I reeled up again. Meanwhile my wife had caught a few channel cat but I was really there for the carp.
An hour later a boat launched and I had repositioned based on what I seen the other boat do thinking that was the normal boat route. This man was nice enough to ask if he was gonna clear my lines and I said yes and for some reason known only to him he turned hard left right after I answered and as I realized he was gonna get them I started to reel in but it was too late. The prop grabbed one and my new 30 pound braid started peeling off. I grabbed the scissors and cut it before he got my rod or cut my hand and just then he turns even harder and gets the other rod and pulls it over the railing but I caught it mid air and cut that line also. My wife is reeling as fast she can but not fast enough and he gets it too so I throw her the scissors and she cuts it off. I have now lost a total of about 200 yards of line and I'm not happy. I thought well I have to rerig so I'll get to it. Mother Nature said nah that's alright and started dumping rain. In our hurry to grab all the gear we left a couple rods. We didn't realize this until we had drove around the lake to another spot so we drove the thirty minutes back and luckily they were still there.
We decided to just go eat and call that a day and try again tomorrow, but that night I went to a public boat ramp and got as far away from the ramp as I could. We set up and I casted into the darkness with no idea how deep the water was or how many stumps. The water was about three feet to the distance we could cast with half our line missing from the spools. An hour in I look at my wife and I felt terrible for her, she was trying to stick it out but the mosquitos were so thick her legs were black and I said lets go.
Still trying but very very upset at this point we just went to the room. The bed was rock hard and we didn't sleep at all. I laid there all night debating on our options and when we finally got up I had decided to skip Sunday all together and go get breakfast on the way home.
These kinda things happen but man it's tough spending that much money, driving out there, not get a single run and come back with half your reels missing their line.
We will try again but not for a few weeks so if anybody knows a good carp or buffalo bank to fish at Fork I'd buy them supper if they told me.
Here's one of her three channel cat that she caught in the two hours we fished.