If you read my blogs from the early hours of Day 1, you’ll notice I mentioned more than once that Jason Christie was fishing shallow water. Keeping an eye on the electronics, we were regularly floating in areas that were around 2 feet deep throughout our morning on Lake Dardanelle.
Editor’s note: See Christie’s Day 1 on Dardanelle.
After our third stop, Jason Christie let us know he wasn’t sure where his next area would be. Steve Bowman was driving his boat and shooting photos, and he was conflicted about leaving Jason Christie before lunch. Bowman thought Christie could eventually hit a spot and catch a flurry, plus we weren’t sure if any other pros were nearby to photograph.
We ended up following Christie to another spot. As he fished, Christie entered a shallow area between two islands. “We shouldn’t follow him in there,” Bowman said. And he was right.
We floated through the narrow space and followed Christie around the point. After fishing for a bit, Christie attempted to turn his boat around and got stuck. The super skinny water, muddy bottom and fast current pouring through the narrow entrance/exit made turning the boat around almost impossible and made getting up to escape velocity difficult. Christie used his push pole, then jumped in and pushed the boat by hand and finally revved the engine until he made a muddy escape.
After photographing Christie’s exit, Bowman quickly realized that we were in the same spot…but without a push pole. Without giving a full description of things that were done (and said), I can reveal that Bowman eventually jumped in and pulled the boat straight. We set the anchors, and thankfully the motor did the rest.
“Just another day on the Arkansas River,” Bowman, an Arkansas resident, said. “I’ve had plenty of them.”