My son and I had pulled out of the Ohio River and headed up the Mississippi about 6 years ago. We pulled in behind the first island and my prop hit something. I thought it was a wing dam or something out there in the middle. Now, we knew nothing about this mythical river. The sun was getting low, the current was gushing, the barges were huge and we were tired. I looked at my son and said "are you scared" he said yeah. I said. "me too" and we proceeded to idle in the slue behind Tow head Island.

Shortly thereafter fish, species unknown, started jumping all around us. Sometimes they jumped straight up and some times in an arc 4 feet off the water covering about 10-15 feet in distance doing about 30 miles an hour. I thought to myself, man, I hope one of those things doesn't jump in the boat.

We made it to shore and camped that night. I finally went to sleep about about 3 am after that last mosquito bit the dust or decided to give up on injecting me with West Nile Virus which was in the news back then.

The next morning we headed out and as we were idling the strange fish started jumping again. My son was standing in the bow bent over getting something out of the cooler. A fish jumped over his back and landed on the floor in the middle of the boat. My boat is an aluminum V hull with some freeboard so that fish had to be at least 4-5 feet above the surface of the water.

There was quite a bit of commotion the fish being 15 pounds or so and 30 plus inches. The strange fish started to dance around the boat from the gas tanks in the back to the bow. My son Garrett, who is no squeamish little squirt, took up a perch on top of the cooler to avoid getting attached. As the fish continued to dance it made a bloody mess.

I had no idea if this thing had teeth, spikes or any other sharp things on its body so was reluctant to get into a fight. After collecting myself and becoming aggravate by the mess I took our only towel (for the week trip), grabbed the intruder by the tail and winged it back into the Big Muddy. As the adrenaline ebbed we assessed the boat condition. The boat was to be our home for the next 5 days so a cleanup job was in order. We doused the boat with Mississippi Brown from a drywall bucket and did some scrubbing with our only towel for the next hour.

We then proceeded back into the main channel, our bodies clinched in defensive positions more commonly seen on a punt receiver that has elected not call for a fair catch but at the last instant knows he should have. We might as well been on the Amazon. Without saying a word we both new what the other was thinking, what lies ahead.

More Asian Silver Carp.