Spirit of Moonpie and I spent the 19th through the 21st on the Blackwater below Franklin. The water was clear and 50 degrees, warm for this time of year. Air temps ranged from 28 to 58 degrees.

With the water temps still in the 50-degree range, I really thought I was going to mop up on the fish. Just the opposite was true. I only caught two 8-inch bass the whole trip, one each day, just enough to keep from being “skunked.” I tried jigging for yellow perch, or anything else for that matter, but only caught those two small bass. I cast for hours and hours, again no good. So I do not know what the problem was with the fish.

There was plenty of trash though to be picked up and so that is mostly what I did out there.

I even got another nine Styro blocks out of the river. Hopefully, that is pretty much all that’s left up in the Franklin ditch. I did see two way back in the swamp, but they were too far away for me to try to get to.

I want to mention and thank Conservation Police Officer Michael Corrado, our newest CPO in the area for happening by at the right time and helping me get those Styro blocks out of the boat and into the Riverkeeper truck. That was a big help.

Okay, yep, the Moonpie Airforce story. That was nuts, nuts of her anyway. We found these helium-filled balloons tangled up in the trees.

I got those out and Moonpie said, “Hey, you know since you ain’t got that fancy drone thingy yet, why don’t you tie these balloons to me, put a string on me and send me up over the Franklin ditch to see if there is any mo’ of them Styro blocks up there.”

“Naw,” I replied, “I don’t think they will lift you and you know you tried something like that years ago with bad results.”

Well, she wanted to try it anyway, but I told her I would not have anything to do with the plan. Sure enough, she tied them balloons onto her backside, waited for a good tail wind and leaped from atop of the outboard motor, drifted 10 feet and plopped right into the Blackwater River. I laughed so hard I got the hiccups. Surprisingly, she did not seem too mad and all she said was “Okay, so I got wet again, but as always I’m having a ball on the two rivers we call the Blackwater and Nottoway.”

P.S. Happy New Year to all our readers from Moonpie, Freezing Deer and the Riverkeeper.

JEFF TURNER is the Blackwater/Nottoway Riverkeeper. He can be reached at blknotkpr@earthlink.net.