What an evening! I will preface this story by saying barges on the TN river usually move at a snail’s pace....... usually.......
So we have been paddling around in the evenings just for the heck of it, but Some of us keep fishing rods ready and cast into some calm spots for white bass. I caught a skipjack herring on the way up the river and cut it into chunks. My buddies have never caught a striped bass and cut bait has been getting a lot of them lately. As we drifted back downriver toward our vehicles, the cut bait rod goes off! I hand it to my buddy and the fight is on! We are in a canoe being towed out into the middle of the river by the fish hooked near the shoreline, yee haw fun times. I just so happen to look back upstream and there’s a massive barge coming right toward us and it’s coming along pretty quick. Uhhhh. I Paddle backwards for all I Had while my buddy is dragging a 16 lb striper on the surface with 12 lb line. Now there’s a pontoon out in front of the barge with no lights on pushing a big wave. Somewhere along the way I bear hugged the fish and flopped it into the boat before we got into shallow water. Made it to the rocks just in time for the barge waves to hit, clangity clang. Somehow we stayed upright and took some pictures! You can see the barge on the right of the top picture. The tug went back by empty as we were taking out in the dark
