poker fisherman

Took my brother on a float Saturday - we floated from Boulder City to McNatt. Water was low in spots, but we were able to make it through without too much of a hitch. Fishing was slow, but this is a real nice float. Caught a released 25 smallmouth and probably 50 goggle eyes. Saw some deer along the way too. A few pics:

I tell ya what though....if any of you guys are into suckers - there are a ton of them moving in the streams right now. I've never done the gigging thing, but might give it a try next month.

flow is the lowest I've seen this year. I was in my lightweight one man canoe and the other guy in a kayak. We drug bottom in several places but not enough to make it miserable. I'd imagine this weekend it will drop even more.

Put in a 9:00 am Sunday morning and fished/floated until 3:30 or so. fishing was good but nowhere near and hot as it has been the past 2 weeks. I caught and released 32 smallmouths. I pulled in quite a few nicer fish than is typical on a float of this length. Friend that went with me flyfished and caught tons of bluegill and longear sunfish on a popper fly. He even caught a handful of northern hogsuckers on the popper as well. All in all a good day to be on the water. A few pics below:

Have been fishing a lot but just haven't had time to put any reports or photos up lately. My brother is in town for a few months from New Jersey and being from southern Iowa and Northern Missouri he has never had the opportunity to do any stream fishing. So, we floated all day Saturday and it was one heck of a great day. We threw all kinds of crayfish patterns and even some stick worms. I caught 75 smallmouth and 13 largemouth (most LM i've caught in this creek in one day). Brother caught 35 fish as well. Lots of dinks and several nice fish too. Here's a few pics:

Waded for a couple hours yesterday afternoon and it couldn't have been much better. The fish were biting like crazy. Didn't matter what I threw at all, nearly every fish hit the lure as soon as it entered the water. I ended up catching and releasing 29 smallmouth. Great day - i need to buy a waterproof camera or a cheap disposable for fishing trips.

No joke - all kinds of them in that hole. Its hard to beat fresh crawdads boiled in Busch Beer with Old Bay or Zattaran's over the camp fire.

I actually loved it, because there is a residual pool where the channel used to be and it was chock full of crawdads - thats where we caught em all.

07.05.2010 - Put in at the HWY 71 Bridge upstream from Anderson, holy cow there must have been 100 Pacific Islanders there swimming, BBQ, and carrying on. Floated from there downstream to Anderson Beach. We saw 2 other canoes and a couple small groups of folks floating in tubes. I think we were the only ones there to fish. The guys in the 2 other canoes had fishing rods, but we leap-frogged them several times and they seemed more interested in swimming and goofing around in the water than fishing. Fishing seemed slower than normal - but may have been due to the fact that I had the girlfriend and her 7 year old nephew with me - lots of untangling and snagged limbs to deal with - but caught & released 11 smallmouth - 3 of which were right at the 15"-16" mark. Lots and lots of suckers in this stretch of water. This was a really nice float without many obstructions in the water and an overall good time. Even floated right through 2 heavy rains, which left us a couple inches of water in the bottom of the canoe and soaked everything we had in it, but it was an adventure. 07.03.2010 - On a sidenote a few friends and I camped out at Huckleberry Ridge on Saturday night and went down to Deep Ford access on Big Sugar. We didn't fish, but we did catch enough crawfish to fill a dutch oven and had ourselves a nice little crawfish boil. A perfect appetizer before brats and baked beans over a campfire.

Nothing at the mill, fished there 10 minutes or so and moved on. Its a neat place to get out and stretch your legs a bit though. I'll probably give that stretch another chance later on this summer, since I know there are at least 3 smallies swimming there we released.

Floated from Cherry Corner to Lime Kiln on Saturday. Its a great float but the fishing just wasnt on. Between 3 guys we boated only 5 fish. 3 smallmouth, 1 goggle-eye, and 1 bluegill. at least one of the smallmouth was nice 17" - saw 4 kayaks come through at the island. All in all, an enjoyable afternoon.

Floated with 3 friends for about 6 hours this past Sunday - we caught 15-20 smallmouth apiece, and lots of goggle-eye too. Fished craw patterns and stick worms. A few fish on chompers and minnow imitators. Fantastic float. Saw one other group of recreational floaters, close to Anderson. Also saw a couple guys teaching a young coonhound how to keep its head above water, was hilarious.

The stretch from the low water bridge to Lanagan access is impassable by canoe/kayak. There are lots of large trees laying in and across the water flow for at least a hundred yards are more. Waded this stretch a few weeks ago and did well. However, there is a large gravel bar that you can walk around it all pretty easily, if you don't mind carrying the canoe that far.

I'm gonna start this by saying I am in no way trying to argue with anyone. If you want to be super-discreet about your fishing holes, thats your prerogative and no one can hold that against you. So..... Of course it could "potentially" increase pressure. But the likelihood of mentioning the stream name, causing dramatic shifts in fish populations is low. As I more or less said above, people are lazy. On a stream like Indian, with fairly limited access. Most folks are just too lazy to set up a float and shuffle vehicles around etc, let alone wade any considerable distance. And your right I do not fish here every day, but I have fished Indian 10 times from Jan 2 - May 9. And I do drive down there most every evening, just looking around picking up trash (Stream Team 4141), looking at deer etc. And have yet to see anyone fishing except from the bank at hole near the HWY 71 bridge at Anderson and occasionally at the McNatt church. Overnight Dandy Craig O'lea to Hog Heaven - another very similar type of report There are plenty of folks who posts all the details of their trips and those are the some of the most interesting threads to read. Go through the threads - and you'll find lots of them. As to why people don't post names? I dunno - I think most fisherman keep some things secret mainly because its just part of the culture. Your buddies and friends ask ya what your using to catch all those fish and its fun to jab at them a bit and make 'em wonder what their doing wrong. This thread has had 446 views as I type this. Do you really think that is going to cause a massive influx of fishing pressure? Its safe to assume that most of those views are folks viewing it several times as new posts are made. Someone mentioned "lurkers" just watching for where the good fishing is and coming out and stripping the stream of all the good fishing. Really? There are plenty of folks who posts all the details of their trips and those are the some of the most interesting threads to read: I am happy to share - I would rather share what I'm doing that makes me successful and pass it along to others, especially youth. Hell, I'll pass it along to anyone that wants to listen if thats what it takes to get more people outdoors. Its one of the best ways to promote the outdoors; especially the ethics and values that "most" outdoorsmen collectively share. Keeping it all secret in a sort of Underground culture is a great way to ensure that less and less people get outdoors and enjoy what mother nature has to offer. We're already the minority, and our rights/priviledges are attacked in one way, shape, or form nearly everyday. I'm will continue to "Pass it On" because I believe thats what it will ultimately take to ensure a strong conservation ethic in this country.

Drew, thanks for your two cents, but I already understood what some of the other posters were saying. I simply disagree with some of the thoughts, or at least the way they were presented on this board. I do not believe for one second that mentioning the name of the stream a person is fishing is going to "ruin the resource." I could probably upload a google map of the exact spots I am catching fish and the fishing pressure would remain more or less unchanged, because most folks aren't going to wade a mile or more to catch fish. Anyone that is willing to, is probably going to have a solid set of conservation ethics. I fish Indian more than anywhere else because I live just a few miles from the stream. And in the 2 years I've lived here I have NOT ONCE seen a single other soul fishing the creek. I've seen a few floaters but no one fishing (however I'm POSITIVE there are others that fish it). I think its pretty safe to assume that fishing pressure is low from Lanagan upstream. With that said I would love to see some folks out there fishing. I've met very few fisherman that don't want to take care of and promote the resource they love. I just don't believe that maintaining the secrecy of fishing holes does anything to promote the conservation of resources.