smallmouthjoe

Do you teach chemistry? I'm sorry I'm just trying to figure out who you are. I went to Ozark and graduated in 03. Curious that's all.

Beautiful fish. Sounds like a good time, thanks for the report. By the way do you coach at Ozark?

You can wade it but there is a no swimming sign up. If you do wade it about a half mile up there is a really big and deep run that would be really difficult to get around. I fished from my kayak today and got out and waded when i could.

Fished The James from Delaware up today. Fished to the old bridge then back down. Caught a nice collection of fish: some decent smallmouth and largemouth, a few little spots, a few rock bass and one really nice walleye. The last fish that I hooked was a two to three foot gar. She pulled me around for about twenty seconds then jumped out of the water a full foot above my head and threw the crank she hit. I was happy to have my crankbait back even if it was a little mangled. Most of the nice fish came on a bandit 200 in brown craw, all the rest of my fish where caught on a 1/8 once spring craw bitsy bug with a paca craw on the back. All the smallies where caught off of wood with a good amount of water moving past them and all the largemouth where caught off of wood in slack water.

DeRosa, would be a big boost to their offense, which i view as their primary problem. We just need some more consistency on the offensive side. They've been better as of late so I hope that continues. It would be nice to send Todd and his 5.5 ERA to the bullpen so maybe he can figure out whats going on. Whose on the market really? There's a lot of teams still in it.

Have you looked into chest packs? There's some out on the market that have a lot of room and are relativity inexpensive.

Is the section that you floated above Linden?

Man, whats with the diapers? I went to Bull Creek today and saw a diaper setting on a gravel bar. When I went to The Buffalo a couple of weeks ago someone had literally left a pile of diapers a foot from the stream at Carver. People have no respect for the streams that they enjoy spending time at and it makes me kind of sick.

Nice fish and good report. I keep meaning to hit 160 but I always forget about it until someone on this site mentions it. Thanks for the report.

The Cardinals are in first place by two and a half games as of today. Their pitching staff had the third best ERA in the league and Albert is in the running for the triple crown. While Lud hasn't been doing all that great, mainly due to injury, he has been hot as of late and I think( hope) it will continue. My question is what else do The Cards need to have a shot at another championship? I feel that maybe a power hitting third basemen would go along way being that I haven't heard anything about Troy coming back. I'm just interested to hear what everyone else thinks. Thanks.

I'm really trying to get away from the slow baits this summer. It's really hard, I always feel like I'm passing fish by. Next trip I take I need to just leave my tubes and jigs behind and focus on trying to learn to catch fish with aggressive baits, then maybe i can build some confidence in them. Great post, thank you Al.

Mr. Agnew, I wasn't comparing my kayak to anything. I was simply looking at the conveniences and the drawbacks of my kayak. I will admit that my kayak sucks when it comes to space, but isn't having a kayak better than standing on the bank looking at everyone else take off down the river?

Great advice.

The only thing that's doing well in my garden are my herbs. My tomatoes where a bust this year. Two of them died and all the ones that I have left still haven't fruited. I don't know what the deal is.

I have a cheap, sit in old town kayak that I love. It's about 9ft and does extremely well on the Finally and James. I even take it out on Table Rock in the spring and fall when there's not too many boats out. Here's a list of the advantages and disadvantages of my kayak. Advantages: Fast and very maneuverable Easy to transport Cheap Runs through very skinny water I've never turned it over More Comfortable than any other small watercraft I've been in Disadvantages: Hard to get in and get out of even for a little squirt like me Not so much room, I usually fish with a small tackle bag, a gallon sized Ziploc with assorted soft plastics, two rods, and a dry box. It's a tight fit. I've never caught a fish out of a solo canoe but I've been in one and it seems like the fish wouldn't pull you around so much. I'm going on a solo overnight er this weekend on The James and I've decided to take my kayak instead of my tandem canoe. I really want to see if I can pack everything I need inside of it. I'll reopen this thread and comment on how it went after this weekend if i don't get rained out. I agree that regardless of your decision you can't go wrong with just having one. It's opens up miles of stream that you would otherwise not have access to. I hope this helps.

It does seem to trigger a lot of strikes. Any change of direction or change in speed helps.

Fished this morning for about four hours before I had to go to my dreaded job. Arrived at the park around Ten with my kayak and as soon as I was out on the water the rain started getting heavy. Undeterred, I started up the river. RS suggested to me some weeks ago that I go above Riverside to check out a few holes up there, so I did. When I finally got there, after wasting about two hours trying to catch fish on the never fail spinnerbait through the park, I started catching fish on a Norman crappie crankbait in the riffle just up from Riverside Bridge. I continued my journey up river and found a hole just above that riffle that held some nice fish. There was wood all over both sides of the bank and my first trip through it yielded six or seven Smalls and eyes on the Norman crank. Running short on time I decided that i wouldn't continue any further up river but rather I would go back through the hole with my go to bait ( texas rigged bitsy tube) and see if i could pick off a few more. Under a downed tree far below the next riffle I found my biggest smallie of the day. She was around 13 or 14, fat, bronze and healthy, a real beauty. I fished the tube all the way back to the park picking up a fish here and there. Caught a nice large out of some wood by the the bluff on the north end of the park and that was my last fish of the day. Great day, thank you RS.

All of the square billed cranks I've ever used can be fished right through heavy timber if you simply allow it to float back up after you feel it hit a limb. And if I do get it caught on a limb my pocket knocker usually does the trick. Spinnerbaits are no doubt a great bait and a bait that all anglers of all skill levels use, and to me that is there downfall. All of this is just a matter of taste, there's no right or wrong.

Zander, I disagree with you on the subect of geneically mutated animals due to the tons of raw sewage being dumped into The James. Just look at the picture of the 5lb smallie posting under this one. All the other smallmouth I've caught, or seen, from other streams have been so small and malnourished. This one, and all the other four and five pounders swimming in that River have to be mutated freaks. That or because they are smallmouth living the high life in a stable and rich ecosystem. I don't know, I'm just glad their there and I'm happy to hear about any fishermen that refuses to catch them.

Thanks for the great report as always. Sorry about the foot injury, hopefully it won't keep you sidelined for too long.

I agree, The James is very underrated.

Yes it was. Just got home, I decided to take my canoe and my girl on the trip with me. We had a great time and caught a ton fish, even with all the people floating. Thanks everyone for all their help. Without everyone's advise I probably would have been at Kyle's Landing casting at wet gravel. Thanks.

I'm glad to see The James is capable of producing a fish like that. Great Fish.

I'll keep an eye on it. It doesn't seem to have gone up yet, hopefully if it does it won't be too much.

Hopefully between Carver, Woolum and Hasty I can find some place to camp this weekend.