Maries River

[creek wader]

July 4th. I decided to try upstream from where I fished the other day. The river was up a little and stained. I only managed to cover a short section. The first couple of hundred yards was a fast run and pretty murky. Did however, managed to pull a 10' smallie and a 12" largemouth. Then encountered a knee to chest deep, 1/4 mi. long pool. Couldn't see the bottom which slowed my movement quite a bit. I didn't catch any through the pool and it wound up eating up much of my fishing time. Then encounted a 100 yd knee deep fast run and only p/u some sunfish. I about gave up and ws going to head back. But, decided to push on. Glad that I did. Above a short pool was a good riffle running hard. I fished the riffle and caught 4 smallies in 4 casts. Wound up with six smallies and a largemouth out of the riffle on 5 different baits. Biggest was about 13". and several over 12". Was getting ready to head on upstream which looked much better than what I had encountered so far, when I recieved an erroneous text message saying that I had to go to work in a few hours. So, I grabbed my gear and took the tick/poison ivy/ itching nettle route, through the timber. Thinking it would be faster than the long pool. Wrong! Not a wise choice wearing only shorts and wading shoes. Turned out I didn't have to go to work so soon. So, I'm itching (literally) to try that section again. I think I'll use my yak over the long pool next time, so I can cover a little more water. Wound up with 7 smallies, biggest was 13", and 2 largemouth, biggest 12".