S. Moreau River

[creek wader]

Finally made it to the S. Moreau the other day. It was the first time this year. The river has been out of it's banks several times. When it had been back it, has been dreadfully muddy, both the water clarity and the banks. Making it a sloppy mess to wade fish. Anyway, it's finally down to it's dog days level, but still stained. This time of year the river becomes a large creek. At this level, it is perfect for what I call "pot holing". I wade through the ankle deep shallows till I get to a pot hole. The fish are basically trapped in these holes. The hole usually has a log or two, or a rootwad. Some might just be a gravel bottom hole below a riffle. If you want numbers you can downsize to a 1" or 2" soft plastic jig, and tear up sunfish and dink bass. I only found one shallow spring fed hole where I had an oppurtunity to do some site fishing. It held quite a few fish and I could see the smallies (dinks). Unfortunatly, the sunfish beat the smallies to the bait most of the time. Didn't catch any smallies, just a few dink blacks and a plethera of sunfish. So, I moved on and upsized with a 5 1/2" senko type worm. I worked the root wads and logs. The bass were holding tight to the cover. I p/u about a 15 to 20 blacks, between 12" and 16". I was little diappointed that I didn't catch any smallies, though. When the river gets this low. I usually fish each stretch only once. I figure the fish are pretty stressed and I don't want to mess with them too much. Unfotunately, this is when the locals pick apart the bass, because they are trapped, and it's like fish in a barrel. I've noticed that most of the accessable holes get fished out pretty fast, when using live bait.

Everybody loves candy corn, no matter what size

[Chief Grey Bear]

I love fishing small creeks like that too. The fishing, though as you say is nothing to brag about, can be fast and furious. It is a great type of creek to get a youngster started wade fishing on. 1. It keeps their attention due to good action. 2. You can start teaching them on how to read a creek.