Great Float On A Mystery Creek

[Al Agnew]

Other than a few wade-fishing trips, I hadn't been on an Ozark stream since the Shoal Creek float in early April! Deadlines and weather conspired against me. But yesterday I finally got the chance to go.

Nice thing about all the rain we've had is that all the creeks are running full. Wet springs always give you the chance to float higher on the creeks than the usual float stretches. It used to be a ritual to do at least one new creek each spring when there was enough water to do it. However, since I've pretty much floated all the creeks within a couple hours of home at one time or another, it's gotten to where I am going back and re-visiting some of the ones I did years ago.

This stretch is the upper end of a stream that gets big enough for lots of floating farther downstream. I first floated it while doing a multi-day trip covering the whole stream, back in the early 1980s. I remembered it being pretty decent fishing, fast water, lots of logs and driftwood piles, and stretches where land use practices had not done it any favors. I was looking forward to renewing its acquaintance.

The creek was air-clear and flowing quite strongly where I put in. There was plenty of water to float. The water felt cold on my ankles as I slid the canoe into the water. I climbed into the solo canoe and as always, paused with paddle across my knees to soak in the surroundings. I closed my eyes and felt the current, sniffed the river odors, and thought for a few seconds how fortunate I was to be on an Ozark stream once more. Then I stroked the paddle a few times and picked up the fishing rod.

The first mile or so was VERY slow fishing. Habitat consisted mostly of short shallow pools and holes around rootwads. The current moved very quickly and necessitated slowing the canoe continually to fish. The first smallmouth came on my homemade spinnerbait in a little backwater just off a riffle. But usually if the spinnerbait is working well, I will see fish coming out of cover in the clear water to investigate it, and that wasn't happening. The weather had been cool, especially the night before, so I figured the water was still cold and the fishing would warm up as the sunny day went along. In the cool morning water I thought a jerkbait might work, so I tied on an X-Rap. Sure enough, I immediately started catching some fish, most of them under 12 inches. They were almost never in strong current, usually in very slow-moving eddies close to deep water.

As the morning went along, I started to notice something a bit odd. I was seeing a lot of fish, including some nice ones, out in the middle of the creek over featureless gravel bottoms, mainly hanging in little dips in the gravel. These fish would occasionally charge my lure from 15 feet away or more, but mostly the bigger ones were ignoring it. And making myself cast to such spots was difficult even when I could see them ahead of time. In the clear water, long casts were necessary or else the fish had already seen me.

It was a pattern that would continue the whole day, and I saw a lot of VERY nice fish, 17-20 inchers, out in those places. I also saw lots of beds, almost none of them occupied although they still looked fresh. Was spawning over? Or did the earlier beds get flooded out in the high water? Did the fish start to make new beds, thus the fresh appearance, but were temporarily holding off them since the water had cooled?

About noon I started fishing topwater. I was throwing a Sammy, and some fish were willing to come up for it, but they were striking short and seldom getting hooked. So as the day went along I made two adjustments. One was to switch to a popper type lure, which the fish often will take more positively when they aren't really eating the walk-the-dog type. The other was to go underwater with my homemade Subwalk, a subsurface walk-the-dog lure.

Both worked. For a period of about an hour the fish were really on the popper, and I hooked nearly every one that struck...except for a couple of the biggest ones. But the subsurface walker, while not producing as good a percentage of hook-ups, was more consistent at attracting larger fish.

Some things I tried that DIDN'T work very well...the spinnerbait caught a few fish throughout the day, but it wasn't the lure it usually is in such water. Tubes got nothing. A Superfluke caught a couple but they weren't really attacking it. A couple of slightly weighted walk-the-dog lures that I'd modified to make what I'd call "walking wake baits" caught a couple but weren't magic, either.

The water remained clear and beautiful. The scenery was gorgeous. Even the stretch I remembered that was suffering from poor land use was quite pretty, but I remembered accurately. For a couple of miles, probably all owned by the same person, the trees had been cleared right down to water's edge and cows were in and out of the stream everywhere. This stretch was beaten down banks, huge gravel bars, floods eating away the bottom fields. That landowner was an idiot.

The floating was...well, fun. There were only a couple of places where I had to drag the canoe around obstacles, but a lot of fast runs were real obstacle courses from all the downed trees. One place in particular, the creek came into a fast, deep, narrow, high banked rapid that crashed into a log jam. There was an opening around the right side of the jam, but on that side there was another downed tree with roots against the bank and the main log running parallel to the bank down to the right end of the jam, with many limbs coming off the tree. I studied it from the top, and figured out the only way to do it without dragging the canoe up the bank. I don't usually take chances when I have a lot of fishing tackle in the canoe, but by this late in the day I'd had plenty of practice and figured I was handling the canoe about as well as I ever would, so I decided to give it a shot. Here's what I had to do...

Start down the middle of the rapid, foot high waves, fast, two or three feet deep, about 15 feet wide. Draw stroke on the right as soon as I pass the rootwad of the tree on the right to move the canoe sideways a little closer to it. I couldn't get too close because of limbs coming off it angling downstream. The log jam, which nearly all the current was sweeping under, is about 35 feet downstream at this point. Clear the next limb angling off the tree on the right. Now the jam is 25 feet away. A quick, hard back stroke to angle the canoe so the rear (upstream) end is pointed somewhat toward the tree. Clear next limb, log jam 15 feet away. Now it's the critical point, because the spot where I have to get OVER that tree, the only place where the trunk is underwater a few inches, is now even with where I am right now, tucked in almost behind that last limb coming off it, and about 10 feet to the side. I have to backpaddle HARD to ferry the canoe in behind that limb and get the back end over that log. There is only about a 5 foot section of trunk that's deep enough for the canoe to slide over it, and I have to hit that section paddling hard enough to get the canoe over it backwards, angling upstream. The only good thing I have going for me is that the big rootwad above is still blocking much of the current, so if I can get the canoe out of the main current quickly enough, getting it to go upstream and backwards over that point of the tree is doable. If I can't, I'm going to have to bail out in about thigh deep pretty strong current and grab the canoe to hold it out of the jam below.

When you're hot you're hot. It worked perfectly.

I ended up with about 50 smallies for the day, two of them 17 inchers. I didn't get any of those 18-20 inchers I saw, but I'm already planning a paddle and walk trip for later in the summer to see if they are still there.

[RogueAgent]

Great story! Reminds me of my favorite early-spring-after-the-rains float on the Roubidoux from Plato bridge to Grove's Angus Farm.

[Bman]

Al,

A usual your writings paint a wonderful picture in our minds, and inspire our hearts.

Makes me want to park the jet boat and get a canoe out! bad back and all.

After looking at your post on your solo canoe set up, that back rest would do the trick for my abused spine.