Switch On, Switch Off

[Al Agnew]

I've fished Big River for 50 years now, and there have been a few summers during that half a century that the fish would get into a pattern where at some point during the day--about the same time every day--they'd suddenly go nuts. You'd be fishing fruitlessly and swearing there couldn't be a half dozen fish in the whole river, and all of a sudden you'd start catching fish and then there'd be fish everywhere, hitting with wild abandon. This would last for an hour or so and then usually would begin to taper off gradually until you were back to catching practically nothing. But it always seemed to start with a bang.

But this hadn't happened to me for a long time...until yesterday.

I put in about 9:30 AM for a seven mile float. This stretch is not one of my favorites--it has some very good water and a lot of pretty poor water, but it's easy to get to and I always float it at least once a year. The water was down to about spring normal after two big rises in the last three weeks, one of them a 25 foot rise. It was fairly clear, visibility about 4 feet.

In the first mile below the put-in I always seem to catch a bunch of fish. It's some of the better water on the float, with several nice runs, a couple of short rocky pools, and a big pool with lots of rocks on one side and deep logs on the other.

Not today. I didn't catch the first fish, a 12 inch smallie, until I got to the lower end of the big pool. I caught another one immediately afterward, and hooked a third fish briefly. Not good.

The stretch below that one starts out fast and shallow where it usually produces several little smallies, then gets slower and deeper and good largemouth water. Well, I did catch one more smallmouth there, and a couple of largemouth. After that, the river goes through one of it's somewhat non-productive stretches, with only a handful of spots that are dependable...and none of them were dependable today. I stopped for lunch at 1 PM with only a half dozen fish caught so far, and I'm thinking this may go down as one of the worst trips for numbers of fish I've had in years.

Right below where I ate lunch the river reaches one of my favorite little spots. It doesn't look like much. It's a run of moving water about 2-3 feet deep, 50 yards long, studded with a few nice boulders. For some reason it seems to always produce several fish, usually with at least one of them being 16 inches or better. It's a piece of water that can turn a slow day around or at least make it a little more worthwhile. But not today. One half-hearted strike from a fish that wasn't very big anyway. Now I'm really getting a little disappointed--if that hole isn't producing I'm in trouble.

Below there the river reaches a longer, shallow, rocky pool. If the fish are doing well, this pool can produce several nice fish, with the occasional REALLY nice one. But I'm pretty pessimistic. It's now after 2 PM and I've caught barely more than one fish per hour so far.

But then it starts. Halfway down through that pool, to be exact, at about 2:15 PM. I'm fishing a Sammy up against the rocky bank in two feet of water when I get a wild, slashing strike and a solid hook-up with a 15 incher. Nice. Next cast, another hard stike, another 15 incher. Two casts later, a third strike, 12 incher. Then another strike, miss the fish. He comes back for seconds, miss him again. Looked to be about 14 inches. Then I'm out of the best water of the pool, nearing the lower end. Still, I get a 10 incher out of the shallows. The next pool is longer, deeper, big rocks on one side and shallowish logs on the other. It's seldom produced many fish for me--just seems to be a little too slow and slack water. But today is different. The switch is turned on. I catch fish after fish in the upper half on the rocky side, then when I stop catching them there, I switch over to the logs and catch a 16.5 and a 17 off them.

Below that pool the river goes through a fast section with some nice deep runs. I decide to experiment and see if the fish are hitting something besides topwaters. My crankbait produces nothing. My homemade spinnerbait produces a couple of decent fish, but the fish don't seem to be in the fast water very much, until I get below that little piece of water. At the head of a long, shallow, almost coverless pool in fast, shallow water, the smallies are stacked, and I catch a half dozen 11-15 inchers on the spinnerbait. Down through the pool, I catch a couple more and hook a really nice one on the topwater.

But that's the heart of the flurry. Things begin to slow down. In the last 3 miles of the float, the fishing is back to being fairly slow, although certainly not as slow as it was that morning. I'm still getting strikes on the topwater, but now they aren't hitting it as positively and I'm missing fish. I catch a couple nice largemouths on the spinnerbait. I stop to fish a couple of spots with tubes and catch a couple decent fish. And the final highlight of the day is a 17.5 inch smallmouth that blasts the topwater in a strike that had me convinced I'd hooked Ol' Walter himself.

Total fish caught--24 smallies, 15 largemouths. Probably at least 2/3s of them came in that one hour period when the switch was fully on.

Some fish porn...

pretty little warmouth. You don't catch many of these on Big River.

Only about 13 inches, but really beautiful coloration...why we call them "brownies".

The 17 incher caught during the big flurry.

The lean, mean 17.5 incher that capped the day.

[Bman]

Wow.

Love to read your posts!

I've got to rig up a canoe with one of those back rests you've described. I don't think I could get away with a solo rig though, between my son and gf.

[fishinSWMO]

If only that would happen just a little more often.

I kept waiting for something like that yesterday, never happened tho.

Sounds like you had a great time while it lasted. Great pics of some nice fish.

Fishin

[GloryDaze]

Al-

I'm pretty much a novice on the topwater action and wanted ask a few quick questions if you don't mind helping?

1) Do you fish this lure out of your canoe or only from the shore while standing?

2) Do you fish it through the rapids like you would a tube or Chomper? What;s the best spot to target?

3) Does the time of day or weather dictate whe you use the topwater?

Thanks for the great report- I remember my dad taking me to the Big River when I was a child