Smallmouth On Nests

[creek wader]

I was fishing the Maries river a few days ago. It was at the lowest level that I've seen in a long time. Most of about a mile section was knee deep or less. Most wasn't much more than ankle deep. The river was low and just a small narrow channel, was winding through a large gravel bar. The water was very clear and you could see the fish very easily. The Longear Sunfish were guarding their nests, and all decked out in their bright spawning colors.

At one of the deeper spots, I saw about a 12 in. smallie on a nest. The hole itself was maybe 18" deep at the deepest. It was maybe 4' wide and about 6' long. Then it tailed off to just a few inches deep. Anyway, I watched the dude fight off a variety of sunnies and a few minnows, for about 10 min. Every time he would chase off a fish, he'd circle the hole then return back in the same spot. He made me tired, just watching him. Poor guy was having a busy day.

Anyway, according the the U.S.G.S. Reat-Time Water Data Stream flow chart. The Maries Height Gage, was down to less than a foot, that day. The stream flow was at about 15 cubic ft. per sec. The stream got a gully washer the next day. The Height gage went up to over 11 ft. and the stream flow went from 15 cfps to over 700 cfps.

Now, I don't know much about this stuff, but common sense would tell me that the nest, the poor little guy was guarding, got blown away. Does anybody know about this? Or does somehow nature take care of itself, and the nest and eggs/fry could of survived? The location of the nest, was in the channel, (the only place the water was that day). So, The nest would of took the brunt of the raging water.

[DoveTail]

Every bend, pool and area of a stream is different, but the faster current is usually in the upper column and near the bottom the current isn't as bad. Certainly new holes are washed out with floods as streams constantly change. Some have to survive because nature would wipe them out every time it rained.

[TroutRinger]

I don't know anything about the nests getting washed away, but once the spawning smallies get into sunfish chasing mode, they are nearly impossible to catch. About two weeks ago I spent nearly an hour casting to these two really nice smallies in a little creek that were guarding a nest. I was doing my best to make my lure look like it was attacking the bed but they were so occupied with the sunfish I hardly got a reaction.