Fishing High Water

[eric1978]

Woke up this morning with a hankerin' for fighting some smallies, so I geared up and headed down 44. With the rains last night I started out with the intention of wading a small creek or two, hoping that they wouldn't be blown out. They weren't, but they were pretty swollen. I half-heartedly waded about a quarter mile before deciding it was a lost cause. I just don't know what do when the water is up in a stream. I try to cast to the eddys and deeper pools just like normal, but I can never tell if they are really fish holders or not since it's not how those spots normally look. So I headed to an old reliable honey-hole where I knew there were fish.

For those of you who know this place, please don't mention it's name. Sorry guys, it's just too little to take any more pressure. I usually try to get here a couple times a year. It's really hit or miss, but I've caught some beasts out of this hole. I've been here a couple times in the spring after a moderate warm rain, and the fish are going NUTS on just about anything you throw at them. I've also been skunked here, especially on days I see other fisherman (never seen anyone else on a weekday). It's usually very clear, and sometimes I'll catch one fish, then see a few of them swim up close and check me out, and that's that. It's dead. The fish in here baffle me. They turn on and off like a switch. I'd catch half a dozen on 10 casts, then nothing for an hour. Then another 6 or 7 on another ten casts, then nothing. Weird. I caught a total of 22 fish, 15 largemouth and 7 smallmouth. No spots in this baby! Nothing really to write home about. Took all fish on a spinnerbait and Dog-X.

These two little pigs were the best of the day. The smallie just barely broke 15 inches but what a fatty!

This little guy was voted most ambitious of the day. He jumped about 3 feet in the air when he took the dog. I have a soft-spot for scrappers and I know he'll be a big fella one day (even though my treble ripped his lip a little...sorry buddy).

ANYWAY, the point of the thread was: Do you guys have any tips for fishing high water? I mean of course when a stream is blown out it's over, but the water wasn't really that high today, and I feel like if I knew where to look for the fish, I could have caught them today. I know they were feeding, just didn't know where.

[smallmouthjoe]

Looks like you had no problem catching fish today, I would be happy catching that many fish in high water or at a normal level. But you definitely had the right idea on what lure to use. In high water situations I always stick with lures that produce vibration and make noise. Spinnerbaits, brightly colored cranks, noisy top-waters, but if the fish don't seem to want anything like that I throw a bulky dark colored jig with a dark trailer at them. As far as where the fish will be positioned , if the river is really high I find them close to the bank buried in cover usually. I'm not the best at fishing in high water but I have gotten better at it with all the rain we received this spring. I'm going out this weekend and hopefully we don't get anymore rain.

[FishinCricket]

I've always had good luck during midday swimming crawdads over where the riffles usually are in low water (what used to be a riffle with boulders and a 1 foot stream is now a rippling 3-5 foot with the boulders fully covered, if this makes sense).. Also a kastmaster seems to do a great job in highwater, cast it across the stream and basically just drift it, the fish hold up behind those (now hidden) stream breaks like logs and boulders and chase the lure out into the current.

One things for sure, dragging in a large fish in a high current can be real fun, or a real headache!

[Gavin]

It just depends....I usually go with a spinnerbait, buzzbait, diving crankbait, or a jig n chunk with a rattle if the water is stained a bit..Sometimes they scatter and its just plain hard to pick up fish.

[eric1978]

..Sometimes they scatter and its just plain hard to pick up fish.

Yeah, I pretty much agree with this. I think if the water is up a foot or more, the fish go as deep as they can and stick behind a chunk of cover and wait out the high water. They're just not going to waste their energy fighting strong current. Now maybe in the spring or early summer when the rains are warm it might get them moving a little more and chasing some food in faster water.

[eric1978]

Looks like you had no problem catching fish today, I would be happy catching that many fish in high water or at a normal level. But you definitely had the right idea on what lure to use. In high water situations I always stick with lures that produce vibration and make noise. Spinnerbaits, brightly colored cranks, noisy top-waters, but if the fish don't seem to want anything like that I throw a bulky dark colored jig with a dark trailer at them. As far as where the fish will be positioned , if the river is really high I find them close to the bank buried in cover usually. I'm not the best at fishing in high water but I have gotten better at it with all the rain we received this spring. I'm going out this weekend and hopefully we don't get anymore rain.

All the fish I caught seemed to be roaming around in the water with the least current. The water was really moving and I think they were looking for some more desriable current. I tried casting a jig into the current and letting it drift some, but no dice.

[Al Agnew]

Give me a one foot or maybe even a two foot rise and some murky but not muddy water on a stream that's normally clear, and I'm gonna be real happy. Such conditions often make the big fish lose their wariness and feed heavily. BUT, don't concentrate on the spots that you normally think are good in lower water. Higher, murkier water really moves the fish around. Fish the river as if it's a totally different stream, read where you think the fish would be if the present conditions were NORMAL. Look for them close to banks behind obstructions in places where the water is no deeper and the current is no stronger than where you'd be catching them under normal conditions. That may be along banks that you remember as being too slow and shallow to be any good in normal water.

Fact is that high water gives the fish a lot more options on where to feed. I always start out with lures that are bulky and displace a lot of water--bigger spinnerbaits and fat, wide-wobbling crankbaits--and fish them fast, trying to cover a lot of water. Ideally, the fish will be hitting such lures and giving you a lesson in where they are that day. Then, if you want to slow down and really pound the places where the fish seem to be, do it with bigger, bulkier bottom-bumping lures like big jig and pigs.

I learned this lesson when I was a teenager, by accident. I fished a certain section of stream for the first time when it was about two feet above normal and very murky, with visibility no more than 18 inches. And I caught a bunch of really nice smallmouth that day, by simply fishing where I thought the fish should be THEN, since I had no idea where they would be normally. I did so well that I went back to the same stretch two weeks later, when it was back down to normal and clear. I couldn't believe it. The places where I caught most of the fish before were so shallow that there was no way a fish could be there normally. Ever since then, I've approached streams in high water by ignoring where the fish would be in normal water and fishing them as if I'd never fished them before.

[eric1978]

Give me a one foot or maybe even a two foot rise and some murky but not muddy water on a stream that's normally clear, and I'm gonna be real happy. Such conditions often make the big fish lose their wariness and feed heavily. BUT, don't concentrate on the spots that you normally think are good in lower water. Higher, murkier water really moves the fish around. Fish the river as if it's a totally different stream, read where you think the fish would be if the present conditions were NORMAL. Look for them close to banks behind obstructions in places where the water is no deeper and the current is no stronger than where you'd be catching them under normal conditions. That may be along banks that you remember as being too slow and shallow to be any good in normal water.

Fact is that high water gives the fish a lot more options on where to feed. I always start out with lures that are bulky and displace a lot of water--bigger spinnerbaits and fat, wide-wobbling crankbaits--and fish them fast, trying to cover a lot of water. Ideally, the fish will be hitting such lures and giving you a lesson in where they are that day. Then, if you want to slow down and really pound the places where the fish seem to be, do it with bigger, bulkier bottom-bumping lures like big jig and pigs.

I learned this lesson when I was a teenager, by accident. I fished a certain section of stream for the first time when it was about two feet above normal and very murky, with visibility no more than 18 inches. And I caught a bunch of really nice smallmouth that day, by simply fishing where I thought the fish should be THEN, since I had no idea where they would be normally. I did so well that I went back to the same stretch two weeks later, when it was back down to normal and clear. I couldn't believe it. The places where I caught most of the fish before were so shallow that there was no way a fish could be there normally. Ever since then, I've approached streams in high water by ignoring where the fish would be in normal water and fishing them as if I'd never fished them before.

Would you say it is a priority for a smallmouth in high water to find current it prefers? I guess what I'm asking is how far do you think they will travel to find more acceptable water? Just from one spot in a pool to another spot in the same pool, or do you think they will travel up or downstream to find a new haunt altogether?

[ozark trout fisher]

For pretty much any species of stream fish, I prefer water just a touch up and off-clear. It really makes the fish a lot more fearless and agressive, or at least that's the experience I have. I'm a fan of both in-line spinners and spinnerbaits in this kind of water.... If its a torrent I turn around and go home. The only time I've done at all well in super high water was towards the lower end of the Big River. Water was flowing 2000 CFS or so, and it was pretty much a muddy mess, but I was able to come up with some nice bass, though most weren't smallies. A few were though.

[Al Agnew]

Would you say it is a priority for a smallmouth in high water to find current it prefers? I guess what I'm asking is how far do you think they will travel to find more acceptable water? Just from one spot in a pool to another spot in the same pool, or do you think they will travel up or downstream to find a new haunt altogether?

I don't think they move far. Really I'm not talking about really high water that makes the river fast from bank to bank, just a 1-2 ft. rise. In that case they may move only to areas in the middle portion of their home pool, or along the off banks where it's normally slow and shallow. Or they may simply move behind obstructions along the same banks where they'd normally feed, or eddies alongside the bottom of the riffles.