Almost Too Much Of A Good Thing...

[Al Agnew]

I've been in a slump this summer. Haven't fished as much as I'd like (who has?). And when I have gone, although I've gotten a few big largemouth, the numbers and size of smallies has left a little to be desired. So Sunday night I looked at the weather forecast and saw that this week was going to be nice weather, not too hot, and no chance of thunderstorms. Why is that important? Because there's this rather remote creek where the accesses are mostly inconvenient, a rather long drive from the house, that sees very little fishing pressure in the summer and is chock-full of smallmouth. If I lived next to it I'd probably be spoiled, but as it is, it's a once a year at best trip that always is a slump buster. Although...I hadn't been on it in several years, so I wasn't sure it would still produce like it used to.

The guy I depend upon for a shuttle was still available, so I made the arrangements...I'd hide a key and the cash and he'd pick up the vehicle sometime in the next couple of days and move it to the take-out. I spent the morning Monday getting the camping stuff ready and shopping for groceries. Since I don't like to take the time and effort to cook anything when I'm doing a solo overnighter in the summer, my meals would consist of cold smoked pork chops, potato salad, raw carrots for supper two nights; sausage and potato chips for lunches two days, and Little Debbies snake cakes for breakfast.

By 1 PM I was on the road. Arrived at the put-in about 4:30. Not a soul there, no vehicles. Excellent! The creek, which is big enough in the spring for nice floating (and definitely gets floated then) was flowing about 30 cfs and very clear. I knew I'd be scraping bottom on most riffles, but I'd expected the low water and was mentally prepared for it...in fact, it was actually slightly higher than I expected. Probably the abundance of rain we'd had this summer had kept the springs flowing a little more strongly.

At 5 PM I pushed off, planning on floating and fishing for a couple hours before setting up camp.

(Note: I'm too tired tonight to post photos...but I have them! I also don't wish to post scenery photos because many in the area would recognize the creek from them.)

The first fish I caught came on a Sammy, and was about 17.5 inches. Alright! It came off a tiny little water willow point on the shallow side of the first pool below the put-in, and that would be a good indication of how much of the next couple days would go. The fish were not always in the best-looking spots, and it was necessary to fish a lot of marginal-looking water to find some of the bigger ones. By 7:30 or so the sun was going down and I was unwilling to stop to camp because I was catching fish like crazy! I passed a gravel bar where what appeared to be an Amish type couple and their kids had made their way to the creek and were swimming, and naturally it was the gravel bar I'd tentatively planned to use for the night. Then I passed another lone man who had found another little used access. By the time I passed him, it was getting seriously dark, but I soon found a small but nice gravel bar with fine pea gravel...perfect. I set up the tent in the growing dark, watched a full moon come up while eating my pork chops and potato salad, and reflected upon the evening. I'd caught 35 smallmouth already, including the 17.5 incher to begin with, an 18 incher, and a 19 incher! The 19 had taken one of my homemade twin-spins on a deep but dead still mud bank across from a beautiful rocky bank, keeping the theme of big fish being on off-banks.

The moon was just too pretty. I decided to try a little night fishing in the big pool at my campsite. I didn't have my typical night lures like Jitterbugs, but I already had a buzzbait tied on one rod, so I paddled up and back down the pool using it, and caught several small smallies but nothing of any size. By the time I finished I was sleepy enough to hit the sack, where I listened to one lone whippoorwill (whippoorwills seem to be getting more and more scarce in the Ozarks). A great horned owl hooted a couple times in the distance, and a screech owl called several times from atop the bluff across from camp. Other than that, it was a quiet and restful night in the tent.

I awoke at the first sign of daylight, and decided to get an early start on the morning's fishing. I quickly packed up the tent and gear and was on the water by the time it was light enough to see well.

This morning the first fish was "only" 16 inches. But the fish were very active and I was immediately catching fish in every decent pool. I caught some on buzzbaits. Some on topwaters, including Sammys and Gunfish. Some on the twin spin. Some on my homemade crankbait, which usually isn't a real good choice in this clear water. The fishing slowed some as the sun got high enough to hit the water strongly in the deep, narrow creek valley, but even at its slowest it was still pretty good. But it was also a little frustrating as far as big fish. I had blow-ups from big ones on the topwaters that never got hooked. I lost one 20 inch class fish because my drag was sticking when it decided to make a tremendously strong run. The line broke and the fish made off with one of my favorite buzzbaits. And as the fishing slowed, I began trying some other lures, and dug out a modified Lucky Craft lure that had started out as a prop bait. I hadn't liked it as a prop bait, but I had found that if I removed the props, it made a walking lure with a nice swishy rattle. I'd never caught anything on it until this day, but for a couple hours it was almost magic--until I cast it to a big log on one of those shallow off-banks. The fish wasn't even on the log, but lurking in shallow shady water ten feet away. I'd cast over the log, and I saw it come surging out into the sun, a huge brown torpedo of a smallmouth. It waited until I'd worked the lure over the log, then slipped under the log and exploded on the lure three feet away. As soon as I set the hooks, the big fish swapped ends and dove right into the root wad end of the log, out the other side while my line snagged on the roots, and snapped me off easily.

The bigger fish in the small stream know all the hiding places, and know how to use them. I had to wrestle several 16-18 inchers away from big rocks and logs. One 18 incher, on the first feel of the hooks, just shot under a big boulder, completely out of sight with my lure, and apparently scraped it off there--I had to get out of the canoe, stand in waist deep water, and shove my rod tip under the rock to get the lure free, minus the fish.

But I caught several in the 18 inch class, and finally captured a big one. The canoe was gliding down a very narrow, rock-lined run while I was fishing ahead, perhaps not really expecting a big fish because so far most of the bigger ones had come from slower water in bigger pools. I made a cast over a couple boulders with a chute between them, using the twin spin. It had no more than hit the water than this huge bronze slab side appears to roll over it. The canoe somehow made it through the chute on its own as I frantically tried to keep a tight line on the fish. Then the front end of the canoe veered to the side, the back end caught the current in the chute, and I turned halfway away from the fighting fish before the front end of the canoe crashed into another boulder. Meanwhile, the horse of a smallmouth was tearing up the water five feet from the back end of the canoe, before suddenly remembering where its hiding place was, beneath another big boulder. It made four hard lunges almost completely under the boulder, as each time I snubbed it and pulled it back out and away. It finally gave up on that idea, made a couple more head shakes, and allowed me to grip its lip. 21 inches.

Well, as the evening approached the fishing just got better, but I actually made myself stop and make camp with a half hour to spare before dark. It had been a long day, but I'd kept a running count of bass caught, and the tally for the day came up to 155 bass (only one of them a largemouth, the rest smallies), with approximately half of them over 12 inches.

The evening campsite was perfect, a big, high gravel bar across from a towering, curving limestone bluff with a small, gurgling, laughing rapid just upstream, and the sun setting downstream. I half-heartedly tried a little night fishing, but caught only a couple dinks, and I was happy to turn it early.

I woke up the third day (today) to cloudy weather, and didn't get quite so early a start on the fishing. But when I got on the water the fish were going nuts. I caught five, and lost a big one, in the pool where I'd spent the night.

But frustrations continued. I had a humongous smallie blow up on my buzzbait without getting hooked. And then another one did the same thing. These were both fish that were easily over 20 inches. So I put the buzzbait aside because fish were hitting the twin spin positively.

The creek's habitat deteriorates as you travel downstream. At first it's just one nice, deep rocky pool after another with rocky runs between, but the farther you go downstream, the more the stream becomes choked with gravel. This last day there would be long stretches between good pools that were less than two feet deep, wide and with little or no cover. Yet even in the horrible looking habitat the smallies were thick. In fact, the more active fish were in the flat, shallow runs, including some fairly nice ones. The water had also cleared even more, to where when you did come to a big, deep pool, you could easily see the bottom in ten or more feet of water. I caught several more from 17 to 18 inches. But once again the biggest fish frustrated me. I had one 20 incher take the twin spin right at the base of a rapid, and just sit in the current shaking its head until the hooks pulled out. And I found another creative way to lose a huge fish. I'd made a long cast with the twin spin to a pile of boulders, and the monster smallie engulfed the lure in the first six inches of the retrieve. I could see it, just hanging in the ultra clear water, shaking its head. And then it just launched itself out of the water in what was probably the most spectacular leap I've ever seen a truly big smallmouth make. Straight up like one of those missiles shot out of a submarine, a good three feet in the air. And at the top of its leap it snapped its head once with incredible violence, and my line went slack. I couldn't believe I'd broken off another big fish. But when I reeled in the slack line, I discovered I hadn't broken it off. It had actually snapped the wire where the line tie on the twin spin emerges from the lead head! All I had left was the bit of wire with the spinner arms attached.

I had almost 13 miles to go during the day, and I wanted to get off the creek by mid-afternoon, so I kept paddling and fishing, until I realized I was getting very tired. My wrists were getting stiff and sore. My left thumb, which I use both to control the casting reel and to lip fish, was raw and extremely painful. It had gotten to where I didn't want to cast to anywhere except where I had a good chance to catch a big one, but since the big ones were in unlikely spots, I hated to pass anything up. When a smaller fish would charge out at the lure (I'd gone to using just the twin spin, fishing it very fast and near the surface) I'd actually try to jerk it away, and if the fish took it anyway I wouldn't set the hooks and would give it slack line, hoping it would shake free. I had one more exciting big fish, which took the lure on the back side of a big log in fast water and nearly tied me in knots before I could subdue it. I missed several more big ones, and I think it was because I was just too tired to set the hooks. And the wind had come up strongly, blowing upstream in all the big pools and wide flats.

So I was actually glad to see the take-out at 3 PM. I'd caught 125 more smallmouth this day. I'm not sure I could have gone much farther or fished much longer. Twenty four hours of hard fishing in a little more than two days, more than thirty miles of stream floated, about 320 bass caught, who knows how many casts made. Everybody should have such a trip once in a while...but I don't think I could take it if it happened more than once a year!

[Justin Spencer]

Sounds like wonderful torture!

[Danimal]

Great report. Thank you for sharing. Dan-o

[BobK]

Thanks for sharing .....I really enjoyed your story.

[Al Agnew]

By the way...one other interesting occurrence today...I got some photos of a pretty little cottonmouth. Saw it swimming the creek slowly, paddled up to within decent photo range with my point and shoot, which was about five feet away. It stopped, hanging in the water half-coiled. You don't see harmless water snakes do that. Its entire body was floating, half in and half out of the water in an S shape with tail end elongated, its head was up at a 60 degree or so angle, and it was watching me with that "don't even think about messing with me" look that is so typical of cottonmouths. Even though it was only about two feet long, it was a little intimidating. Especially when it decided to swim a little closer to me. I waved the paddle at it. It opened its mouth to give me the reason why they are called cottonmouths. I backed off a bit. The photos aren't great, since I needed to be a little closer yet, but I don't think the snake was all that thrilled to have its picture taken.

[Chief Grey Bear]

WOW! Thrid day, late start, 13 miles, 125 fish and off the water by 3:00, priceless. Way to go Al, that is incredible! That is more like a marathon trip. 30 some miles in 3 full days is too much for me and you did it in much less time. I salute you for that. I can only do about 5 miles a day. But most of my trips are only about 6-8 hrs too. If I could do more saturday fishing, I would go longer. Lucky you!

When are you going to write a book? I want a signed copy.

[Trout Commander]

Nice report Al! I always love reading about your floating and catching. Looking forward to your pictures too. I enjoy them as well.

And in case you missed it in Chief's post, when are you going to write a book?!

[ColdWaterFshr]

Alright, I'm going to catch it for saying this, but as I read through it . . . started to get nauseous. Tasted my own throw-up. I don't want to read a book about someone catching 320 bass. I think Al is a tournament fisher-wanna-be suffering from delusions of his own grandeur. There, I said it.

[Guest]

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[Mitch f]

I was just talking with Zipstick the other day and we were wondering how you had time to do all these things, Al. You obviously have your paintings, seminars, a blog, blue ribbon panel,etc. and you still have time to do what you enjoy! Either I'm doing something horribly wrong or you are just great at time management.