Floating Between Rainstorms

[Al Agnew]

My brother called me yesterday and said he had today free and wanted to go float somewhere. I'd been working all week, doing a couple of Bass Pro catalog cover designs, and I was ready to go, but I knew the weather forecast didn't sound too good. I checked it again on the net, and it said showers and thunderstorms today, 60% chance of rain. I checked river levels on Big River, and it looked okay, a little high but not bad. Okay, maybe doable.

I know my brother. A free day to him usually means he only has one or two things he has to get done instead of five or six. Ever since he went into business for himself, he's been quite a workaholic. So I figured he'd probably need to get home early, which meant a trip on nearby Big River was about our only choice.

I awoke at 5 AM to the sound of thunder and listened, eyes closed, as a rainstorm moved through. Okay, I thought, maybe that will be the end of it for a while, and went back to sleep. Mary woke me at 7 AM, saying she doubted that we'd be able to fish, because it was raining again. I was supposed to meet Don at 8 AM, so I got up, checked the latest river levels, and called him. He said that according to the TV, the current rain was supposed to be moving out any time, and no more rain was expected until early afternoon. He said he'd drive on out to the take-out and call me if the river looked bad, otherwise he'd wait for me to get there.

He called me again a few minutes later. "Well, the river looks okay but it might be interesting. Coming down the big hill before you get to the river, there are drifts of hail!" Sure enough, when I got to that point a few minutes later, it looked like the remains of a snowstorm, with windrows of hail, and this was probably from the storm at 5 AM, meaning a lot of it should have melted already!

Apparently, the area right in the stretch of river that we planned to float had gotten a serious rain and hailstorm. The river still looked fairly clear, but as we headed toward the put-in, we crossed several small creeks that were flowing a lot of rainwater.

Sure enough, Don had to get back to town by 2:30 PM, so we decided to cut the float from the seven miles I had planned to do down to about 4.5 miles. I was okay with that, since that forecast calling for renewed thunderstorms in early afternoon, with possibly severe weather, was worrisome.

The river was definitely higher than what the river gauge had said it was at 6:15 AM, but it was only slightly off color, visibility about 3-4 feet. I checked water temp and it was 58 degrees. Crankbaits? Maybe jerkbaits? Maybe spinnerbaits.

The first fish, however, came on my homemade Subwalk, but it was only a ten inch smallmouth. And that was it for a while, a few half-hearted slashes at various lures, a couple of follows, until we reached the first big, deep pool. There we started catching bass, mostly largemouth, several 14-15 inchers. Don caught a couple on jerkbaits, I caught a few on crankbaits. The second big pool has always been a very good one, but we went through the whole thing without a bass. The pool below is shallow with scattered rocks, always good in the summer. Don had put on a big black spinnerbait by this time, and caught the first really nice fish, an 18 inch largemouth. We continued catching fish, not any more really good ones but enough 12-14 inchers to keep things interesting, on a variety of lures. I put on a spinnerbait and caught a few. Caught one on topwater. Don caught some on a shaky head worm, and then caught another nice largemouth, 17.5 inches, on a jig. I caught a decent 16 inch smallie on my homemade twin spin. Lots of good water had few fish, but with the higher than normal water, we were often fishing places that looked good but that I knew were pretty poor spots in normal water.

The water had cleared considerably. Don's big black spinnerbait wasn't working anymore, and neither was my deep diving crankbait. The twin spin was doing better, however, as it often does in clearer water. Then we came to a good sized creek that was coming in muddy, and suddenly the river's visibility was back down to about 2.5 feet. I picked up the crankbait rod again, and almost immediately hooked a good fish. It was a 17 inch smallie. Out of curiosity, Don weighed it on his digital scales...2 pounds 7 ounces. And it had a pretty big belly, but otherwise was a typical Big River fish, long and lean.

The black spinnerbait was producing again, and so was a yellow and white tandem spin that I put on. We'd just floated over what would ordinarily be a water willow bed in a little side channel, bypassing a narrow, fast, log jammed riffle that in normal water we'd have had to drag the canoe around, when I made a cast with the spinnerbait back toward the riffle, bringing it through a big eddy off the current. When the fish hit I knew it felt heavy and told Don. Then it jumped. Big smallmouth. It actually fooled me; I thought it looked pretty close to 20 inches hanging in mid-air like that. But it turned out to be an 18 incher that weighed just under three pounds.

We were running out of time, but the last mile or so of the river isn't good habitat anyway, so we mostly paddled through it as the sky darkened and thunder began to rumble. Just as we finished loading the canoe on Don's truck, the rain began.

[Mitch f]

Nothing will jar your bones like a big Smallie slamming a spinnerbait! Sounds like you guys had fun!

[eric1978]

What kind of canoe is your tandem, Al? Wondering what kind of system you use to store assembled fly rods with two guys and gear in the canoe...if you ever confront that scenario. I found no good solution last weekend.

[LittleRedFisherman]

^{Great report, I can almost visualize what you guys where doing in the canoe with that good description. I was in Little Rock earlier in the week, and stopped by a sporting good store there and stocked up, I bought several different crankbaits from 2 to 4 ft dive, up to 7 to 10, as well as some spinnerbait, and Rons trusty roadrunners..lol Thanks for the report, when I go again, I'll have to change my pattern from the winter pattern i've been used to.}

[ColdWaterFshr]

Shazam. I love reading reports like this.

[Al Agnew]

What kind of canoe is your tandem, Al? Wondering what kind of system you use to store assembled fly rods with two guys and gear in the canoe...if you ever confront that scenario. I found no good solution last weekend.

My tandem is an Old Town Penobscot 16 footer. About the only good way I know to stow fly rods in a tandem canoe is to try to keep the area on either side of the canoe up against the gunwales free and open. Then the guy in the back can stow one, maybe two fly rods with handles lying on the side of the seat he's sitting on, and tips shoved under the seat supports (assuming you have cane or webbed bench seats) of the guy in front, while the guy in front does his rod the same, pointing back toward the back and under the seat supports of the back seat. And this assumes that you have the seats raised an inch or two from what they usually come from the factory, otherwise the rods will lie atop the middle thwart and the tips will have to bend a lot to fit under the seat supports. And the tips will be bent quite a bit to the side, anyway. With the rod handle sitting atop the seat support and the reel hanging down through the open middle of the support, you can fit about eight feet of the rod from there to the far end of the other seat support, which leaves about 6 inches or a foot of the rod top sticking in front of the front seat, or behind the rear seat. There just isn't any way that I can see to keep the rods straight, the tips out of any kind of danger, and easily reachable. But I'll think about it some more.

[ColdWaterFshr]

Hitting the middle Courtouis or Huzzah tomorrow with my family and another. Bought some road-runners and grubs for the kids to fish with ( thanks Ron - and maybe me too if the jerkbait bite isn't on, and maybe I'll become a believer)

Question - should we hit Eaglehurst to Hwy 8 on the Huzz, OR Butts low-water bridge to Soctia bridge on the Court? Decisions, decisons.

[eric1978]

My tandem is an Old Town Penobscot 16 footer. About the only good way I know to stow fly rods in a tandem canoe is to try to keep the area on either side of the canoe up against the gunwales free and open. Then the guy in the back can stow one, maybe two fly rods with handles lying on the side of the seat he's sitting on, and tips shoved under the seat supports (assuming you have cane or webbed bench seats) of the guy in front, while the guy in front does his rod the same, pointing back toward the back and under the seat supports of the back seat. And this assumes that you have the seats raised an inch or two from what they usually come from the factory, otherwise the rods will lie atop the middle thwart and the tips will have to bend a lot to fit under the seat supports. And the tips will be bent quite a bit to the side, anyway. With the rod handle sitting atop the seat support and the reel hanging down through the open middle of the support, you can fit about eight feet of the rod from there to the far end of the other seat support, which leaves about 6 inches or a foot of the rod top sticking in front of the front seat, or behind the rear seat. There just isn't any way that I can see to keep the rods straight, the tips out of any kind of danger, and easily reachable. But I'll think about it some more.

Yeah, that's what I have too, Penob 16. I haven't raised my seats yet...not sure if I will, but I guess you're right, that would help. My main problem was with the big cooler along for the ride for the weekend. Pretty much impossible to work around it. Guess I'm gonna have to tinker with some outside-the-box mods.