Stream Of Dreams, 2012

[Al Agnew]

I float it once a year, always in mid to late summer, always for two or three days. This year, like last year, I flew back to Missouri from Montana expressly to do the float. It's always a solo trip. It's usually one of the real highlights of the year.

The creek is always low, marginally floatable at best, but when I pulled up to the put-in Tuesday afternoon, it was definitely the lowest I'd ever tried to float it. There looked to be maybe 15 cubic feet per second flowing in the riffle right below the put-in. Well...it would be an adventure, anyway.

I loaded the canoe with more care than usual, wanting it to be exactly balanced so I could float as shallow as possible, given three days worth of food and camping gear. A big dry bag with tent, ground cloth, self-inflating sleeping pad and a waffled folding pad to go beneath it for extra insulation from gravel went in the rear of the solo canoe. The more lightly loaded of my two medium size coolers, with cold food, went in front of that bag and right behind the thwart behind my seat. A medium size dry bag with clothes, sleeping bag, pillow, flashlight, and a good book went in front of the thwart in front of the seat, and the other cooler, full of water and beverages, went in front of that bag, leaving room in the front end of the canoe for my rod tips and lures to dangle without getting hung on anything. The spare paddle was slipped into the gap between the bag and cooler and the inside of the canoe, its blade to the rear. I threw in a pair of Crocs for nights on the gravel bar, and a non-waterproof bag with some dry food sat on top of them in the rear of the canoe. My battery box with Plano boxes full of lures went in its usual place beneath my seat, and the five rods were rigged and ready, the two spinning rods lying with handles on the thwart in front of me on either side, the tips pointing backwards along the guwales, two casting rods with handles on the sides of my seat and tips just in front of the cooler in the space in the front of the canoe, the third, shortest casting rod with handle on the dry bag in front and the tip beneath the end cap of the canoe.

The first riffle wasn't a good test, because somebody had built up a little rock weir to direct the water through a narrow gap, so there was enough to float it. But below, it widened and shallowed. I'd treated the canoe bottom with Formula 303 beforehand, and it slid over the gravel easily.

Clear, clear water. Bright blue sky without a cloud. I pretty much knew what I'd be fishing most of the time. A walk the dog topwater and my homemade twin spin. Over the next three days, I'd catch one fish on my homemade crankbait, three on a Senko, and a few on a buzzbait. Everything else would come on those first two lures.

For the second year in a row, the fishing seemed like it would be off a little. I immediately started catching fish, but not everywhere, and they weren't big. I've floated this creek enough to remember good spots where I'd caught big fish before, and the first couple of big fish spots didn't produce. Ah, but the third one...

It's a short, deep pool against a low bluff, big chunk rocks along the bank making a point in front of the little cliff, then a deep, swirling pocket below. I'd switched to a smaller walk the dog lure, a Dog X, just because something told me it would be a good idea. Sometimes I can't explain my hunches...sometimes they don't pay off, anyway. But this one did, to the tune of a long, lean 20 inch smallmouth.

After that, I began to catch a few other nice fish, though nothing else over 15 inches. I reached the gravel bar where I'd planned to camp for the night about 7 PM, perfect timing for a leisurely camp set-up and supper as the sun disappeared upstream. Since I don't like to cook hot meals in summertime float camps, supper was simply digging out the KFC extra crispy I'd bought that morning, along with some potato salad and slaw. For once, I'd even remembered the fork to eat it. I washed it down with a big bottle of sweet tea, dug out the book I'd brought, and read until it got too dark, stopping about every page to look and listen to the sights and sounds of a beautiful, secluded campsite, including the sound of silence, with no auto noises or other man-made intrusions.

I sat in the growing darkness until a few mosquitoes drove me into the tent, and there I read some more by flashlight until my eyelids drooped.

I was up before the sun, the tent dripping with dew as I dismantled it and loaded the canoe. A Little Debbies snack cake served as breakfast, and I was on the creek before the sun touched the water. The fishing started out hot in the thin mist rising from warmer than air water. A couple pools downstream, I got a terrific stike on my Sammy on a long cast. The fish didn't jump, just drove for the bottom. I could feel it wallowing...and then I saw what I had. Two very good smallmouth on at once. I've had it happen many times before, but when they are both fairly large fish, one almost always gets off because it can pull against the other one. But this time I was able to get the both to the side of the canoe. So...how to boat two fish that size on a big, two treble hook lure? I finally sat my rod down, gingerly grabbed the line with one hand, reached down and slid a thumb into the mouth of the smaller fish, then did the same on the bigger one with my other hand. I lifted them onto the paddle blade lying across the gunwales, let go of the bigger one to get my camera out of my shirt pocket, and snapped a quick picture while they lay cooperatively still on the paddle. Then I took my forceps and twisted the hook out of the smaller fish. Since it looked to be maybe a half inch less than 17 inches, and I don't take pictures of fish under 17, I let it slide back into the water. Then I worked the hook free of the bigger one and measured it on the paddle blade. I'd caught a 16.5 inch and a 19 inch smallmouth at the same time!

I won't bore you with the other nice fish I caught, except to say that later on that day I did catch an 18 incher, and I had to look at my photos when I got home to know how many 17-17.5 inchers I ended up catching over the three days--seven of them. The rest of the scorecard...over 30 fish the first afternoon, well over 100 the second day, and just under 50 the third morning. And I actually had on two more doubles, though both times one of the fish escaped before I could boat them.

Some notes from the trip...

Does with fawns were all over the place. I must have seen more than a dozen little family groups crossing the stream, along with one small buck.

Three half grown raccoons were catching crawdads on a gravel bar, and let me get within just a few feet before they freaked out and ran off.

An otter frolicked for a while ahead of me.

Cottonmouths were common. I saw 8 or 9. As usual, most were no more than two feet long, but I did see one old grandpa that was pushing four feet.

A big flock of mixed black and turkey vultures was hanging around on a gravel bar, with more soaring over the bluff.

One adult eagle made an appearance.

In one big pool, right in front of one of the few places where there were cabins along the stream, I had five big smallmouth follow my twin spin in without taking it. Three of them were pushing 20 inches, and the other two were probably around 18 inches. Wow.

I probably floated about 10% of the riffles cleanly, and had to get out and drag the canoe over about 10%. The rest of them were bottom scrapers, up to those that I really should have gotten out and dragged but instead just "poled" the canoe over them with the paddle. The canoe bottom suffered greatly. Things would have been worse if I hadn't treated the bottom before.

For the first time on this creek in the summer, I ran into -horrors!- two guys in kayaks that had dragged and paddled up from one of the accesses. They said they'd been catching quite a few small bass, and one 17 incher. After I passed them, fishing their "used" water, I noticed no drop-off in the numbers of fish I was catching. I even caught the 18 incher just a short distance after I passed them.

I noticed the smell of livestock in one stretch, where there just weren't any farms in sight. Then I heard rooting and grunting on the wooded hillside along the creek--wild hogs.

I had only a few miles to float the last day, and I was glad because the wind came up and was blowing straight upstream. I finished around noon. Another year, another solo float camp trip on one of my absolute most favorite streams. I was tired but very, very happy.

A few pictures to follow later.

[awhuber]

Great post!

[Guest]

deleted

[Mitch f]

Great trip, as usual great report! You probably need to heal up a couple of days.

[jdmidwest]

That grandpa cottonmouth, did you really get close enough to sex it? I have a hard time sexing snakes up close looking between the bottom scales.

You have me stumped on the location of this one.

[gramps50]

NIce report, sounds like you had a very enjoyable and profitable trip. can't wait for the pictures

[Mitch f]

That grandpa cottonmouth, did you really get close enough to sex it? I have a hard time sexing snakes up close looking between the bottom scales.

You have me stumped on the location of this one.

Don't worry, he won't tell you. BTW, why would you care if it was a male or female snake?

[jdmidwest]

Don't worry, he won't tell you. BTW, why would you care if it was a male or female snake?

just pickin on the details

[Greasy B]

Thanks for the report. We need more snake infested streams.

[cwc87]

Awesome report Al! The solitude of going solo and seldom hearing man made noises is always why I go!