Mixed Bag Fishing Report Dec. 18. Video

[LittleRedFisherman]

Fishing reports seem slow this time of the year, so thougth I would post this here also! I called this the mixed bag report because we did catch 4 different species of fish.

Hit the river yesterday in the Supreme with my buddy Chad, as Cabin fever was setting in, as I had been home with my sick little boy for the last few days. We decided to head to the point where 3 weeks ago we had a really good time catching some trout, plus we could target some smallies as well. The water is as low as ever, and if it's possible, even clearer than it was 3 weeks ago. When the water is slick it's impossible to hide you self, this really makes it difficult to catch any smallmouth, so we looked at times for places on the river that had chop from the wind, and current.

We started off using flyrods and decided to find current as it can help give us cover in the gin clear water. We started off getting some bites early on, my buddy was just fishing a jig on his, and I had a san jaun, with a zebra midge dropper. We did this for about an hour with some success, I hooked a couple good ones that got off before they got to the boat.

After that my buddy found his spinning rod, as did I, and we tryed zig jigs for awhile, they two produced some trout, although not near as fast of action as they did a few weeks ago. Then brown and orange was the color it seemed, this day is was white they seemed to like. In the process of catching a few trout, we targeted some smallies as well, so was hoping the jigs might catch a smallie as well. They where were very spooky and very hard to catch.

After a while I also had a rod rigged up with a RC STX jerkbait, and I started throwing it around cover and around some dark water near the banks. I was trying to trigger the smallmouth into a reaction bite. On about my 5th cast or so, this behemouth of Pickeral darted out and started staring my jerkbait down, id give the twitch, and it would get close enough to smell it but didn't take it. Finally I gave it lighter twitch, and bam, the fight was on. Unfortunately it spit the hooks out at the boat, and I forgot to have my gopro turned on to catch the excitment, but it might of very well been a 24 incher, by far the biggest one I would of ever landed.

As for smallies, they were pretty elusive, but did manage to catch a few, only one of any size and it was only about 15 inches. I caught the biggest one from under a fallen tree, where I actually made a sidearm cast to get under some limbs. All in all, a pretty good day on the river, had to work for the fish, but it was well worth it!!

Here's a video link I threw together last night, we didn't catch any bragging fish really, but had a great time, caught some decent fish, and of course the scenery. Saw several eagles, and no people other than Brain Sloss at the boat ramp to visit for minute. Really, is there ever really a bad day when you fishing in the Ozarks, I think not!

[Haris122]

Sweet.

[Mitch f]

Well it's good to know there are smallies like that big one in the river! Nice video!!

[marcusearlt]

NIce video man. I noticed the right hand retreive spinning rod, very cool. Where are we at in this vid?

[LittleRedFisherman]

Thanks everybody!

Yes, I do retrieve the spinning rod with the right hand, I taught myself how to cast one of those as a little boy, as my Dad was only a spincast guy, just the way I've always done it. I'm a little rusty but I used to have the same rig for 10 years I fished with, I could hit a dime from about anywhere, not that practiced anymore...lol

I'm still kinda new to the flyrod, but have learned alot in the past 3 years. This was on the Eleven Point..