More Creekin'

[Al Agnew]

Yesterday evening as the rain came down, I was making fishing lures. A friend showed me how he makes his walk the dog topwaters, which is a little different than the few I'd made, and I wanted to try some his way, but with a couple of small modifications. I also did it because I wanted some small, non-rattling WTD lures. I finished shaping, weighting, and painting them last night, and this morning I put on the hardware and tried them out in my pond. Yep, they walked well, so it was time to try them on some smallmouth.

The rains had gotten the nearest float streams too high, but I didn't think that one of my favorite close to home wading size creeks had gotten much of a rise, so I packed up a rod, a couple of those topwaters, one store bought topwater (a Gunfish) to try as a "control" lure, and one of my homemade twin spins just in case they weren't doing much on the topwaters.

The creek looked to be up an inch or two from what it had been before the rain; at least there was that much clean gravel underwater, and it had just a slight touch of color to it as I started up from the bridge. I put on the Gunfish first, figuring that if I got any action on it that would tell me they were hitting topwaters, and I would then switch to the homemade one. Sure enough, I had a nice blow-up on it in the first good pool, and then proceeded to quickly miss two more decent fish before catching a small largemouth. That was in a little section that tends to have more largemouth and some spotted bass, but I quickly got up into the likely smallmouth water, and that's where I put on the homemade one. I got two swings and misses on it immediately, and then hooked a nice fish. It turned out to be a hybrid, and a FAT hybrid at that! Not bad for the first fish on the new lure.

After that, it was mostly smallmouth, and they were hitting it very well. This creek used to hold some big fish. I used to catch 18-19 inchers from it just about every time I fished it. I only fish it twice a year because I don't want to "wear out" the fish. It's a tiny creek, and during dry weather you can jump across most of the riffles, and if you have to wade one, you won't get wet over your low top tennies. This is typical pool: Some pools are a little deeper, but most of the water you catch good fish from is not over waist deep.

A couple years ago, I heard from various sources that some guys were fishing it hard and keeping fish, and last year the fishing was way off from what it had been before, and it hasn't been as good as I would like for three or four years. But today, every spot that should hold fish had fish, and most of them were willing to hit that topwater.

And the thing about these smallies is that they are typical really broad across the back and thick through the body, really spectacular fish for such a small creek. Here's a typical 12 incher:

And they are powerful. The biggest I caught was about 16 inches, and it put up a great battle. I hooked a 17 incher that absolutely refused to leave his little tiny pocket, and finally got the lure up against a piece of brush and worked free before I could get to it. And then there was the 18 incher...

I had first gone to another access a few miles upstream, but there was a car parked there, so I went back to the downstream access and worked my way up. I'd gone about a third of the way between the two accesses, and was just coming to one of the best spots on the creek, a narrow, shaded run about knee to waist deep with a couple of rocks and logs that went for a hundred yards or so. As I got to the lower end of it, I made a long cast up into the first bit of decent water, and got a swirling strike from a nice fish that missed. I was talking to myself, as I often do when fishing alone, and may have said something loud enough for the guy that happened to be up on the brushy bank about 30 yards upstream. As I prepared to make another cast for that fish, I saw him as he cast something small into the run up there. Hoping he didn't hear me talking to myself, I made another cast, and this time hooked the fish, which turned out to be a 15 incher. The guy disappeared, and then I saw him up at the head of the run, heading on upstream. I figured he was the guy from the car at the upper access, and had decided to turn around when he saw me coming. Which meant that he'd already fished that nice run, but heck, it looked like he was using something small on ultralight spinning tackle, so maybe he hadn't ruined it for me. So I went on up the run, and near the head of it I hooked the best fish of the day.

I think it was about 18 inches. I got plenty of good looks at it. I even thought I had it under control, about ten feet away, when it decided to lunge toward an undercut bank. I tried to stop it, and the line broke!

Rats. I'd lost one of my new homemade lures, AND I'd left a two treble hook lure in the face of a big fish. When the line broke the fish made it into the undercut bank and disappeared. I thought about maybe reaching up under the bank to see if I could feel the fish, but that seemed like a bad idea, to blind grab a fish with a face full of very sharp hooks. I stood there and watched for a bit, and then got out the box to put on another lure. I looked over there again as I got a lure out, and saw the fish come out from under the bank and slowly swim upstream, heading back to its holding area, which was behind a beach ball size rock in two feet of water. The lure was still hung on its lip as I slowly followed it. There was a 12 incher in that fish's holding spot, and it actually chased the smaller fish away when it saw it. Then, as I watched, it suddenly came up, stuck its head out of the water and shook it once, and the lure came free! The fish calmly went back to its holding spot, as if it had gone, "Ptooie, don't bother me any more."

I figured it was time to head back down toward the car. I put on the twin spin and fished it on the fly as I hiked back, and caught a few more fish on it. Final tally was 22 smallmouth, 11 largemouth, 2 spotted bass, and the hybrid. It was a fine afternoon.

[Smalliebigs]

see ya

[MOsmallies]

That's a nice hybrid! And even cooler that you were catching them on a homemade wtd lure... I love the paint color scheme.

[mic]

Nice report Al.

[moguy1973]

Again...Jealous here...

[Brownie Whisperer]

Sounds like an awesome trip... I love that skinny water... alot of guys pass it by.

[middletonflyfisher]

Thanks for sharing. I love those small waters. Great pics!

[Guest Brian B.]

Cool images! Very healthy fish..