Consistently Inconsistent...

[Al Agnew]

As everybody might have guessed by now, I've been slacking off on the painting and doing more fishing, especially this week. After 2 wade-fishing trips, I opted for a float trip yesterday on Big River. After yesterday, I've done 4 floats on the upper half of Big River in the last 4 weeks, each one on a different section. The one yesterday was the farthest downstream. It's a long day's float, but on a section I usually do very well.

I should have known what kind of day it was going to be when I caught a smallmouth on my first cast...in fact, it was the cast I always make as soon as I tie on a lure just to make sure everything is working. After having the experience of getting 7 strikes in my first 8 casts the day before and then having mediocre fishing from then on, it should have told me the fishing wasn't going to be nearly as good as what I'd think. Now I'm not superstitious, but I'm beginning to wonder about that old saw that you never want to catch a fish on the first cast. And when my second cast, another check-it-out cast with the next lure I tied on, snagged a goggle-eye, I should have been very worried.

The river was still a little high and dingy, visibility about 2 feet. Usually I'd love those conditions. It SHOULD have meant that spinnerbaits and crankbaits would rule the day and the bigger fish would be hitting well.

But it turned out to be one of those days when you could not figure out any kind of consistent pattern on where the fish would be or what they would hit on. I caught fish on my homemade twin spin. I caught them on regular spinnerbaits. MY shallow running crankbait. A walk the dog topwater. A jig. But I couldn't make any of those lures produce consistently.

In one little stretch of perfect-looking bank, I got a swirl from a big fish on the twin spin at the head of the good water. Fished it all through the rest of the good water without another sniff. Knew there had to be fish there. Paddled back up and tried a jig and plastic "pig". Caught four smallmouth, two of them 14 inchers. Okay, I'm thinking, start fishing the jig more. I did, and never caught another fish on it the rest of the day...it was that kind of day.

And not only that, but it seemed that whenever I did hook a good fish, it somehow came unhooked after I thought I had the battle won. That's what happened with the biggest smallmouth, hooked on the spinnerbait. It slammed the spinnerbait hard, perfect strike, felt like a good hookset, fought the fish around, got it up close to the canoe and could see it was 17-18 inches, and then the hook just pulled out for no apparent reason.

The topwater got quite a few strikes that never even came close to getting a hook in. Of all the lures I used, my shallow crankbait, which I would have bet would have been the best lure for the day, got the least action.

I did manage to get the biggest largemouth of the day, which hit the topwater, to stay hooked. It was a fat 19 incher.

But I'd go for long stretches of good water without getting any action whatsoever, and then come to a short section of bank where I'd catch several fish. Okay, I'd think, look for places that looked similar, and fish them hard. So I would, and nothing.

I guess I shouldn't complain. I ended up catching 56 fish; 24 smallmouth, 12 largemouth, and 20 spotted bass. And of those, more than half were over 12 inches, with several in the 14-15 inch range. The biggest smallmouth caught was 16 inches, and there was that big largemouth. But it was just one of those days when I felt like I should have caught a lot more fish...and when I felt like I couldn't figure out anything and half the fish I caught were accidents.

One more odd thing...my fish tallies of the four Big River floats have been 51, 50, 48, and 56. That's mediocre fishing in my experience, but it's certainly consistent!

[Gavin]

Beats the heck out of yardwork.

[Brownie Whisperer]

Great report thanks..

[SmallyWally]

Love those upper sections of the Big River. Thanks for the report.