Big River - Mammoth To Merrill Horse 8/18 Report

[jibro]

I usually float this river 10-15 times a year. This is the first time i have floated it this year. New job has kept my fishing to a minimum this year. Put in around 7:45. River is up about a foot, a little murky but still 2-3 foot of clarity. Cool and overcast really couldn't have been better weather. Started catching smallies right away. 3-4 ten inch fish. Got about 2-3 miles in and hit a section of river that was really producing. 3 14's, a 15.5, 23-24 inch cahnnel cat all in about a quater mile stretch. Was throwing a 3 inch kalins grub in pumpkin with green fleck and a 4-6 foot sexy shad crank. My buddy was throwing a rubber minnow on a jig head and some creature baits. All morning the smallies were just nailing that grub. Toss it in, let it sink, and just start hopping it through the rocks and they would whack it. The catfish hit a creature bait on a jig head. Afternoon came around and i had run out of grubs. I only brought a handful. So i started throwing the crank. Wiithin the first 5 casts i had a 14 inch spot on. Not long after a 10 and a 12. Once the sun finally broke through the clouds around 1:30-2pm. It was over. As usual like hitting a switch they just stopped biting. Didn't catch one from 2:30-till we took off at 4:30. Hard to complain though by that point. Big river is a good float. We dont usually catch that quality of fish but genenrally enough to keep us busy all day. Today was quite a difference. We probably caught 16 fish between the 2 of us. He had 3, i had the rest. But when you're catching them that size on Big River that consistently as i said its hard to complain.

[SmallyWally]

Good report.

[Gavin]

Good for you! Have not fished the Big this year, glad to here that there are still fish there.

[jibro]

We only saw 3 people in 'yaks on the river. Only one of them was fishing. He came by us in that good quarter mile stretch and told us he wasn't catching much and asked how they biting for us. I told him unusally good, catching decent sized fish. Apparently he had been throwing a rooster tail. when he found out we were working the bottom he was bummed as he didn't bring any jigs at all.