Arizona

[Al Agnew]

So in my quest to fish a river in every state I can, I readily agreed to go with Mary when she told me she was going to a class in Phoenix for five days. I hadn't crossed Arizona off the list yet, and just a quick bit of research on the internet told me that the Verde River north of Phoenix had smallmouth. As the time approached to go, further research was slightly disappointing, in that there were few places to rent a canoe or kayak, and those that were on the internet were all up close to Sedona, quite a way from Phoenix. But research also showed that the river tended to flow 60-150 cfs in May, which sounded very wadeable.

So as we were packing, I packed two Cabelas baitcasting rods, three reels, and a concise selection of lures, mainly my homemade twin spins, crankbaits, and topwaters.

We were in Montana, and the flight from Bozeman to Phoenix left at 8 PM. Sitting in the airport an hour before the departure time, we suddenly realized that we were flying into Phoenix Mesa Airport on Allegiant Airlines...and we'd reserved the rental car from Phoenix Sky Harbor. We called the rental person at the desk at Bozeman to see if he could do anything about it on his end, and he told us he didn't think there was even a National car rental operating out of Phoenix Mesa. A quick internet check on the I Pad told us a cab from one airport to the other would cost $75! This was not looking good. Then we found an airport to airport shuttle that would cost $25. Better by far. As our flight was being boarded, Mary was reserving our shuttle space when we got to Phoenix Mesa at 9:15 PM.

We got to Mesa, and while waiting for our bags, we noticed the desk for National, it was there after all. Mary was able to talk them into transferring our reservation. Ah, the joys of travel!

This morning I got up and began to make plans for the day. Horseshoe Dam on the Verde wasn't very far from Phoenix, and it looked like several national forest campgrounds where situated just below the dam. I decided to go there first to check it out.

I stopped at the ranger station to get maps and info, and the guy there said they'd let out a huge slug of water from Horseshoe to the next dam downstream, Bartlett, last week, and the river had been flowing 3000 cfs all week last week. He said he didn't know what that would do to the fishing but the river should be back down now.

When I reached the river, it looked good, but it was flowing what looked like about 300 cfs. Not easily wadeable, but it was clear. I checked it out from several spots, and finally decided to fish where there was a picnic ground along a large, deep pool. I thought I could wade around the edges of the pool...maybe.

There was a backwater coming into the head of the pool on my side, and I dropped off the steep bank there, and made my first cast with a homemade crankbait, and a nice largemouth took a swipe at it at my feet. I have to admit it surprised me, because there was all kinds of evidence that people fished that spot a LOT. A couple casts later, another nice largemouth followed the lure in. I decided at that point that the water was a bit too clear for the crankbait, and put on a walk the dog topwater. About the fourth cast, I caught my first Arizona bass, a 13 inch largemouth.

I was trying to wade up the edge of that backwater, but was finding it very difficult. The water dropped off the bank from waist to chest deep, and except where people had beaten paths to the water, the banks were lined with some kind vegetation that looked like a cross between cattails and willows, and it was so thick that there was no way to push through it. And the bass, of which there were quite a few, were right up against the banks, actually in the few places where THEY could get through the weeds to the solid edge. So I couldn't just hop from one spot to another, because the fish would be right where I'd drop off the bank.

I caught three more as I made my way around the 50 yard long backwater, and finally got to the main riffle that the backwater had kept me from reaching, hoping to find a smallmouth in the current, and also hoping to make my way upstream. But the water was just too fast, and the banks to much lined with brush and too deep, to get upstream. I gave it up and tried going downstream into the pool. The riffle slowed and widened, and I found that I could get across it there to the far bank. There was an old rusty culvert pipe sitting half buried in the middle of the run at the base of the riffle. I'd put on a twin spin to work in the current, and I casted it to the culvert, and as it came over the culvert I got a hard strike. Good fish. But I was a bit surprised when I saw it was also a largemouth. Still I was quite happy with a 19 inch largemouth!

I had to bust brush going on down the pool, and caught a couple more decent largemouth. Tried going downstream to the next pool, but it was huge and deep and impossible to fish. By that time it was getting late...I'd spent a good part of the day trying to fish that one spot.

I'll post tomorrow's adventure.

[Mitch f]

I'm picturing red rocks and lack of vegetation, but I guess I was totally wrong. Please add some pictures on your subsequent posts! sounds like fun.

[Ham]

I love fishing "new" places. I'm glad you're finding success. You'll get that smallie.

[Jeff Tief]

I'm thinking rattlesnakes!

[Gavin]

Sounds like an interesting adventure. Keep at it, I'm sure that you will find them.

[stlfisher]

Fished new places is always part adventure part fishing....one of things that makes it so unpredictable. Good luck with those smallies!

[fly2fish]

There's trout in some of the streams around Sedona that I want to fish if OSU makes it back to the Fiesta Bowl.

F2F

[Al Agnew]

I can't download photos to the I pad from my camera, so I'll get the photos posted when we get back. I've taken a number of them...and today's photos are very interesting, as you'll understand when you hear what happened today.

I would title today's adventure as "Am I the only one who realizes this????"

I drove up I-17 this morning, headed for some access points much further upstream on the Verde, up near the town of Camp Verde. Forecast was for high winds today, and I had a strong tailwind (which would be a headwind on the river) going north on the interstate. I got off the interstate near Camp Verde and drove down to the first access point, which was two accesses above the final access before the river goes through 30 miles of remote wilderness area. I was hoping for a smaller stream than yesterday and maybe not so much vegetation.

What I found was a trickle of muddy water.

It looked like the river was flowing maybe 25 cfs. It was narrow, lined this time partly with real cattails, rocky bottomed, short pools and steep little riffles. But it was just too muddy to look interesting. Just downstream, it looked like an irrigation ditch was coming into the river and nearly doubling its size, but the ditch was just as muddy. Hoping that by the next access, a few miles downstream, the mud might have settled out, I drove to it, to see the same thing. I had even toyed with the idea of doing a short float, since there was supposed to be a rental place a few miles farther upstream that furnished inflatable kayaks, but after seeing the river there, I suspected that they would not even rent an inflatable at that water level. But I had another possibility.

Wet Beaver Creek. Yes, it's really easy to make off color jokes about that name! It was a nearby tributary that was reported in the DeLorme Atlas to hold smallies. I first got to it along the highway shortly above where it entered the Verde, and it was dry except for puddles. Not too concerned, since many of these creeks come out of the mountains full of water, which is sucked away for irrigation as they enter the valley of the bigger river, I headed for a national forest campground farther upstream.

The creek up there was a small mountain stream, nothing but rocks and boulders, very small pools and long stretches of rocky riffles. It looked to be flowing about 5 cfs, with riffles that you could almost jump across. I walked down to it and looked into the first clear little pool, and saw several little bass. They looked like smallies. Well, worth trying, then. I grabbed the rod, tied on a homemade walk the dog lure, and hiked a quarter mile downstream to get away from the most heavily pounded waters (there were two older Hispanic guys fishing the larger pool just upstream, otherwise I seemed to have the creek to myself). I made my first cast to a little pool no bigger than a compact car, and a little smallie lunged out from under a rock and nabbed it. Cool, my first Arizona smallmouth...

Wait a minute. The little fish didn't look like a typical smallie. Olive brown on the back and upper sides with darker blotches, check. Lower sides, rows of spots just like a spotted bass? A smallie/spot hybrid like I catch on Big River in Missouri? Nope, look at that blueish cast on the cheeks...and look at that orange cast to the tail fin, and the white upper and lower margins of the tail fin.

THIS FISH IS A REDEYE BASS!!!! The identification marks are absolutely definitive. The redeye bass is a rather obscure species native only to a few river systems in Alabama and Georgia, where it lives in mountain streams in habitat similar to smallmouth habitat. It is a small fish, never getting over 17 inches and seldom reaching more than 14 inches.

Now that raises a LOT of questions. EVERY bit of info I have found, including info from the Arizona Fish and Game and the National Forests of Arizona, say that the Verde and tributaries contain smallmouth. No mention of redeyes. Also...every bit of info said nothing about the average size, just that smallmouth were common in the Verde. Are all those smallmouth actually redeyes?

I kept fishing downstream, catching those beautiful little gems in just about every pool. The biggest one might have been 10 inches, but they were adult fish, the males in spawning coloration with the brighter orange, white margined tail and fins and blueish cheeks, and there were spawning beds visible here and there. All redeyes, nothing even remotely resembling a true smallmouth.

So now I decided I was on a mission. I HAD to fish the Verde and catch a "smallmouth" to see if it was really a redeye. I left Wet Beaver Creek and headed farther upstream on the Verde. I drove into a Dead Horse Ranch State Park, paid the nice lady at the gate her 7 bucks, parked next to the river, and walked down to look at it. Maybe 15 cfs, short, narrow pools lined with cattails that were no more than 15-20 feet wide...but it wasn't quite muddy, visibility maybe 18 inches. Worth trying. I put a twin spin, and soon got my first fish...a largemouth. Oh well, at least I now knew there were bass in there. After fishing a quarter mile down the stream and catching a couple more small largemouth, I put on a Sammy when I came to a nice little rocky pool, and soon got a strong strike. It didn't look like a largemouth. I played it much more carefully than a 12 inch bass would oridinarily warrant, and finally lipped...a redeye!

Just below, an irrigation ditch was dumping a bunch of muddy water into the stream, messing it up badly. So I hiked back to the car and headed to the next access upstream. But the river there was muddy again. Next access. Muddy. Next access, the river was suddenly bigger, apparently upstream of some irrigation diversion...but muddy. By then it was time to start the hour and a half drive back to Phoenix.

So, it's not conclusive, but I'm thinking the Verde River system smallmouth are actually redeyes. I got back and Googled "arizona redeye bass" and found one site that mentioned the possibility of redeyes in the Verde, and another that said that spotted bass/smallmouth hybrids had been found in the Verde. Well, superficially redeyes do look like hybrids, but no hybrids have those white-margined orange fins or the blue cheeks. Nope, these are redeyes, and it's an interesting question how and why they were ever stocked in Arizona.

I still haven't caught an Arizona smallmouth, but today I added a new species to my life list of fish caught. Now, that's a good day!

[Mitch f]

Very interesting, I've never even heard of a red eye bass.

[Greasy B]

Micropterus coosae

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redeye_bass

I have always wanted to fish the Flint River in Georgia for Shoal Bass, A side trip to the Coosa River for Redeye would be cool.