angry beaver, flooded river, multiple species

[Norm M]

First trip the river was dropping under 6.0 height and around 26,000 cfs flow. No visibility, have not bothered with temps. I fished an area with a lot of flooded natural cover bordering an inflow. The water was about 75 feet beyond the bank of the river. The path that folks usually use was 3 ft deep in places. I used a weighted keeper hook rigged on a jig spinner and tipped with Power Pulse worms. Pitching the combo tight to flooded trees, letting it hit bottom and giving it a nice pop produced fish. Fishing any cuts in the flooded weeds where the water came in produced. Fishing the points and pockets on the edges of flooded weeds produced. Fishing thru the flooded weeds produced . Debris piles produced. Fishing the open areas produced but only gar . The biggest key to fishing the flooded weeds was making contact with the weeds . 11 smallmouth including three very large ones, 5 rock bass all above average size and 4 gar landed out of 9 hooked. Lost one lure to gar bite off .

Second trip overnight rains thru the drainage area had the river rising again about 6.6 height and 33,000 cfs and still going up. No visibility, no temps taken . The water level was about 15 feet back further in the weeds from the river bank. Other than open areas not producing the same types of cover options produced . Three exceptions were shade mattered more than the first trip , the fish were extremely tight to cover and would not chase. and they wanted no part of the jig spinner, straight jig/plastic. For example dropping tight to trees, popping the lure was ignored, it had to sit and was a light pickup. In the flooded weeds a much slower retrieve was need as well. 9 smallmouth , a couple very large ones , 4 walleye, mid teens to low twenties, 4 above average rock bass, 2 small channel cats, 2 small gar and 1 carp.

Day 2 saw me enjoying the company of a very large, angry beaver. It swam 6 circles out in front of me, slapping it's tail when it was right in front of me. After I ignored it, it moved downstream. When I moved downstream it only did the circle/ tail slap thing 4 times before moving upstream. I guess it got tired of the fugly thing quicker