Lots of thoughts on a day of floatfishing

[Al Agnew]

Upper Big River becomes floatable at the mouth of Cedar Creek--though I have floated it all the way from Belgrade in high spring water levels. From there to the mouth of the Mineral Fork, which I consider the upper river, there are about 53 miles or so of fishing water, and I've floated all of it for more than 50 years. There are stretches that I love less than others, and within each stretch, there are pieces that I tend to just paddle through, maybe making a few casts here and there but certainly not fishing them hard. That's one of the things about being this familiar with a river; you think you have it figured out which parts are good and which parts aren't so good.

The stretch I floated today is probably my least favorite reach, yet I still float it as frequently as any. The reason I picked it today was three-fold--if I went much farther down the river was still almost muddy, I'd already floated the other really easy shuttle stretch and didn't want to do it again, and Mary was going to pick me up at the end of the float, and this stretch was easy for her to get to.

With the canoe sitting on the gravel bar at the put-in, I was tying on lures. The second lure I tied was a Lazy Dawg topwater, and when I made the obligatory one cast to see if it was working right (why I do this with topwaters I don't know, since they always work right) a 12 inch largemouth sucked it in. Well, it wasn't my first cast, just my second one, so maybe the jinx wouldn't be in effect. I had two swings and misses from smallmouth and caught a 13 incher before I even left the pool at the put-in. I was looking forward to a good day after that, but somehow the promise never quite materialized.

The river was still a little high, and murky, visibility maybe 2.5 feet to 3 feet in a few places. Now, summertime is usually characterized by low, clear water, and low, clear water is topwater conditions. But when I see it like this, the first thing I think about is my homemade crankbait. But not all murky water is equal. There are always exceptions, but I'd much rather fish a normally clear stream that has risen a foot or so and gotten murky, or a stream that is usually murky even at stable water levels, than a stream that has had a big rise and is now dropping and clearing from being very high and muddy. That was the situation on Big River today. It had come up about 8 feet in the last big rain, and was just rounding into good fishable condition. What I've found in this situation is that the bass are often well off the banks in deeper water. It's as if they are afraid that the dropping water levels will strand them somewhere against the banks. And, they've usually fed heavily in the high water and are not really active.

My crankbait only runs a couple feet deep, so it's not always the best choice when the bass are deeper and off the banks. But a deeper diving crankbait was not very practical in this stretch because much of the bottom has aquatic vegetation scattered across it. The three smallies in that first pool came up from somewhat deeper water to whack the crankbait, so I had high hopes for it. I would throw it more than any other lure all day, and the action on it was fairly steady, if somewhat slow.

The other lure I really like to throw in these conditions is a tandem spinnerbait. My twin spin is my default spinnerbait in clear water, but I prefer the "normal" tandem spin in murky water. I'd throw it quite a bit on this day, and catch several decent fish on it.

In fact, I caught fish on everything I threw, including the topwater, a deep diving crankbait, and Mitch's craw. But they weren't exactly jumping on anything.

It was a largemouth day. This stretch is mostly above the spotted bass invasion, and spots are rare yet. And this reach always has plenty of largemouth. The largemouth were more often against the bank and in the submerged water willow weed beds, while the smallies, true to form, were off the banks and in deeper water. I ended up with 33 largemouth, 16 smallmouth, and a single spotted bass.

That's actually a bit better than average for this stretch. For many years, I've averaged around 50 bass per day on all my warm weather Big River trips, but on this stretch the average is probably closer to 40 per day. So it wasn't like it was a slow day. It's just that, when the water is murky like this, I really hope for a great day, or a big fish day. But I could tell that this wasn't going to be either one. Still, when the fish are hitting the crankbait at all, I figure that if I keep throwing it all day, I'll probably get one chance, maybe two, at a big one.

Remember how I said that certain parts of this stretch have never produced well, and therefore I don't fish them hard? I was in one of those sections. There is this one spot, fairly good current swinging into a high, near vertical clay bank. The bank is stable, it has trees growing atop it. It's been there, and very much the same as it is now, for as long as I can remember, and that's a long time. When I was a kid I fished it with live crawdads, and I always caught a fish or two there, but never much over 12 inches. I always make a few casts to it, and sometimes get a 12 incher these days as well...

There was a root wad just downstream in mid channel as I drifted along the clay bank. I'd just glanced at it; the current was hitting it pretty strongly and the roots were gnarly, sticking up out of the water, but my line of drift was going to miss it. I figured it was okay to keep casting. Then the big smallmouth hit. The 20 inch class fish came immediately to the surface, and thrashed on top for a few seconds, then dove back toward the bank. When it did, that pulled the front end of the canoe toward the bank, and suddenly I was heading straight for that root wad, in danger of hitting it sideways and I was running out of time to do anything about it. With the rod in my left hand, I grabbed the paddle with my right, but all I could do was reach far out in front and do a hard one-handed pry stroke to straighten up the canoe so that the front end would at least hit the rootwad head-on instead of sideways. Meanwhile, the fish was driving for the same root wad. My line scraped along the edge of the paddle before I could get it out of the water, and went into a splintered notch in the worn wooden paddle. The front end of the canoe crashed into the rootwad, hitting a thick root hard. And then the fish was gone and I was still tangled in the paddle and in the roots, and had to give some slack line just to do a combination stern pry and backpaddle to get myself away from the roots before the canoe went sideways.

Floatfishing isn't always that exciting.

Sure enough, that was my one chance at a big smallmouth. I caught a few nice largemouth in the 16-17 inch range, but the biggest smallie of the day was maybe 14 inches.

[Mitch f]

Great report, what is your favorite color of skirt for that front hook?

[Al Agnew]

Mitch, my skirt colors are fluorescent yellow, flo yellow and white mixed, or white. (I've usually said chartreuse instead of flo yellow, but between the two colors, I prefer the one that's a little less greenish.) Black if the water is really murky, say visibility of less than 2 feet. I was using the flo yellow and white mixed yesterday. My absolute favorite skirt color, though, is a faded, slightly greenish flo yellow. Years ago I came upon a bunch of vinyl skirts of that color, and now I have one left.

By the way...I used two of my homemade crankbaits yesterday. The one I started out with had a silicone skirt on it. It was great for a while, but the problem with silicone is eventually it gets all tangled up around the hook, and when it does the lure starts to run sideways. I have to stop and untangle the skirt. So after doing that a couple times, I just switched to another one with a vinyl skirt. Even the vinyl occasionally tangles a bit, but not nearly as bad as the silicone.

[Gavin]

Sounds like fun! Never have liked rubber skirts on a crank, Tangle city our never on the right bait.

[Mitch f]

Sounds like fun! Never have liked rubber skirts on a crank, Tangle city our never on the right bait.

The old hula popper skirts were the bomb, flat and thin. But they now have some very good skirts but you have to perform a little surgery on them.

[Flatbottom Boy]

I have seen you you guys talk about this before but Im having a hard time picturing a skirt on a crank bait. Excuse my ignorance but its just something I have never seen. Care to share a pic to ease my curiosity?