Fishing report

[Al Agnew]

When we stopped to begin fishing after running a few miles up the river from the access, Zipstick said, "You know, it seems like some winters are jerkbait years and others are jig years.  If I catch fish on one or the other the first couple of trips in the winter, I'm probably going to catch them on the same one all winter.  This winter has been a jerkbait winter."  He was saying this as he picked up his jerkbait rod to make his first cast...and on the second cast he had a spotted bass swipe at the jerkbait.  Two casts later, he had another one swing and miss.

It had not been a great morning.  We had met in the nearest town after the 2 plus hour drive for both of us, him from St. Louis and me from farther south, and driven from there to the access after a nice breakfast, getting to the water around 9 AM.  But just before we put his boat in, he tried to start the motor, and it wouldn't start.  He squeezed the fuel line bulb, and gas shot out the line; the nozzle going into the motor had broken off.  So we had to run back into town to a Wal-mart, where we were lucky enough to find a replacement.  By the time we got back to the river it was 10:30, and by the time of those first casts it was after 11 AM.

But the river was in nice shape, the weather beginning to clear after a cool, cloudy start.  Water temp was around 48 degrees.  Zip finally boated a 14 inch smallmouth.  Meanwhile, I'd told him that the later winter for me had been more of a crankbait than a jerkbait time, as I had two smallmouth chase my jerkbait as I quickly reeled it in for another cast.  You don't have to beat me over the head with a  2X4 to get my attention; I picked up my crankbait rod.  A few casts, and the lure stopped dead, but with that live feeling that tells you it's a fish, not a rock.  It would be my best one of the day, an 18 inch smallie.  Shortly afterward, I threw the crankbait over a log five feet off the rocky bank in no more than 3 feet of water, and as it came over the submerged log it was followed by a smallmouth that looked like an 18-19 incher, I kept reeling, bass and lure disappeared, and then I felt a strike.  But the fish turned out to be a 15 incher than must have taken the lure in front of the bigger one.

In those first couple of pools we fished, we boated a dozen fish, all smallies, all over 13 inches, and including two more 17 inch class fish.  I even put on one of my homemade subwallks and had one smallmouth come up to take it just a foot or so under the surface.  Zipstick was sticking with the jerkbait and catching them, I was mainly using the crankbait.  But by then the weather had almost completely cleared, and the fishing was slowing.  We stopped at one rather nondescript spot that had a nice, deep eddy, but caught nothing out of the eddy.  I decided to cast out into the middle of the current, and picked up another 14 incher, the only fish we caught there.  In the next good pool we caught nothing.  Next pool, a couple of fish, same general size, 14-15 inches.  From then on we'd catch one or more fish out of every pool we tried, but the action remained slower than it had started, making us wonder how much good fishing we'd missed before we finally got on the river.  

Zipstick finally hooked a bigger fish; he'd caught several in the 16-17 inch range by that time, as had I, but this one was definitely bigger, probably 19 inches.  But the hooks pulled out after we both got a good look at it.

Toward the end of the day, we caught a few largemouth, other than that, only a couple of small spotted bass had broken our string of smallies. We came to a pool that was gorgeous, with big boulders and deep water with perfect current, but it was close to another access, and Zip noted that it probably got pounded.  That thought caused me to make a LONG cast across to the other side, bringing the crankbait back from fairly shallow, slow, cover less water into the deeper water with a bit more current.  There was absolutely nothing to make me target that area except the very soft current seam, certainly no real drop-off or any kind of cover.  But halfway back to the boat I got a strike, and it turned out to be a 14 incher.  So I made another cast, and this time the lure hadn't moved far before it stopped dead with that same feeling.  It was such a long cast that I took a while to get that fish in--another 17 incher.  So Zip moved the boat over to fish that area more thoroughly...and we caught nothing else there (nor anywhere else in the pool).

The last couple of pools produced only a couple small fish, smaller than anything we'd caught all day.  And then we were back at our put-in.  All in all it had been an interesting day, with 35 or so bass boated, a half dozen in the 16-17 inch class and my one 18 incher.  We'd come upon an eagle nest with both adults on it, appeared to already be taking care of young, and several other immature eagles, which were the main highlights of the day other than the fishing itself.

[fishinwrench]

Not bad!

Tell Zip that those Wal-Mart primer bulbs are junk, they'll save the day but that's about it.  Get a real one pretty soon.  

[Plumbob]

Nice...my son and I went out on Saturday and I only caught one 14 inch smallmouth.