I hate running out of daylight

[Al Agnew]

So after a pretty slow trip on the Meramec with Hog Wally, I decided to float one of my favorite stretches of Big River today, figuring that I can always catch a bunch of fish on Big River.  I loaded up the solo canoe on the Prius, and Mary drove it, following me in the truck to the take-out.  As she was driving me up to the put-in, I was debating which place to put-in.  Do a 10 mile float, with only about six miles of it good water?  Or bite the bullet and do the 14 mile float?  Aw heck, who am I fooling.  I know I always opt for the longer float.

So it's 14 miles.  Basically, the first third of the float is fair to good fishing, the middle part is good to excellent, the last third is poor.  I always pace this trip so that I just paddle through that last third, making a cast here and there.  It was about 8;30 when I put in.  I figured I'd spend about 4 hours on the first third, five hours on the middle third, and take an hour or a bit more to paddle through the last third.  It didn't quite work out that way.

I almost always catch one or two fish in the pool right below the put-in.  But I didn't.  Not a strike, one follow from a small smallmouth.  The water was surprisingly dingy; the area apparently got a hard rain yesterday evening.  I almost always catch a fish or two in the short run below the first pool.  I got a strike from a decent fish, missed it.  The pool below it almost always produces a nice largemouth or two.  A nice largermouth hit, was on for a bit, got off.  This is not starting out too good.  I caught a couple of little smallies near the tail of the pool.  At this point, I'd tried topwater, my homemade crankbait, and my twin spin.

Gradually I started catching some fish.  Some on topwater, some on the crankbait, a couple on the twin spin.  I picked up Mitch's craw, and the first fish I caught on it was just under 17 inches.  I fished it through the next two pools, with very little else to show for it.  I found myself actually fishing harder, trying different retrieves, attempting to fish with some precision no matter what I was using.  Most of the strikes I was getting were when I'd land a lure right up against the bank, and then the fish would hit almost instantly.  But while they were crowding the banks, they weren't willing to chase anything that landed very far away from them.

By the time I got through the first third of the float, I'd caught about twenty five fish, including several between sixteen and seventeen inches.  My biggest one was a fat 17 inch spotted bass, and it's a good thing my drag had been set perfectly.  That fish hit the crankbait going the other direction, and instantly stripped off about ten feet of line.

What I consider the second third of the float starts with a long pool that ends at the mouth of a creek.  It's usually a big fish pool; I don't always catch a big one there but it's one of the more likely spots to do so.  And sure enough, a 17 inch smallie took the topwater, along with a spotted bass almost as big.  But the best spot in the pool was unfishable; a big tree was down right at that spot.  

The high water this summer on Big River really brought down a lot of new trees, and tore up a lot of banks.  I was continually surprised at the changes.

After those two fish, it was back to pretty slow fishing.  It's not that I wasn't catching anything, and quite a few of the fish I was catching were nice ones, 14 inches or better.  But long pieces of usually good water were not producing.

There's a vertical clay bank that is another one of those spots that over the years has produced a number of big fish for me.  I was throwing the crankbait along it, and I landed it right up against the clay.  The fish took it within the first few inches of the retrieve, but the strike wasn't very hard; no big boil.  I set the hooks, and suddenly this huge smallmouth came completely out of the water.  This was a 20 inch plus fish.  It seemed to be hooked well.  But the big ones seem to know what to do.  If there is cover, they go for it.  If there isn't, as in this spot, they have other strategies.  This one insisted on alternating leaps with violent head shakes.  I had it pretty close to the canoe when it turned directly toward me, stuck its head out of the water, and gave one of those almost vibrating head shakes, and the hooks pulled out.  I have to admit I was a little upset about that one.  It's been a while since I've hooked one that big.

And that was the beginning of frustration.  Hooks tangling.  Hooking leaves.  Line tangling around my rod tip.  And good fish hitting, both the crankbait and topwater, and not staying hooked.  In the next hour I touched at least five fish that appeared to be 17 inches or better, and never boated a one of them.  And it was getting way later than I'd planned.  I was only halfway through the middle third of the trip and it was already getting close to five o'clock.  

Which is when the fishing really got good.  Suddenly every cast seemed to interest a fish.  Several big spotted bass were caught.  Then the best smallmouth of the day, an 18 incher.  Another 17 inch smallie.  I'd entered that second third of the float with twenty five fish, I ended it with 82.  At 6:30.  I had at most an hour before dark, and four miles to paddle.  And there were a few places in that 4 miles that I'd really wanted to fish.

I did fish them.  I caught ten more fish.  A total of forty five smallies, thirty four spotted bass, and thirteen largemouth.  And I loaded up the canoe in the last light of twilight.  If I'd only had an hour more daylight, I could have caught more than 100.  Yep, I was being greedy.  But I sure wish I'd caught that big one.

[Mitch f]

Was that the same stretch we floated last year?

[shrapnel]

Dream trip!

[Al Agnew]

8 hours ago, Mitch f said:

Was that the same stretch we floated last year?

Yep.

[DownStream]

Thanks for the report and for reminding me I haven't fished the Big yet this year.

[JUNGLE JIM 1]

Wow, it could only have been better if you landed the 20 incher. Some impressive numbers. I have a hard time counting past 10.