As long as I can...

[Al Agnew]

I don't wade and fish all that often.  I have about seven or so creeks that I've waded for many years, and I don't like to pound any of them too much, so I usually end up fishing each one time per year, maybe two times...and some I don't fish for a year or two.  I don't care if you stick red hot bamboo slivers up various portions of my anatomy, I'm not telling where they are.  Seems like any given one will be good for a year or two, and then the meat fishermen start pounding it and it goes downhill fast.  Then they move on to some other creek, and in a few years that one gets good again.

A week ago, I took a guy from Oregon creek fishing; I figured he'd never be back to pound my favorites and he probably wouldn't blab about where they were.  We went to my closest creek first.  It was the first time I'd been on it since the big flood, and the flood had really destroyed it, scouring what had been decent pools for many years down to bedrock.  We caught a couple 15 inchers in the one pool we came to that was still pretty much intact, but it was obvious that we weren't going to find much good fishing there, so we drove over to another one.  This creek was actually where I caught my very fist smallmouth.  My grandfather grew up not far from it, and he always liked to go there to trap minnows, even though there were plenty of places closer to his house.  I must have been about five years old when he took me there one day, and showed me how to drift a crawdad under the low water bridge.  I hooked a smallmouth that was probably 11 inches but seemed huge, and got so excited I put the rod over my shoulder and ran across the bridge, dragging that poor fish right up onto the concrete.

That was about 60 years ago.  I've fished that creek ever since, usually once a year.  Sometimes I fish it twice a year, going downstream from the bridge one time and upstream the other time.  It has had its good years and  bad years.  It's a small creek, flowing through extensive gravel beds, the water clear to very clear.  Over the years it has seemed to get shallower and flow less water.  Right now, it's flowing maybe 8-10 cubic feet per second, which means the typical riffle is 10 feet wide and a couple inches deep.  The pools are seldom over three feet deep, and there are long stretches between productive pools.

The guy from Oregon couldn't get used to fish being in such small, shallow waters.  We started out, and he passed up the first little pool.  I caught a 14 incher in it.  He passed up the lower end of the next pool.  I caught a 12 incher there.  Then I caught a 16 incher in a spot where he couldn't believe there was a fish.  There were a LOT of fish in the creek, and they acted like they'd never seen a lure.  In about two hours of fishing, covering about a mile, I must have caught 20 smallmouth, including another 16 incher and several 15 inchers on my little homemade walk the dog topwater.  He couldn't get the hang of fishing walk the dog lures, though I loaned him a couple, and pretty much was frustrated that I was catching all these fish and he wasn't.  So I suggested we quit and go eat some supper.  But I was thinking I needed to come back, by myself, and see how many fish I could catch when I didn't have somebody else fishing more than half the water (ineffectively).

Today was the day, and I planned to make a full day of it.  My wade-fishing trips are usually just for a few hours, but I wanted to wade a long section of this creek if the fishing was as good as it had been before.  It had been a very long time since I'd waded farther than about two miles from the bridge.

I keep wade-fishing simple.  I carried my topwater casting rod and reel, 5 feet long, with a very light baitcasting reel and 8 pound line.  I used to fish light spinning tackle on these streams, but I've gotten to where I just enjoy baitcasting tackle so much more, so why not use it?  It isn't like I'm casting very light lures.  My lure selection is very simple.  I brought two small wooden walk the dog topwaters, a modified Pop-R, and a LC Gunfish, along with a single twin spin and a small buzzbait.  It fit into a small plastic box.  To carry it, I tucked in my fishing shirt and put it down my shirt.  My wallet and cell phone went into my shirt pockets, my truck keys went on the chin strap from my fishing hat, and a small bottle of water went into my shirt as well.  That's it.  Mary is usually appalled that I carry so little water, and no food, for that long a fishing trip.  But I've always traveled light and foregone eating...I ate some breakfast and tanked up on tea before I got on the water, and I figure that would be enough to let me go most of the day.

Of course, the topwater went on my rod to begin.  I waded up the same water we'd fished the week before, and you could tell that I'd educated some of the bass; they weren't attacking in wild abandon.  In most of that first mile, I only caught 10, though several were 12-14 inchers.  Then I came to a decent pool, which had the misfortune to be in a spot where one could drive and park right at the edge of it.  It sees a LOT of swimmers, and probably some anglers, each summer, though there was nobody there today; there had been a family swimming there the week before.  From the riffle at the bottom, I made a long cast up into the rocks along the edge of the pool, and the water exploded.  This was a very nice fish.  I played it carefully, and like all the smallies in this creek, it was a powerful fighter.  I finally lipped it...17.5 inches!  Another one, perhaps a half inch shorter, had been following it throughout the battle, but I oouldn't get it interested.  Still, I caught several more decent fish in the rest of that pool, surprising given its popularity.  And that was the beginning of the good fishing.  From there on up, there were fish just about anywhere there was enough water to cover their backs.  You'd cast to the middle of a small pool and you'd see wakes charging the lure.  I caught fish after fish.  A 16 inch largemouth.  A 17 inch largemouth.  A 16.5 inch smallie.  Most of the time, when I'd hook one, others would be following it.  They'd often just hang in the water a few feet away and watch as I landed it.

I came to a better pool.  Longer, maybe 50 yards long, deeper, 3-5 feet deep along a vertical clay bank, no cover to speak of.  In the spot where it just seemed, for no particular reason, the best fish should be (once in a while I just get that feeling), the lure hit the water and a big fish took it immediately, before I even began to play it.  Another hard battle, hard enough and long enough that my left arm was getting tired, I lipped another 17.5 incher.

Next big pool, this one with rocks along the bank and water 4-6 feet deep from bank to bank in one spot.  I got a soft strike on the topwater as I stood in waist deep water against the opposite bank.  It was a small green sunfish.  I reeled it in, and then saw a big brown shadow following it.  I stopped reeling, hoping the bass would try to take the lure away from the little fish and get hooked.  The sunfish hung in the water, just under the surface, 15 feet away, as this really big smallmouth stopped a foot away and stared at it.  This was the biggest fish I'd seen, probably 19 inches.  But it had no intention of doing anything.  I reeled the sunfish in, unhooked it, all the while watching the big fish slowly cruise back and forth, studying ME.  I cast to it but I knew it was useless.

I'd gotten on the water about 8:30.  I reached what I'd planned to be my stopping point, where a tributary comes in, about 1 PM.  But I wondered what the fishing was like above the trib, so I kept going.  I caught my 65th bass about two pools upstream, and then went up to one more pool.  It was a beautiful spot, with a steep hillside coming down to the water, the pool studded with rocks, a rocky riffle at its head that dropped a good two feet, and there at the riffle were two whitetail bucks, slowly wandering up the creek, their summer coats bright red in the sun, with a blue heron just upstream from them.  I thought to myself that sight was worth it all, even if the fishing hadn't been so good, and that was a good point to turn around and start the long trek back to the truck.

And it WAS a long trek.  I'd come nearly five miles up the creek, and this creek is not easy wading.  It's small enough that the gravel bars and bottom in the moving water areas are covered with rocks from softball size to volleyball size; rough, irregularly shaped chert and drusy quartz that makes for a real strain on your ankles and a pretty darned good core body workout balancing as you walk.  It wasn't a particularly hot day, but I'd long finished my little bottle of water and was realizing I was a little thirsty.  I switched to my twin spin to fish the best spots on the way back down, otherwise mostly walking the gravel bars and gravel side channels rather than wading the creek, but still having to wade across at the riffles.  I was wondering how many people of my age would be willing to do this kind of marathon wade trips.  I WAS getting tired.

The twin spin produced 10 fish on the way back, making my total for the day 75 bass.  Lots of 12-15 inchers that fought like demons.  Lots and lots of just plain savage attacks of the topwater.  No other anglers.  No other people, period, until I got back down to the bridge, where there were four other cars parked and wall to wall swimmers and sunbathers.  I had a cooler in the truck with a big, cold Coke and some Oberle snack sticks and potato chips, and that was a really nice ending to my all day wade.  It was 4 PM.

As you get older, you start to realize that there will come a time when you can't do some of the things you've always enjoyed most.  

But not yet!

 

[rps]

Some years ago, Al, I asked you about coming to teach a class or two to my eighth grade students about writing. I know you consider yourself a painter, but your prose is marvelous!

If you ever have the urge to explain painting or writing to kids who have not a clue how to convey an experience, please let me know. In the mean time, please keep posting. I look forward to what you write! BTW, your painting isn't too shabby either.

[bkbying89]

I want to agree with rps, You spin a good story, Al. I look forward to more. 

[fishinwrench]

Al reads alot.  You can always tell a guy who has spent alot of time with nose in book as soon as they start writing/typing.  👍😀

[Mitch f]

5 hours ago, fishinwrench said:

Al reads alot.  You can always tell a guy who has spent alot of time with nose in book as soon as they start writing/typing.  👍😀

Al is always about 2-3 steps ahead of most. Power of concentration for long periods is one of his talents. If him and I disagree on politics or something it really makes me study my position 5 times longer because I know he has studied and read about it for long periods before he takes a stance.

[Norm M]

 Trips like that are good for us as we know we can still get it done .

[fishinwrench]

4 hours ago, Mitch f said:

Al is always about 2-3 steps ahead of most. Power of concentration for long periods is one of his talents. If him and I disagree on politics or something it really makes me study my position 5 times longer because I know he has studied and read about it for long periods before he takes a stance.

Y'all debate politics on your own time?

Good grief 😯

[Mitch f]

1 hour ago, fishinwrench said:

Y'all debate politics on your own time?

Good grief 😯

Nope, just occasionally on this forum. We never talk politics while fishing!😁

[Krazo]

great report. makes me want to get out & do some creek fishing.

[MOPanfisher]

Wading small creeks with an ultra light spinning rig, and a few jigs, lures and spinners in my shirt pocket is absolutely my favorite thing to do.  Haven't been to my local one in a few years now maybe it's time, although it was getting really graveled in.