Wildcat Creek (IN)

[ozark trout fisher]

Spent an enjoyable morning/early afternoon chasing smallmouth in Wildcat Creek just outside of Lafayette, In. Imagine a 50-50 cross between an Ozark stream like Huzzah or Mineral Fork and a flatland, northwoods stream and you pretty much have Wildcat Creek. Crystal clear, cool, spring-fed water, and, basically no current to speak of. Not easy fishing conditions. The smallmouth were everywhere, but spooky as hell.

There was no one else there today but you could see this place getting some serious pressure given it's location very near Purdue University. So the fish were real unforgiving, and would be gone into the ether with one false move. I don't claim to be a great smallmouth fisherman, especially with the fly-rod, but when there are that many in a stream I can usually do okay. I did manage to avoid the skunk by catching a few 10-12 inchers with a #6 woolly bugger. The best strategy was to basically let it sit on the bottom, let them come have a look on their own (this was clear water, so you saw everything that was happening) and then give it a subtle twitch or two to close the deal. They put up a nice fight on the light fly rod, so no complaints. I did hook one nice one (maybe 17-18 inches) but didn't hold onto him long before he shook off.

Anyway, a beautiful little stream not far from home that I will probably make a lot more trips to in the future. And SIU, if you are still looking for places to hook into smallies around here, this might be a nice answer for you. I hit it right at the junction of the north and south fork (I went up both forks, they are about the same size and fish pretty much the same, but the main stem below is big, froggy and looks more like catfish/largemouth bass water and the kind of place you'd need a canoe/kayak to do much damage.)

Next time I will know going in that I need to be a little on the stealthy side, and maybe I'll do a bit better.

[ozark trout fisher]

Edit: this was supposed to have a bunch more pictures, but I'm having trouble uploading them now. Maybe later. 

[ozark trout fisher]

A few more pics:

 

[Al Agnew]

What I've found in puttering around with the fly rod fishing for smallies is that when the water is that clear, you're actually greatly handicapped fly fishing, simply because those spooky fish require not only stealth but LONG casts, and it's tough (for me at least) to cast smallmouth "flies" far enough.  More on some thoughts on clear water smallmouth fishing in another thread...

[ozark trout fisher]

1 minute ago, Al Agnew said:

What I've found in puttering around with the fly rod fishing for smallies is that when the water is that clear, you're actually greatly handicapped fly fishing, simply because those spooky fish require not only stealth but LONG casts, and it's tough (for me at least) to cast smallmouth "flies" far enough.  More on some thoughts on clear water smallmouth fishing in another thread...

Yup, I was definitely kicking myself for not bringing the spinning rod pretty much right away. Based on the way I got the fish I did catch, I feel like a ned rig would have done very well.

I ended up having to go to an 11 foot leader and dropped to 5x tippet...for smallmouth. Not exactly what I'm used to...