Smallmouth of the North Country

[Al Agnew]

As we were driving back to Missouri from the North Country, CWC was musing, "In three days of fishing, we only saw one guy standing on the bank fishing with a bobber, and one guy that looked like he was trolling in a boat."

"Yeah," I said, "and if there had been any more people fishing, especially from a boat like ours, we'd have been screwed."

Which is why, even though this is a report about a trip to someplace far away, I will not name the streams we fished.  There is already a very small group of guys from our neck of the woods who know about some of these rivers and go there.  And even though the locals obviously know about them, most of the locals don't fish for smallmouth.  Perhaps on a weekend, we might have seen other boats.  But fishing during the week, had there been just one other boat big enough and fast enough to throw a wake, we wouldn't have had nearly as good fishing as we did.

CWC and I found out about River X three years ago, from a friend of his, and went up there to fish it.  There were actually two stretches, call them River X and River W.  Neither is  very long.  Neither is very wide, but both are runnable by jetboat.  Clear, tannin stained water, abundant water weeds, grassy and brushy banks, big rocks here and there.  On that first trip, we caught a pile of big, beautiful smallmouth.  So we were really looking forward to going back up there.  But the reports we'd heard weren't so good.  The rivers were higher than normal, and there were massive amounts of drifting, floating bits of aquatic grass in the water, making fishing difficult.  So we were a little worried about what we'd find when we got there.

The put-in that morning looked promising.  Sure, the river was up, but clear.  We started drifting downriver, fishing as we went.  Fishing was slow, and the farther we went, the worse the drifting vegetation got.  On the previous trip, the fish had been lying up against the banks, and a soft jerkbait was magic, so much so that we ran completely out of soft jerkbaits by the end of the second day and were reduced to using torn-up ones we'd thrown into the bottom of the boat.  But on this day nothing seemed to be up against the bank but the occasional pike, and one big muskie that followed my lure in.  We started making occasional casts out into the middle of the river where there seemed to be some rocks, and that's how we started catching a few fish.  Typical North Country smallies, 15-17 inches long, very thick, and very strong.  Still, fishing was tough.  The soft jerkbaits, which we could fish somewhat effectively in the weed-cluttered water, weren't working at all.  Buzzbaits and the Whopper Plopper were about the only things that interested the fish just a bit, though my first good fish came on a spinnerbait, and I got one on a walker.  

We fished down to the river that River X runs into.  It was far murkier, visibility perhaps 18 inches.  We fished down the clear water plume from River X for a mile or so.  It had been full of big smallies on that previous trip, but this time we caught only a few small ones.  So we went across the river into the murky water, and caught several much better fish along a steep, rock and grass bank.  But the floating vegetation was just as bad in the bigger river as it had been in River X, so we didn't opt to continue downriver, but instead went upstream, above River X.  There was far less vegetation to foul our lures up there, but we fished a couple of very good-looking banks with almost nothing to show for it.  So we went back up into River X to try it again.

Not only was the vegetation a huge problem, but it had become a very windy day.  Fishing was simply very tough.  We'd fish hard for a half hour without any action, then catch one or two fish.  We caught as many pike as bass.  And then, CWC was reeling in a Whopper Plopper at the head of a swift chute when the water exploded.  "Uh oh, I got problems," he said.  I looked, and there was this monstrous log of a fish surging toward the middle of the river.

It was a muskie.  Not only that, but it was, by far, the biggest muskie I'd ever seen, and I'd already seen that four footer following my lure earlier.  You can take this as a fish story if you like, because we never got a picture, but this beast was massive.  I later told Mitch, when I called him to tell him about the trip, that it was at least 48 inches, but in reality, I'm sure it was FAR bigger than that.  I just laid out a 60 inch measuring stick I have here at the house, and I really believe that fish was very close to the same length.  Heck, when we got it to the side of the boat, its head was nearly a foot long.  The smaller version Whopper Plopper was hung on the outside of its jaw, and was only about half the length of the upper jaw.  We didn't have any kind of net to boat this thing, and I could really see no way we could get it in the boat.  CWC had earlier lost a Whopper Plopper on a hookset, and this was the only one he had left.  He was mostly worried he would lose the lure to the fish, so he tried to hold its head against the side of the boat while I extricated the two trebles from its jaw.  I looked at the huge, scarred head, and realized the body just behind it was bigger around than my thighs.  It was certainly the biggest freshwater fish I'd actually seen on the end of a line.  When I got the lure loose, CWC just let go of the fish, and it slowly swam off.

We fished down a little farther.  It was getting late, an hour or so before dark, when we came to an island, with a very shallow riffle at the head of the island.  CWC made a long cast with the rescued WP to the head of the riffle, and a big smallmouth charged the lure, leaving an impressive wake in the 12 inch deep water.  As he was playing it, I made a cast with my walking lure and there was another wake and explosion.  I missed that fish, but immediately reeled in and cast again, and hooked a twin to the one CWC was just boating.  Then at the bottom of the riffle, in similarly shallow water, we both got fish on again.  So we sought out a couple more shallow, fast water spots like that, and caught a couple more before it was time to motor to the truck.  Altogether it had been a very slow day by the North Country standards we were used to, with about 20 smallies boated altogether, the largest about 19 inches.

In the hotel room that night, we tried to make plans for the next day.  We thought about going to River W.  It was farther upstream and perhaps the weeds wouldn't be as bad.  But when we'd fished it that time before, the action had been slower, though we both caught some big fish.  Friends we called who knew the area suggested going much farther downstream on the river that River X ran into, but it would be an hour or more drive to water that was much bigger, better known, and more heavily fished.  At heart, CWC and I are small stream guys, our instinct is to head upstream.  So we decided to try another, smaller river section, call it River Y.  We had almost no information on it.  The guys we knew either hadn't fished it or at least hadn't fished it in a long time.  It would be a gamble, but it was a shorter drive, and we figured that if it didn't pan out by noon, we'd pack up and go somewhere else, maybe back to River W.

The first view of the river, from the narrow boat ramp in the foggy morning light, was not too encouraging.  It looked okay, gentle current, grassy and wooded banks, but the water was muddy.  Well, not exactly muddy, but so tannin-stained that visibility was no more than 12 inches.  The bank at the boat ramp was covered in silt that stirred with any commotion and made the water completely opaque.  But we were there, so we put the boat in.  There was rip rap around the bridge, so we eased up to it, and on my second cast with a walking lure, I caught a 16 incher.  We crossed to the rip rap on the other side, and I caught another, while CWC also caught one.  Okay, this might just work out fine.  We began drifting down the steep bank, and CWC hooked a big one at a pile of driftwood that snapped the wire of his favorite spinnerbait.  Every little piece of wood, and every spot along the bank where overhanging grass touched the water, held a fish.  But you had to land your lure right against the bank.  A foot from the edge, and you'd get nothing.  This was the kind of fishing where a solo angler could have positioned the boat right up against the bank and cast parallel to it, and put a lure in front of every fish along the bank, but with the two of us, we had to keep the boat off the bank and cast at an angle.  A grass clump 10 feet long would hold one fish, and if you didn't land your lure within a foot of that fish, it wouldn't go after it.  But if you landed virtually on its head, it would take almost instantly, certainly within the first 6 inches of your retrieve.  So who caught the fish on that grass clump depended upon who was lucky enough to make the cast to the exact spot where the fish was.

We simply drifted down the river, only starting the motor to idle across the channel to the other side if that bank looked better.  It was a matter of making a lot of short, very accurate casts, and continually getting savage strikes.  It was amazing fun.

We came to a significant tributary entering the river, pouring in a good volume of clear water, though the clarity of the river downstream was little affected.  Below the tributary, fishing slowed.  We fished a couple more miles, then motored back up to the tributary.  It looked big enough to run the boat, so we started up it.  Easy at first, flowing between low grassy banks with a sand bottom, we soon came to an area of rocky riffles that were barely runnable.  Then we were back in the sand bottom stretch, and we stopped at a big downed tree.  CWC cast into the downstream eddy at the tree, and a big pike struck immediately.  As he was playing it, two big smallies were following the pike around, so now we knew they were there.  And as we drifted back down the mile or so to the main river, fishing as we went, we found that the smallmouth were thick in the clear water and action was nearly non-stop.  At one point, I made a cast with my three treble hook walking lure to a grassy bank where I thought I could see every bit of the bottom in the three feet or so of water, yet somehow three big smallmouth materialized around my lure, and one of them struck.  I missed it, but before I could even begin the work the lure again after the hookset that had moved it ten feet closer to the boat, another one took it.  This was the biggest smallmouth I'd hooked all day, at least 19 inches, and the lure was crossways in its mouth.  I couldn't figure out how to boat it without a net--certainly there was no opportunity to get a thumb in its mouth.  And as I tried to lift it into the boat, the line snapped.  Not only had I lost the fish, but I'd left that lure stuck in its face, and we watched in dismay as it slowly swam off in the clear water.

It was getting late when we got back to the main river, and we had a few miles to motor back to the truck, so we started upriver.  But a couple of good banks that we'd skipped on the way down beckoned.  We stopped to fish back down them, and that's when we found that our wake totally messed up the fishing.  It left a zone of completely muddy water from three to ten feet off the bank, and needless to say, we weren't going to catch many fish in that mud.  So we ended the day fishing the pool at the access again, and catching several more fish there.

It had been quite a day.  CWC had caught the biggest fish, a solid 20 incher, and several more in the 19 inch class.  I'd caught a 19.5 incher and a couple more over 19.  But we'd caught about 65 smallies altogether, and fewer than ten of them had been under 15 inches.  Most were around 17 inches, and these fish were so chunky that a 17 incher probably weighed about 3.5 pounds.

We had one more day to fish.  We knew we were going back to River Y...but should we go upstream this time?  Or go downstream and up the tributary?  Checking the trib, call it River Z, on Google Earth in the room that night, there appeared to be a lot of very shallow, sand-bottomed river beginning a mile or so above where we had stopped that day.  The run downstream to River Z would take time, as would the run up the river.  And River Z was probably dropping, with those rocky riffles already marginal for running.  On the other hand, we'd already learned that running River Y upstream and drifting back down would mess up the river at least for a while. 

We still weren't sure what we were going to do when we put in on River Y the next morning in clouds and a light sprinkle.  But the pool just downstream of the access had been good to us so far, so we decided to at least fish it once more.  Two nice smallies convinced us to keep fishing downstream, and by near noon, we had covered about five miles of the same water we'd fished the day before, with about the same number of fish, as we just kept fishing the next good bank.

There was a long, very slow pool at that point, with water weeds along the shallow banks.  We almost decided to head back upstream to fish above the bridge, rather than continuing down that uninviting pool, but at the last minute we opted to fish the opposite bank from the one we'd covered the day before.  The weedbeds came out 20 feet, then it was shallow water with scattered boulders barely visible outside the weeds.  It wasn't like the water where we'd been catching fish, but it looked like a decent piece of water.  CWC was throwing a spinnerbait, and quickly scored with a nice 17 incher off one of those rocks.  Then I hooked one about the same size, and immediately after that strike, CWC said, "I got trouble.  Big Trouble."  I glanced away from my fish just as a massive smallmouth cleared the water by three feet.

Those 18-19 inchers we'd been catching had looked big--and a 19 incher was easily 4 pounds, but this beast was in an entirely different class, obvious at a glance as it lunged and ran and jumped.  CWC was definitely a happy angler when he lipped it.  A careful measurement on my ruler on the boat read slightly over 21 inches.  This was a 6 pound class fish.

The battle had taken the boat through the rest of the boulder-strewn water at the head of the pool, but we fished the rest of the way down that bank anyway, catching nothing else.  Then we fished two more banks, and motored back up to fish that piece of water again in case there was another big one waiting.  But we caught nothing else.  It was 1 PM, and time to check out the water upstream of the ramp.

Knowing that running upstream and fishing back down would mess up those banks with mud, we used a different technique.  We'd fish up a bank, trolling motor near maximum, motor up through the riffle, then repeat on the next bank.  And we kept catching fish.  By 5 PM we'd gone up about four miles, and after three full days of hard fishing, we were getting a little tired.  Plus, the trolling motor batteries were beginning to run down.  So we turned and began fishing back down.

I had yet to catch one over 20 inches, and really wanted at least one that size, but it was beginning to look like it wasn't going to happen.  The 17 to 19 inchers were terrific, and I tried to tell myself that it was okay.  CWC had just been a little luckier to make the cast to the spots where the big ones were.  He'd gotten the 21 incher, a 20 incher, and several more over 19 inches.  I was still holding on 19 and change as my biggest.

It wasn't exactly the kind of banks where we'd been catching fish, just slick mud with a few small logs.  The wood had not produced much all day.  Grass and rocks had been the key areas.  I was using my homemade crankbait, and it came well off the bank before it stopped dead.  I set the hooks just as CWC set his hooks into a 17 incher.  A double.  Then mine jumped, and it looked as big as CWC's beast from earlier in the day.  CWC was operating the trolling motor, and the boat was drifting into a log jam.  I wanted that bass.  He hit the fading trolling motor, barely keeping the boat away from the tangle.  I finally lipped the big smallie.  It measured a bit over 20 inches.  Not quite CWC's horse of a fish, but good enough for me.

Now it was really getting late.  We started up the motor and headed downstream.  A mile above the access was a nice bank we'd skipped on the way up.  CWC looked at me, running the motor.  I slowed.  "Well, it's still daylight," I said.

CWC would certainly be glad we did.  He'd put on a buzzbait, and in that last half hour before dark, he caught three big smallies, the biggest just barely under 20 inches, the other two around 19 inches.  I caught a few as well, but mine were smaller, "just your average 17 inchers", as I joked.  It was almost fully dark and the trolling motor was completely dead when we beached the boat at the ramp. 

Had there been another boat or two running up and down the river either of those days, we would have been fishing muddy water, let alone fishing with competition.  But we'd had three days of fishing to ourselves, and we were already planning to come back next year.  There were a lot of miles of River Y we hadn't yet explored, and there was no reason they wouldn't be just as good fishing.  

Fish porn to follow

[Al Agnew]

[Al Agnew]

[fishinwrench]

Dang !  

The trips I've had up North have always been good.  It always blows my mind that those people up there don't give two hoots about their Smallies.

[Greasy B]

Yep, when you drive though town every other driveway will have a Lund in it. The locals love to fish and eat them but if it ain't a walleye it's not worth the time to heat up oil. 

[Mitch f]

It's hard for me to see these pics and not just want to jump in my SUV and head up there right now! What great memories and a great story. 

[timinmo]

There is nothing I enjoy more than floating and wading our Ozark streams.  But... it is a different world up there.  There are many rivers and lakes full of big smallmouth.  They are tough, strong and average much bigger than our fish for a given length.  Jet boats are not common and it seems most everyone focuses on the lakes and walleye. So you can often fish in relative solitude.  Anyway I have had wonderful times "up north" and hope to have more, Mitch and Aaron.  

With all that said I long for the Ozark streams and will take the northland when I can get it, maybe once or twice and year. 

[Seth]

That is simply amazing! It would awesome to catch fish of that length that regularly here in MO, even if they are skinnier.

[Phil Lilley]

Thanks for posting, Al.  As always...

[Smallie Seeker]

Wow! Awesome fish and post! That looks like the trip of a lifetime! 

Have yet to ever chase smallies outside of MO. 

I need to drag my rear out of an Ozark stream for once and plan a pilgrimage up north. 

I'd be grinning for a month after a trip like that.