Smallmouth of the North Country

[Smalliebigs]

Those fish have to be some of the dumbest fish in North America but, they are brutes. Thank goodness there is hardly any fishing pressure to speak of up there.....it's kinda like fishing a creek down here that hasn't seen any action for awhile......a bunch a non educated fish.

Man that makes for some great action though. 

[cwc87]

I haven't posted in a long time.  Since this trip was about Agnew and me  here are my 02cents. 

Al pretty well covered the whole trip.  But, I wanted to add that Al is a true fishing machine.  His age and ability to go from 7:30am to 8pm for three straight days. And not even get his feet out of boat is just fishing sickness.    We compliment each other really well.  By the third day we were so dialed in on what where and how to present our lures made the trip really feel self rewarding.  Being a father of three and having a full time job makes my fishing Windows very small.  This trip gave me more than what I needed .  I may have run down my physical batteries but I recharged my life.   Also, I do have to mention my friend bill who sent me this direction three years ago and he absolutely made these trips become a success.  

[Greasy B]

Thanks for the report(s). What kind  of weather did you guys have to deal with and did that effect how you fished? 

Bro and I are leaving tomorrow. We'll have a cold front and plunging temperatures the first few days with conditions moderating slightly later in the week. 

[snagged in outlet 3]

23 minutes ago, Greasy B said:

Bro and I are leaving tomorrow

Are you bringing your boat?

[Greasy B]

Yep, we have casting rods, fly rods and camping equipment staged in the garage. My usual approach is to use nothing but topwater until it's obvious that it's not going to work. Last time I was up north we nailed em on buzz baits while air temps were in the 40s. 

[snagged in outlet 3]

Report please

[Mitch f]

2 hours ago, Greasy B said:

Thanks for the report(s). What kind  of weather did you guys have to deal with and did that effect how you fished? 

Bro and I are leaving tomorrow. We'll have a cold front and plunging temperatures the first few days with conditions moderating slightly later in the week. 

My 2 cents. There seems to be a large percentage of the bigger fish that are literally right on the bank, I'm talking 6" from the bank, I'm guessing a current refuge and possibly a great way to camouflage themselves. There also seems to be some merit in making repeated casts to the same rootwad. I mean only a foot or two from your last cast. Several times we caught fish after the third or forth cast into the same tree.

On the topwater bite... vary the retrieves until you find the hot button cadence.

Use heavier than your normal tackle, make sure your drags are functioning properly. 

[Greasy B]

Thanks,

Yeah, I have learned that you can’t just cast your bait toward the bank you have to hit the grass. The river should be dropping to the point where there may or may not be bank habitat.  The game gets a whole lot trickier and interesting when the fish are forced to move to midstream eddies and hug the bottom. On more than one occasion we located fish by seeing diving Gulls or by locating rising minnows and the nervous water that can be a sign bass feeding on the minnows.

[Al Agnew]

We had cool temps, lows around 50 degrees and highs in the 60s, all three days.  First day was very windy, north wind, which certainly contributed to making fishing tougher, with mostly sunny skies.  Next day was almost no wind, partly cloudy, third day was mostly cloudy, light wind.  Water temps were 60-64 degrees all three days; third day it never changed from 60.5-61.

One probable reason so many fish were right on the banks where we fished the second and third days was because there was a zone of about a foot off the bank where the water was clearer.  Visibility in mid-channel was no more than 12 inches, but was closer to 18 inches along many of the banks.  The first day the water was clear, and the fish were NOT on the banks.

Like I said somewhere, I stopped fishing topwater lures with multiple treble hooks because we didn't have a net and those fish are just too big and strong to get a grip on them safely with all those trebles.  However, topwater was working, and I think the fish were willing to move a bit farther to take a topwater than they were the spinnerbaits and my homemade crankbait.  I had several that made a wake of a couple of feet attacking the topwaters, but didn't see any wakes coming to the other stuff.  If I was choosing a topwater to fish, I'd have the walk the dog lure that I could work the best in a small area--one that you could walk quite a bit without it moving away from the bank very far.

The grass along the bank didn't have to be touching the water, but it was definitely best if it was overhanging the water.  The rivers we fished were all above normal for this time of year.

[Greasy B]

Thanks Al, cold front or no I think it will work out fine. I guess I hate to see summer end and by going north I'm cutting a couple of weeks off what's left.