Not a bad day

[Al Agnew]

Looks like it's gonna rain like crazy the next few days, so I did something I very seldom do...I went fishing on a weekend.  Took the jetboat to lower middle Big River.  Just had to get in a trip before the rain and possible river blow outs.  Cool, cloudy day, water temp was 46-47 degrees, river about normal for this time of year and visibility about 4 feet.  

Usually by this time of the season, the water temps are up into the 50s, and I've found crankbaits and spinnerbaits to really start producing as the fish move to more active feeding areas.  And what I've also found is that sometimes the calendar (length of daylight) is more important than water temps, so I started out the day fishing crankbaits and spinnerbaits, although I'd usually pound them with jerkbaits with these conditions.  Well, it worked out okay.  I only caught 17 fish, but 12 of them were over 15 inches.  The two biggest were an 18 1/2 inch, very chunky smallmouth, and another just as chunky but a half inch shorter.

And the only other people I saw was a guy who backed his boat down the ramp just to see if the motor would start, and two kayakers camped out on a gravel bar.  I'm glad I broke my no weekend fishing rule.

[timinmo]

Well did you use your new reel?

[Al Agnew]

Nope...it's going to go on one of my canoe rods instead of my jetboat rods.

[TroutRinger]

1 hour ago, Al Agnew said:

Nope...it's going to go on one of my canoe rods instead of my jetboat rods.

I hope this doesn’t come off as rude, but what’s the difference between a canoe rod and a jetboat rod?

[Al Agnew]

Not rude at all...I like short rods for use in the canoe.  I can fit them into the canoe with the tips all inside the gunwales so I don't get tips snapped off or get tangled with a big fish I'm playing, plus I find them to be less tiring to use and more accurate when you're sitting down in the canoe.  On the other hand, my jetboat rods are all longer, because I'm standing while fishing in the jetboat.  Basically, my topwater canoe rod is 5 feet, and the rest of my canoe rods are 5.5 or 6 feet, while my shortest jetboat rod is 6 feet and most of them are 6.5 feet with a couple 7 footers.