Sometimes, it's worth the effort...... After all the rain last week, mrpossumtail, his son and I wanted to find some river water clear enough to fish, and there weren't a lot of choices. We decided to do an exploratory trip to a place we both felt had potential, but we weren't sure how accessible it would be.
We met at 8:30 to find water that was pretty clear, with plenty of visibility, but not so gin clear as to make the fish incredibly spooky. There is no upstream access to the stretch of river, so our plan was to wade and paddle upstream. Our trip began with very skinny, rock filled water, with slippery but not really treacherous wading. In this section, I was able to catch a tiny bass and five species of sunfish, including my first green sunfish, bluegills, crappies, redbreast sunfish and a warmouth. Mrpossumtail picked up a bass and a redbreast.
When we finally reached a broken dam that marked the end of our visibility upstream, we found ourselves facing a five or six foot drop (or should I say climb) over boulder filled rapids.
Negotiating that safely, we discovered deep, slow backwater for well over a mile. There were plenty of rocks (at least where we could see the bottom) and some wood cover, but we couldn't get a bite for some time. Mrpossumtail was optimistic that it was just a lull in their feeding, while I was hoping for shallower, moving water, like we had fished earlier. Turns out, we were both right.
After a few hours of unproductive fishing, we again found ourselves in somewhat shallower, structure filled moving water. Both of us began to hook up again, and as we neared the hole that we had targeted as a destination, mrpossumtail gave a joyous shout, so I turned around to see his fly rod bent and pulsating. After a long fight, he was able to lip a 16.75 inch largemouth that had acquitted itself like a much larger fish.
As I began to work some rocks closer to our final destination, I quickly hooked up with an average fish that fought very well, as river fish who live with the current every day often do. Even with de-barbed trebles, I had great difficulty getting the fish off. Finally, though, it was released to swim away, and I quickly hooked up again. Fortunately, this one was easier to unhook, because as I brought it to hand, mrpossumtail shouted again for his camera man. Another hard fighting largemouth, only a half inch shy of being a twin of the other succumbed to his Clouser and put another smile on his face.
I continued to fish, finally reaching the imagined dream hole, and found the fish waiting as I had hoped. While I was unable to hook any big ones (my largest ones being 13.5 inches), I caught and released seven fish on a Rapala crankbait, all of which fought with vigor, and most of which put on impressive aerial displays. All told, I had caught and released 17 largemouth bass, only four of which were less than twelve inches. For me, that's a great day (after all, I'm no MackinNC or fishwhisperer. I'm not even a Nat'sDad.)
I had promised my wife I'd be home in time to grill chicken kabobs, so even though I hated to leave them biting, I paddled, waded and drug my kayak as hard as I could, nonstop for an hour to reach my pickup, leaving mrpossumtail and his son to teach the fish a few more lessons, as they stayed behind. My shirt was so drenched with sweat that it looked like I had fallen in,but it was sure worth the effort.
As I said, I left mrpossumtail and his son to continue educating the fish. It turns out, their day was far from over, but I'll let him pick up the tale from here............
We met at 8:30 to find water that was pretty clear, with plenty of visibility, but not so gin clear as to make the fish incredibly spooky. There is no upstream access to the stretch of river, so our plan was to wade and paddle upstream. Our trip began with very skinny, rock filled water, with slippery but not really treacherous wading. In this section, I was able to catch a tiny bass and five species of sunfish, including my first green sunfish, bluegills, crappies, redbreast sunfish and a warmouth. Mrpossumtail picked up a bass and a redbreast.
When we finally reached a broken dam that marked the end of our visibility upstream, we found ourselves facing a five or six foot drop (or should I say climb) over boulder filled rapids.
Negotiating that safely, we discovered deep, slow backwater for well over a mile. There were plenty of rocks (at least where we could see the bottom) and some wood cover, but we couldn't get a bite for some time. Mrpossumtail was optimistic that it was just a lull in their feeding, while I was hoping for shallower, moving water, like we had fished earlier. Turns out, we were both right.
After a few hours of unproductive fishing, we again found ourselves in somewhat shallower, structure filled moving water. Both of us began to hook up again, and as we neared the hole that we had targeted as a destination, mrpossumtail gave a joyous shout, so I turned around to see his fly rod bent and pulsating. After a long fight, he was able to lip a 16.75 inch largemouth that had acquitted itself like a much larger fish.
As I began to work some rocks closer to our final destination, I quickly hooked up with an average fish that fought very well, as river fish who live with the current every day often do. Even with de-barbed trebles, I had great difficulty getting the fish off. Finally, though, it was released to swim away, and I quickly hooked up again. Fortunately, this one was easier to unhook, because as I brought it to hand, mrpossumtail shouted again for his camera man. Another hard fighting largemouth, only a half inch shy of being a twin of the other succumbed to his Clouser and put another smile on his face.
I continued to fish, finally reaching the imagined dream hole, and found the fish waiting as I had hoped. While I was unable to hook any big ones (my largest ones being 13.5 inches), I caught and released seven fish on a Rapala crankbait, all of which fought with vigor, and most of which put on impressive aerial displays. All told, I had caught and released 17 largemouth bass, only four of which were less than twelve inches. For me, that's a great day (after all, I'm no MackinNC or fishwhisperer. I'm not even a Nat'sDad.)
I had promised my wife I'd be home in time to grill chicken kabobs, so even though I hated to leave them biting, I paddled, waded and drug my kayak as hard as I could, nonstop for an hour to reach my pickup, leaving mrpossumtail and his son to teach the fish a few more lessons, as they stayed behind. My shirt was so drenched with sweat that it looked like I had fallen in,but it was sure worth the effort.
As I said, I left mrpossumtail and his son to continue educating the fish. It turns out, their day was far from over, but I'll let him pick up the tale from here............
