What's around the corner Wade 6/16/2007

A friend once said there is something that makes you want to see around the next stream bend. There could be one more nice fish. You could find 'the' ultra hole. Perfect example today. I have a bad case of this fellows. I just keep going, going. 10 hours today.

Got on the water by 615am. Fishing stunk, did manage to hook one largish fish 17-18" on a popper but lost him when he swam under one of the millions of brush trees on the first third of the stretch. Took me 3 hours to catch my first fish a 10"LMB on the same Popper.

Smallies either weren't there, or asleep. Didn't get a sniff on tube, crank, or WBZ.

There was brush and fallen trees everywhere and few holes that fish could be caught out of. Low hanging branches and clear ultra low water don't help. Had to take a lot of chances- zing a perfect cast or try to get closer and spook the hole. I had to make a lot of medium casts between limbs and under them. Seems when I did hit target, the lure would snag or foul! Black flies swirled around me most of the day.

Took a wheelburrow break- ate to reconcentrate and down some grub.

Started at it again, and started catching SMB on the popper. 11, 15,13.5,11, then a couple on a tube and I was starting to feel better.

At about 6 hours I had 9 Bass and a Goog. Had to keep going because I wasn't going to drive out here again if it sucked, so I had to find out!

I changed from normal chart/white WB to one with shiney blades for the sun to gleam off of. Worked the WB at the end of a new pool- 'suck' a fish enslaved the wolkabuzz and tore ass. Landed him and took a couple pics.
17 3/4":



Here's the arm length view. Looks the same size really.




This different look from the gray WB started producing... 13, 13.5, 13.5, 15. the tube bite turned on and I was off to the races.

A 16" tube:



Then I saw a hole that screamed 'big fish' it had foam on it looked a deep blue green. The hole had a huge rootwad providing an eddy and had a riffle 20 yards upstream from it.

Tossed the WB across the eddie after carefully picking apart the back of the hole to no avail. Another slurp, the WB disappeared to something big. Problem was there was a tree across the stream for where I cast, so I waded in and ran to the tree while frantically trying to keep pressure on the fish. Got em! another 17.25" jem. Picked up another 14"er on a tube and moved on.



I don't know what the hell is going on with that face I'm making. Never said I was photogenic.

While sneaking up on a hole spotted a bass 5 feet in front of me and was shocked when it went straight for my short pitch tube. Landed all 16.5" of it in about 3 seconds, of course it was a Largemouth Bass!

Turned out to be a pretty good day. 20 Bass 17.75", 17.25", 16", 2 15" bunch of 13-14"ers and one 16.5"LMB. Also caught a Goog and a big shiner on my popper- guessing it wanted the feather? About half or slightly more than half were on a tube. The two big Smallies were WBZ gold and silver blade.

Then there was the small matter of 54 minute walk back to the car .