8/30/07 Wade

Got out for a wade Thursday, hit a stretch Tim S will recognize. Got an the water by 9:30AM and it was overcast and the water was a bit chilled. Visibility was 12-14" initially then improved when the sun came out around 3pm.

Fishing was slow at first, lost one on prop bait on jump, then a few half interested slaps. Tried throwing everything, at one point I was tossing a jerkbait and jig. Got a LM on prop bait when it hit the water near some weeds. That kept me from turning around 3 hours in.

Caught a 14" on a tube then another on a Sammy when it hit water. No patterns... Fish seemed off.. but then it started to warm...

I was throwing for one of the many downed trees when a good fish came out and nailed a Bluriversmallie WBZ. The fish wrapped the branches and I had to go get it. To my surprise, it was a beauty 17" with dark green and black markings. Here's a photo of the fish, which didn't do it justice.




I kept throwing the Wolkabuzz and had some promising results. There was an excellent laydown at a bend and riffle with riprap. caught a couple more on WBz, then a nice fish on Popper called out of the wood. Another solid splash left my popper hung on a log branch. After retrieveing it, I headed upstream again throwing WBZ, fish started cooperating full force. They were hitting all sorts of topwater but none consistently.

By the time I got to my 12th fish I had an 18", 17, and 16.



The rest of the day, I alternated between Sammy and WBZ. When a few larger fish didn't get hooks, I replaced the trebles for immediate results. land % went way up. Unfortunately, no more larger smallies.

43 Bass and 2 Googs: 38 SMB (18",17", 16", 2 15") 5 LMB (16"). First three hours were crap, the last 6 pretty excellent.

Fun to get out after a week of sealing driveway and painting house.

08/19/07 Sammy Doubles

Mike and I got on a creek by 7am. He threw a Sammy all day. I threw one 80% of the time.

We were cutting up the whole day smack talking as we had a shootout brewing. Both of us threw plenty of topwater. Mike struck first on sizeable fish with a nice 16" on top.

He caught a nice 17.25", while fighting it I hooked and landed a 16" on top. While holding the fish in water waiting for me to release and get my camera Mike accidentaly let her go! I thought he'd get another because we both already were at about 10 fish 2 hours in.

Weren't many 13-14"'s odd. We either got 15"+ or 12" unders.

We ran into a local property owner that was very nice fishing creekside with a grandson. He said the flathead population was up and they released everything they caught. Nice to hear!

On the moveup, I caught a couple 17"'s and a 16 on 1/8 Buzzbait. As well as one fish on a tube.

We ran into the same people again sitting at a different part of property upstream. I chatted and caught a 17" in front of them on top when Mike told me where to cast.



We picked up some 15's here and there, I landed a 16" who swam inbetween my legs an impaled my pants with treble, then another 17.5 for me. I had a 19-16 lead at halftime. Mike forgot to go in for the meeting and caught 5 straight fish from the same boulder area I got my 17.5! He was up by 2!




Mike told me to cast over by a downed log in 18" of water because he saw a minnow get popped (notice a pattern here?). I reared back threw left handed and got bit three wags in, by a dinker who pulled on an angle all the way down the log- some 20ish feet- fish came shooting out of there when it got towards the end suddenly there were two fish on my lure- one going 17"!!!

First, I wasn't going to throw there. The log definately didn't look fishy. I would never have caught the bigger fish if not for the dink, the opposite of my last report and perhaps a bit of justice. Props to Mike for calling two of my shots for me today.


I went on a good run with a prop bait, then we hit some woody slow algae filled water and the bite died off.

Final score in our shootout: BT 33 (17.5, 5 17", 3 16" 3 15) Wool 27 (17.25", 16, 4 15-15.5")

We waded 4.1 miles in 8 hours with the last two hours almost a skunk.

8/14/07 Report of Great Smallmouth Bass Fishing

Tried a totally new stretch on a familiar stream. Don't know how I overlooked this one in the past. Too close to civilization?

Got on the water about 6:15am, which was pre light. Proceeded to break the ceramic of my rod tip guide in a tree. Filed it flat and kept moving.

There was goodly amounts of wood on this stretch, picked up the first fish, a 15"er on Sammy while a couple others thought about it.

Moving up I spotted a big boulder sticking out of the water. I heard a voice in my head say, " That's too tacky!" but my arm threw anyway. When the Sammy aproached the current side of the boulder SCHWAMM, a big, fat, powerful fish nailed it. The fight was on, it quickly tried to jump, but hardly came out of the water. It ran towards a tree, my drag zinged and it turned just it time...to go on a drag peeling run downstream. Yes! Finally got the fish turned and beached it. My jaw hit the ground. What a beautiful Smallmouth, easily 4lbs, but shy of 20".



Next pool up, I hit this 17"er on Sammy guessing depth or wood where I could see none. Nice start!



Then for a while I caught 8-12"ers, another 15".

17.5"er on Sammy who bit on the splashdown.



The bites just didn't slow all day long, several times I looked down at the time and was shocked to see how little time had passed. 4 hours in I had 32 Bass! Gotta keep going :) .

Here's a fat Smallie just short of 18" who followed the dog about 20 feet before he got it:



3 or 4 more good ones on WBZ, then this guy on Wolkabuzz (17"):




Stuck my hand in stinging wood nettles taking this pic :? :oops: .

Go to a hole where I caught 3 straight 15"s then another 17" fish these fish were going nuts:



Arrived under a bridge where it was evident the locals party pretty hard. Was just going to skip it when I looked downhill and saw a medium bass, a very large bass, and a smaller bass. Threw on the WBZ- they all went after it- the larger fish knocked the WBZ into the air and the smallest one got it on the landing :roll: :cry: ! I heaved him up bank and the larger of the two bass was still sitting there a foot from shore looking for his food. Tossed a tube out for him, the line took off- another 12"er got to the bait first! At this point, the hawg left and I saw him no more.

Pretty much threw topwater all day. Amazing, Buzzbait or Sammy both worked well. At one point I pulled out a tube and caught a smallie and a Goog.

Another 17" WTD victim:



Then it became a matter of beating last Thursday's numbers (allbeit in 4-5 less hours) Slammed 3 or 4 more 15"'s on Wolkabuzz, when I finally got #60- all of 6"!!!!

I'll take it!

Walked back to the car, big smile on face, which is still there. 3.14 miles fishing (7 hour 15 minute) 6.43 mile round trip.

60 Bass: 57 Smallmouth (19"+, 17.99", 17.5", 17.25, 3 17", 11 15-15.5") 3 LMB 12-14", one Goggle eye!

Hog Wade turned numbers

Wanted to try a creek I haven't fished since May 07. It's known for holding some big fish, so I went hunting. Plan was to go up one totally new stretch bridge then walk back. I would use Sammy for long casts up uncharted water, then Wolkabuzz/tube all the woodpiles.

Got on the water at 6:30am and immediately started catching fish on Sammy. Mostly small 10-12. Lots of shallow shale/bedrock would hold dinks but not the pigs I was looking for. Kept going and going. Caught a 16.5" smallmouth bass on Sammy.

Caught this deformed smallmouth bass on a Sammy 100, an 18.5"er that would have gone close to 20" If it's spine was straight. This fish was thin and actually came for the bait a second time after I had failed to hook him at the other end of the pool.



Fishing was very consistent. When the sun finally came out and the heat shot up. Smallies were pulled out of the wood by Wolkabuzz baits 'popped'.

Ended up seeing three bridges total. Finished up the 4.3 mile wade with 45 fish, but then decided to wade back and hit spots I had seen fish with WBZ, this 17.5" fish included on WBZ:




I added another 14 on the wade back to finish with 59 Smallmouth (18.5", 17.5", 16.5", 2 16", 4 15") The walk back took almost 3 hours. An 8.6 mile wade!

Caught about 18 on Sammy, 30 on WBZ, 1 popper, 8-9 on tubes. The second half of the first 4.3 miles produced more 12-14"s and also the few larger fish. I'd skip the first mile at least.

Never did find the hawg hole I was looking for. Couple areas with woodpiles could have held bigger smallies I never saw. Had a few chances at bigger fish, but didn't hook up.

Spent

Fan Club Wade another 20" SMB.

Got together with fanclub (Russelfish) this am out in the boonies. We were to meet at 615 in nowhere'sville. Russ said he'd be early so I got there about 6 after eating McYuk. I predicted in my mind Rusty would get lost. He did. Rolled up about 630. I told him I was going to give him 5 more minutes.

Well, the put in was not "right next to" the creek, nope. Not really. What happened over the next hour was like the movie Stand By Me. Except for the part about leeches on Junks. And the dead body. Well, it was pretty much just walking on RR tracks like they did in that movie and climbing down 50 foot ridges- We talked about the fat kid marrying Rebbecca Romijin:



Finally made creekfall by 745! Early on I hooked these two fish on Sammy Limonade:




Russ, missed a couple on his dueling Sammy ahead. When I threw mine into what was about 8" of water a big fish destroyed it and pulled me downstream towards the next riffle. Finally got it landed. It went 19.5" !

Oi:




Unfortunately, the 3.6 mile 8 hour stretch I picked had lots of big long pools rather than more smaller deep pools, this kept our numbers down a bit as we did a lot of wading between riffles and push water- most fish were caught in current at the front or back as the day went on and the sun came out they had moved to shade.

I did pick a roomy stretch, so we weren't rubbing elbows and we mostly threw Sammies. I threw a tube/WBZ a bit and Russ caught some fish with his Flukes.

We had just talked about called shots when Rusty commented about a fish being behind a boulder. He wisely chose to make a long cast past it and the fish nailed his bait. It was a pretty 15-16"er so we took a picture of the fish. Here it is for your enjoyment (sans good photography):

We got to a bridge where I hit a dink which was follwed by and 18 that went right up to our feet before it saw Russ. I then hooked and lost the same fish moments later under deep logjams.

Russ was really starting to get the hang of new rod and reel. He was zinging his casts increasingly close to danger=good. He was hampered throughout the day by his spool being less than half full- resulting in lots of friction on the line.

We landed fish here and there 12-15"ers on a assorted baits when we hit a pool that had a stream coming out of the mountains- that bank was deep grassed and directly in the sun. I took the sunny side and sent Russ up to hit the shade and front of riffle. Caught two fish and was working Sammy extra slow along the steep bank by grass when a fish annihilated the bait right near shore. After a short viscious fight I beached the whale!

Here she is busting over 20":



We picked fish here and there and were both wilting in the heat. I asked Russ if he wanted to walk back to the car via road or hit the last good spot. Fatefully, he decided to go on.

We worked the entire 400 yard long still algae filled pool (normally a raging froth) with nothing in the middle until we got the fornt. I caught a 15", then a 13", a fat 17", 16", 13, 15" and Rusty caught a 15.5" bam, bam, bam!

Here's the 17"+ (fatty):



I ended up with 30 Smallies ( 20"+, 19.5", 17"+, 16", 5 15-15.5) I'll let Russelfish retell his part in our tale. Sorry about the pregame nature hike. He had around 15 or so...

Drag looser and new treble hooks worked like magic.

Rusty is a lot of fun to fish with and a hell of a funny guy. Look he and Macfan26 up if you are near Lafayette! I'll definately fish with both again .

Death March 7/31/07

Waded the part of the same stretch jjwilson caught his 20"er on Sunday. Only guessed after I saw footsteps all over the place .

Got fishing by 615am, Started catching active fish at the top of pools immediately on a limonade Sammy. A 15", 14", 13". Then a 16.5" on a tube and another 13" Moved up to a spot Riff should remember me calling my shot for a 18" last time there, well sure as spit another big one hit, but this time he made it into the logs and was gone, when I went to free my sammy a 15" smallie that had been under the log jumped up onto my back .

At the next pool, I quickly hooked a fish 17" or so and lost it as it dug into a stone in shallow water and the sammy pulled free. Then I had the same thing happen again moments later on another 17" or so fish. Caught a 15 and a dink then moved up and hooked a 19"+ and quickly lost it on the jump! WTF? Looked at my hooks and a couple tips were turned a bit. Swapped for some equal size crank hooks and moved up tossing a tube where appropriate, etc..

Next big blow up produced a 17"er to hand:



Fish were in the shallowest of current areas, several times I surprised a group of them in inches of water.

At one point 5 hours in, I had 26 smallies but only one 17" and had lost like 6 or more 17"+, so I had to go on hoping for one good bite I knew would come. Threw a tube in a bathtube sized hole after a couple dinks missed a sammy was surprised to pull a 18" out! Doesn't look 18" maybe I mixed up the picks. Sorry I'm fried.





Then I lost another 17"+ when I tried to pull it just a little too much. Landed several 15-15.5"ers on the sammy, one on a popper then like 4 in a row from behind a stump/shade on sammytime.

Went up the next stretch and caught a 17" on a tube where Wool had seen me hit one on a skipped sammy under a tree. The fish came back and I got him. Caught another 15.5 under a log on a tube.




Moving up I decide to throw a LC Flashminnow 95. I finally got to futz with it a bit on a long slow stretch and the lure performed! Jerk, jerk stop= 15.5 LMB, then a 14" and a couple 12"ers. Nothing out of the hawg spot then moved up and caught this 17" on a Sammy:


Then I caught a couple of dinks lost another good one pulling the lure free, then hooked an 18" fattie on sammy out from a Sycamore tree- dropped him and didn't take a picture. Moving up I caught a 18"LMB that followed the Sammy in less than a foot of water in slow motion- then engulfed it.



Other funny things: had a blue heron nearly divebomb the Sammy until I yelled at it. Saw one of those stupid little green herons skulking around.

Here's a pick of another fish I caught at some point.




Walked to the DQ and got a banna creampie Blizzard and walked all the way back to my car 4.6 mile return trip after a 3.8 mile wade. My feet are aching. Even with the poor fish playing skills today it was an excellent day!

Got to get some new trebles and loosen the drag a bit!

41 bass, 36 Smallies (2 18, 4 17", 1 16.5", 8 15-15.75") 5 LMB (18, 15.5)