We did a 6.5 mile float today. Mike talked me into this stream. We hit it for the first time this year. I decided a float would be in order with so much empty water.
Highlights were: Wonderful sunny days were not good for fishing with really clear water. Find deeper water, fish bit. Exactly the problem, there was so little of it on this float. I kept up my luck with RC LC 1.5 2.25" crankbait, occasionally stopping to pitch some tube time.
This 19" fish blasted my copper perch crank at 12:30. Half hour into the float. That was it for another mile...
I got a three more in a large deeper pool. Fish were in shade or deep. Mike got on the board.
We floated a long way, nothing happening. Mike hooked up with a dink who hit his crank on the surface. He switched to a popper. I thought he was crazy...
About 6pm, we finally made our way down a steep riffle to a pretty excellent pool. I made a downstream cast and got bit landed a 16.25" smallie. I told Mike to drop anchors- "We found them!" Mike ended in the penalty box for a moment. I made a more adventurous cast down and across stream. It pretty quickly got thunked hard. The battle was on as a very large bass went 'airborne' several times. Well, fatty tried too. It was tough pulling the fish upstream in current, I finally did land the 21 1/4" Smallmouth bass at the side of my kayak. Mike was not happy I had stumbled upon a bite in the middle of his wind knot.
21.25"! You can see Mike's feet or kayak in the two pics.Fish were caught over my left shoulder.
I kindly waited for Mike to untie. His next cast with the G-Splash got nailed. Mike brought the bass to hand. We traded fish for at about 3 apiece from dink to 16"+. His popper was getting destroyed as fish hit atop the cold, heavy water. My bait got slammed one more time, I couldn't budge the fish, worse my kayak started being pulled downstream into the hot hole. I couldn't move the fish, it stayed deep. Finally hefted it up. A channel catfish in the neighborhood of 2'. It had lots of nasty wounds. I set it loose without handling it. The hole was spooked out, with 2 hours until dark we decided to hit another area instead of wait the bass out.
The rest of the float we saw how much damage had been inflicted by floods, it was horrendous, pools were filled in, trees were in the creek everywhere. More trees were ready to fall in.
Mike managed to catch 4 good smallmouth bass on that popper on March 17th. Wow. Admittedly, they were super active in that spot
BT 10 SMB (21 1/4", 19", 16 1/4", 3-14") 24"Channel Catfish.
MC 6 SMB (16"+, 14.5)
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