First spot where I nailed a bunch of good fish two Tuesdays ago held nothing. A couple light taps.
Went upstream after crossing. First fish, a 13"er came off a root wad. I was working a 4" black tube against the current and repeatedly dropping it in front of the root wad when the bait got struck.
At the front of the eddy, I threw Float and Fly off a log and another root wad (within 1' of bank, but with depth). The fly immediately got hit on the drop! Hell broke loose as I fought a large fish to hand. Commendable effort. It went 19" and had a hook scar from where I caught it last December. When everything is wet and it is raining, it is hard to keep the lens dry. Got another dink on FnF and left for another spot.
Mike and I had found a new winter hole with last week's warm up. Luckily, it was right down the road, so I hit it again today. Above this wide pool is shallow bedrock, so despite being right near the road, the fish stack up in there good. Both sides of this wide deeper pool have some good looking eddies. At the current flow level, I found smallmouth on the southern bank, which just happens to be lined with limestone chunk rock the size of ottomans. Working the tube slowly and letting it drop down behind each square or rectangle boulder, I lost two good fish pulling the tube upstream. The first was about 14" and I pulled/jumped the fish 2' in the air. The next got to the surface, but was never hooked. Sometimes with thicker walled tubes this can be a problem were the plastic bunches up on the hook point. First 5 minutes 0/2.
Decided to go to the downstream end of the limestone 'rip rap' and work my way up to set hook from the opposite direction. Kirbed my tube jig with a forceps to help in hookups. Tube fishing is all about minor adjustments sometimes.
A few casts later the tube got thumped and the fight was on! Nice fish who did powerful runs as well as surface head shaking. Finally to hand measured 17"+. I had taken to hanging my camera down inside my fleece. This seemed to clear the lens up enough to get better pics in the rain.
A few parallel casts later a nice fish thumped right at my feet, fell just short of 17". Looks to be a female and squeezing off a number 2:
Flipped out where the last fish had come from and immediately got bit. 12" smallmouth bass. The key on all the bites today was working shoreline cover, parallel to the bank. Water had to be much slower and also have either rock or root wad cover.
I moved back up the bank, on one particular cast, the tube dragged slowly under a boulder. I felt a good thump from another fish up close to shore, short fight. Decent size. Badly damaged fish. Measured 18". Hope it survives. Seen more than one thin fish late winter 2010.
It started to be cold as the rain was soaking through winter coat, fleece, and shirt- (cotton!) Happened to glance back and saw two state troopers over my shoulder. They had seen my car and wondered what I was doing.
BT: Whoa! You guys scared the shit out of me!
Trooper 1: We saw your car and wondered what you were doing.
BT: Fishing.
Trooper 1: Bet your not doing very well.
BT: Actually, I've done all right 4 bass over 16". Water is up, pushes bass to the banks making it easier to find the good ones. Gestured at water.
Trooper 2: Smiling
Trooper 1: Well, you have more dedication than I do. What's your name?
BT: They call me the Lone Ranger.
Trooper 1: Really?
BT: Not really. Name's Brenden.
Troopers: Ok, just checking.
BT: Stay dry fellas!
Guess my soaked outfit did seem kind of silly. Never got above 45 today.
Got 7 to hand (19", 18", 17", 16.75") in 4 hours.
Brenden,
ReplyDeleteNice report before the rains. Up here it is a blow out flood again. The last 3 years have been wet and cool. I got out once last week for 5 hours and got 9 with all being 14"-16". Water temps 42.
What type of hook are you using for the tubes? I like a hook that can release the plastic, like a barb, instead of a screw or lock down type of holder.
Have you ever thrown any more slender plastics? The balling is very rare, as it either releases or is just to thin to get in the way of the hook itself.
Mark
Funny you can get into a size set 14-16" like that sometimes. I think they are trying to tell us something there, probably too many factors to guess.
ReplyDeleteI use a 4/0 Extra Wide Gap Gammakatsu insert head with 60 degree eye. I went to some tubes that were 'army surplus'. They were long bodied like I like but the diameter at the end of that body was thicker than I like. Trying to work through some of the older crap instead of buying new. Ended 5/7 on legit bites.
I like bigger tubes because I can heave them long and accurate, skip them a mile. Plus, I just like bigger baits.
I'll take some pictures and show the adjusments I am talking about. There is a fine line between completely snagless and not hooking fish.