Sunday, March 28, 2010

Smallie Vacation Day 7- She-mouth II: The Return.

No fishing or fish Saturday. Naturally, today we get rain. Dreams of highwater hog in my head, I set out to patrol the muck for another big she-mouth.

Drove over the river, mud and high.

Feeders- depended on whether they were in the city or near agriculture. From muddy milk to decent.

Drove over my objective to see a stream in two colors! One half brown, the other half brown-green. Quick mental inventory of which pig hole would be upstream of the brown and therefore green- brown water.

Walked up and then across the stream, knowing I wouldn't have a lot of time
to fish the better water. If it came up too fast, it would be a long walk up to the next bridge then back to the car.

Black tube in tow my first cast had a fish on, and I missed after fighting it a ways. Didn't feel great. The pool is a big eddy at the riffle. Massive eddy with quite a big winding swirl. Found the fish facing downstream in the return eddy behind several boulders.

Just like the other day, it took a swing and a miss first. Couple of casts later I hooked into a second beast in the spot in as many trips. Thinner, but wearing an egg belly. Went 20.5":



After that, I couldn't get bit again. That's been the pattern this spring. One maybe two fish at each spot. Left after 15-20 minutes fully satisfied. Drove home. Misson accomplished.

2 comments:

  1. BT,

    It would be tough to fish 7 days in a row. Especially the amount of walking you do.

    That must be a heck of a spot. Very rare and to hold two large bass, is even more rare. They seem not to like crowding much. Loners mostly.

    MJ

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  2. In my neck of the woods, they hang out in pods of at least 2. 4 times I've gotten 2 20"ers or better in the same day. Every time they came within a few feet of each other. I expect it now, as once is lucky, 4 times is a minor pattern. Many times, seen them swimming 2-3 in packs.

    What you can't tell from the pic is how big the pool is. Hard to fish in summer because one side is nearly inacessable and 8-10 feet deep with the pool wall having caves and the river bottom having chunky boulder cover underneath the current. In short, it's like fishing a needle in a hay stack with common bass tackle.

    I've managed 6 from 20-21" in about 15 lifetime trips to these two pools. They don't often produce. When they do...

    Think the high water pushes the big fish out of the depths...

    Got to be more spots like this one. Am looking for common elevation elements.

    Heck, if I could just duplicate the deep hole/high water/big fish in eddy/spring phenomenon in a couple of other places. Eager to hit similar areas.

    Going to try a couple of mini trips this week as water falls but is still up.

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