7/31- Best day of the Year!

Saturday was pleasantly overcast and in the low 80's. A welcome break from this year's string of upper 80's to low 90's sunny days. Met up with fellow INSA member Jeremy S. We must have gotten on the water around 8:15 or so. We waded down one large flow and up a small tributary.

When we got to the trib, signs that things were gonna be good started popping up. Large fish followed a sunfish back to me and nearly got it. We picked up dinks with a couple of 12-14"ers mixed in.

Jeremy caught his first Indiana smallmouths today. Mostly throwing a tube and swimjig. I was throwing RC/LC/WC 1.5 (you know that by now), R2C, and tube. It was the tube that scored the nicer fish.

Here J has his largest smallie to date on a swimjig:

We had lots of bedrock to walk on so it was usually a comfy walk. Occasionally the bedrock would open up and bass, often good bass would ensue.

Here's an 18"+ smallie who hit a tube in about 5' of water in a wooded 's' curve:

Keeping the tube mostly still for a period seemed to be the ticket.

Here's another 18"+ smallmouth bass. The fish hit and the end of another 'S' curve a wicked cool mess of contorted bedrock and sycamore rootwads.

 

Then I popped a 16" and 15" towards the middle of the 'S'. J  got on the board pulling a bass out of the wood and caught the next three fish on tube at the next pool. Once he figured to stop moving the bait. He started getting bit. I got a couple nice ones on a 5" grub 14" and 16.25".

We hit a bedrock pool with plenty of ledge to wedge and shade. It was on. Must have caught 15 bass from that pool on WC and tube. Bigger bass missed the bait. Waded further adding more dinks so it became an outrageous numbers game. Rock bass o plenty joined in with a few in the 9" range.

We ran out of good water due to long bedrock so we headed back. J had to be back to Lafayette.

He got 13 or so. That is a good start.

I went and got lunch and hit a second flow. Oh, the second flow! I wanted to wade down to a large pool that was too deep to wade through last time so I had turned around. This time, I started at the riffles above the pool, knowing the low water would have active fish in oxygenated water. The overcast sky should have the big boys participating like stream #1!

First hole had a fish on WC, from there a 15"er and other nice 12-13" bass. The presentation was to rip upstream, pause and wobble it away. This worked like a charm in 8" of water in the riffle above the large pool. Two big fish came at the bait, the largest had it. For a moment, I thought I had them both! Run, change of direction. The fish looked huge even compared to the larger fish of this AM. Couldn't believe I had hooked one of these monsters in this small stream. When I got it to hand, the head was huge! The fish barely broke 20"!

The sun finally came out. I spied shade under the large cliff along the huge pool. The bottom would be bedrock and should be somewhat shallow along its base. I carefully waded down. Presenting WC to the shade as I went. 15"er, 18.25"er on splashdown hit, 17.25" Smallie who pursued with a partner, mouthed the WC when I killed it. Awesome fights on the new 7'6" ML XF Avid John Bunner Custom rods made for me.

I then waded upstream. The fish upstream didn't want much to do with my baits until I hit fresh water. Pulled a couple 13"'s and a 15" out of the only depth in quite a while at one rootwad. Added a bunch of dinks on R2C and caught my all time best 72 stream bass. Just awesome.

The slower and clearer the water, the more you have to present to smallies at distance.

72 Bass-70 SMB, 2 LMB (20", 3-18.25", 17.25", 16.25", 16", 6-15") 17 misc fishes of the creek