Staycation Pic Dump

Went on vacation 3rd week of September. Just stayed here in Indiana and fished 3 different streams. 4 days out of 7. One was a quick trip. Got 11 over 18, including a couple of 19.5" and a 20.25".

I had planned to fish every day of vacation, as it turns out flows  have really decent amount of water in them compared to most Septembers in Indiana. It made the 2 5 mile wades so tiring. A lot of river channels are flattened out, making them unfishable and very spooky water for the wader. Of course, the timber having moved, put some of these pigs totally in play to long casts with topwaters.

Smallies Last Couple Times Out

After Work Bonanza 8-8-19, Follow the Shad Young Man

I need to get in shape. Really. Got to the river by about 3 pm. Immediately was on bass hitting shad balls. 8 right above the bridge. And this is a well traveled location. Highlighted by this 18" that followed a 15" I caught back to me. Promptly lined up in 4" of water in the shade and immediately hit my Sammy. All about 10' away from me.Uh, ok. Cool.

When I moved out of the shade into a rocky outside bend, the blow ups and come up out of the water strikes greatly outnumbered fish caught. I think something about bright light makes it hard. Or maybe just angry and not hungry?

The fishing was like last Friday, difference is I had picked a LONG wade. But I'm here to tell you, it was incredible. Later it rained and the bass just kept hitting my Sammy in the rain. Another 18".

At one pool I caught like 5 White bass and another 18.

later, this 18.5" off a log at the end of a long straight pool.

I often saw 4-8 other bass follow back the hooked fish. No doubles today. Maybe I should bring an A rig...Fish after fish but always more missing.

I had to hurry to get out of the valley and to my bike as it started to get dark. I pushed 5+ miles on foot, and then took the Huffy back to the car in the dark

Finished with 60 SMB and 5 other bass in 5.5 hours of fishing.4 18-18.5", 4-17-17.5", 9-16"

Just a nutty catch rate. Making up for the last couple months of absolute crap fishing pretty quickly.

Hitting Smalljaws with Zack? 8/4/19

Got out and fished on Sunday with Zack. It's been how long? Can't remember. We usually have pretty good success together.

You can see behind me in this next pic, the eroded banks. Par for the course, this mid lower section has seen a lot of bank erosion and consequently a lot of river channel change. We had some fish show up randomly here and there first on shad swimbaits and then on WhopperPlopper for me. Eventually, we just rainmanned the Whopper Ploppers. I think I had like 10 blow ups in one spot in the shade. Then nothing for like miles it seemed. Bass on this day didn't seem to like the bright sun. Unfortunately, on this river finesse just doesn't seem to be efficient. Plentiful balls of shad everywhere.

We both hit 17"ers and later I got this random 19.5" smallmouth from the random middle of a featureless pool. Wrapped me several times on a twig but stayed attached.

I think I had 10 and Zack 8 before we just called it quits and walked out on the road. Good to fish with Zack though.

I'm Back!.Wade to End the World. 8-2-2019

Tap, tap, tap. Where to start? I moved back to Indianapolis last September in a fit of (in)sanity. Of course I still fish, there is always the fishing. My job as Business Analyst has me solving problems in much the same way you read me deciphering what the fish want on this blog. Its ok.

2 dogs now.

2019 has Indiana seeing a ridiculous amount of rainfall. So much, I mostly stayed inside and worked on problems no one else wanted to actually solve. I inherited the ability to see problems to be solved others mostly want to ignore.Am I truly three steps ahead, or just out of the loop? Like with fishing ,results matter. I've gotten those without fail. Everything can be improved through analysis. That's a whole spot of crap on a white shirt, and you're all here for random secrets to catching more fish, bass nymphomaniacs, Al Queda seeking Anthrax, poor soup cooks, all.

A lot of rain, and I mean A LOT OF RAIN does a few things to our fisheries:

• Erosion displacing scour holes, filling in the river, or scouring the river just right. Like all things, caveat, what has changed? Better or worse?
• So far, worse. Nutrients in the water. Animal pooh, human pooh, lawn fertilizer, farm fertilizer runoff all contribute negatively to smallmouth bass fishing our flow water by changing the chemistry of the water the quarry lives in. Rain puts a lot of it in the river where it clouds water clarity
• Smallmouth are sight fish and need to see to feed. (prefer)
• High water limits the presentations that are effective.

Because of all these factors, I have mostly sat it out since March. With many failed attempts and my usual productivity.

Enter last Friday. My statewide search for a stream with some decent water clarity found my up near some headwaters where the damage would be reduced.

Started around 8 and did something over the next 8 hours and only heard legend of. Walk the dog in the shade at the back of pools and in shade near riffles. I killed it. Look:

74 SMB 3 other bass 1-20", 1-19", 3-18", 14 17"-17.75", 10 16"

That's right 29 Indiana Smallmouth bass over 16", 19 over 17". Crazy.

Fishing High on the River 7-31-19

I'm back into it. 40 SMB 19, 17.5", 2-16"