8-27-22 Late Bite Turns on.

 

L

38 Smb 18.99", 18.5", 2 16". Niu also had his first 20 fish day. One almost 19" and a nice 17.5".

8-29-22 After Work Slayfest

 

42 smb in 3.5 hours

8-21-22

 

81 smb couple of 20's and a 19. Great day.

8-13-2022 Wow Smallmouth, Thanks!

 Man, what a day! Stream smallmouth populations wax and wane. Various factors, floods, poor recruitment, fish kills, habitat loss, predation by otters, eagles, and man. I've been following one vein of gold in a certain area of the state for a few years as old stand bys wane. The 18" size class has been piling up this year, but it had been nearly a year since I landed a 20" smallmouth bass. That changed Saturday as in the last month, I've been in a complete different area I've neglected for half a decade.

I set out around 930, water was cooler than I expected and slightly up from normal flow for late summer. Last week had seen a three inch rain dump, but there had been plenty of time to clear. Flats filled with bait fish were now available to hungry summer smallmouth, who frankly have been facing super high water temps this summer. Water flowed steadily through each boulder strewn riffle. Key here was not fast. I found fish at each choke point with shade, flats created by riffles.

Early caught 3 12-14"ers on a worm right in the 'faster' stuff. This showed my the beginning of the pattern that would hold all day. At one bend in the river, I hooked and tried to bulldog one huge fish, who head shook and came free. Long enough to see he was huge for what I expected. Thick and in the 19"+ range. Bummer. But I had 5 miles to go on foot and the rocky creek would be very challenging wade. 

More fish on the worm. I got confident in it to my detriment a few minutes later at the perfect push water lined with water willows and strewn with boulders. Tossing the 'weedless' worm, I hung up on a root and awkwardly balanced on softball sized rocks as I switched to my second topwater rod with a Sammy clipped on. When the lure hit the water, it was immediately annihlated. I knew it was really big. The fight was unreal, soon I was tripping on my other rod that still had the line out forward. I let it drop in the river as fear of losing the large bass gripped me. for a moment I allowed slack, this allowed the fish to get an enormous amount of steam and head for the fast riffle. As I tried to bulldog it to shore near me, the hooks pulled free. Enough to see a brilliant bass in the 20-21" range. What was going on? This river doesn't produce 2 chances like that in my experience.

So imagine self criticism, for about 5 minutes when the plunge pool became a wide, shallow, shaded flat below a riffle. Another giant blow up and lengthy fight brought this 19"er to hand:

After that, I had the mojo working, Sammy worm, worm Sammy. Stacked up and front and rear of every riffle. I was losing or missing a lot of fish on the Sammy. I would later surmise the bass were doing a lot of head shaking and the pressure + drag equation was pulling a lot of hooks loose. I didn't figure this out for 7 hours.

A shaded plunge pool produced a massive whiff, to which I saw a large fish circle to the push area behind a boulder as the pool funneled into another riffle. I switched to worm and pulled 2 fish. on the third try the large fish had circulated back and grabbed my worm. It was on. Determined not to make the same mistakes as she headed down stream, I gave slack line when she jumped, as the worm was not heavy enough to throw. This worked well. I soon had this beautiful 20"er to hand:

Seriously, I'm glad I looked elsewhere to fish, because this was exactly what I needed to break my 20"slump. Incredible action so far. I was catching fish everywhere by now, very few under 12". As I moved up to a laydown push water area, Sammy was quickly destroyed by another huge fish, a short struggle and she popped off right in a bunch of boulders and I scrambled to scoop her up. It must have been quite the sight! Incredibly, another 20" smallmouth bass. It was bizarre. I've caught a couple 20's on 5 or 6 occasions, but never have I hooked into at least 3 and maybe 4. There just aren't that many chances at that size class of fish in these streams. 

It kept up. At another laydown push water, Sammy was destroyed. Before I could pull the fish away, he had already swum a loop around the log and logged my Sammy in it. Took a break and nabbed a couple 17"'s.

There weren't any more huge fish opportunities, but I did hit 15-17" fish often the rest of the day. After 5, I hit my mid point bridge and had to rush a bit. Followed by a white dog, which happens once a year. I finally remembered to keep my rod tip down to prevent jump that were shaking loose a lot of Sammy fish. I loosed my drag a bit. 40, 50,60, 70, 80....Army cramping from fighting fish and working that Sammy.

89 smallmouth bass 5 other fish 2-20", 1-19", 4-17", 3-16", 9-15" in 10 hours 5 miles and a 3 mile bike shuttle which was sweet, sweet sweet after all that.

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"