Sunday morning on the Grand

I headed to the Grand River Sunday for a morning of fishing. I haven’t fished the Grand in a while and I was hoping it would be a productive morning. I woke up at 6:00am and was packed up and leaving the house by 6:30am with a cup of coffee to go. I arrived at the park at about 7:00am. I got into the woods and the vegetation was out of control. The weeds and bushes were as tall as I am. As I fought my way through the brush the mosquitos were swarming around me. As long as I kept moving quickly they did not have a chance to land and bite me. I walked up river to a spot that I expected would produce some fish, where there is a nice run with a bolder covered bottom. It’s a great steelhead run, but the river has a lot more water during steelhead season. I got there and you could see the bottom clearly. There was nowhere for the fishies to hide. I fished through anyhow and nobody was home, as I expected. I continued up stream and again, I found low water and nobody home. One to the next run… As I arrived at the third run, I saw a bass hugging the bank. The fish shot off into the depths of the run as I walked by. Ok, that was a good sign; at least I saw a fish here. On the second or third cast to into this run, I hooked up with a shiner. At least I wasn’t going home with the skunk. I continued down stream into the pool below the run and I saw bait fish being pushed up. That means one thing, a bass was feeding below. I cast just beyond and ripped the fly through the area where the bait fish were jumping out of the water and bam, fish on! I fought the fish in and I was about to grab it by the jaw when it jumped up at me and threw the hook. I could have caught the fish in my hand it was so close when it threw the hook. I continued to fish and caught my first smallie fo the day on a sculpin patern. Fishing on downstream, I began to work a bolder field that was mid pool; I hopped a crayfish fly across the tops of the rocks and caught another smallie and then a rock bass on a clouser minnow. I was now working my way back toward the car and going over water I had already fished when I pulled out another smallie. I continued fishing, but that was the end of the catching for the day. I expected the fishing to be better than it was. I’m not sure if it was the low clear water, or the fact that I’m not used to fishing such large water for bass, or a little bit of both; regardless, the fishing could have been better. I really had to work for the fish I did catch that morning.