Night of the Crappie

I went out last night and fished from 8:00-9:30pm.  I fished a spot that I fish at often.  I have fished this stretch of river every summer for the last four or five years.  I thought I knew every hole, and each fish by first name.  Each summer I catch one, maybe two white crappie in this stretch.  Last night I caught three white crappie in one night!  The first came with a flash of silver and a nice tug, it turned out to be a real slab.  I caught two others that were not as big, but were still good sized crappies.  I also caught a really big smallmouth.  Normally this smallmouth would have been the highlight of the night, and it was a joy to catch.  Last night was the special and unique because of the crappie trifecta.  It seemed almost like the crappie outnumber the smallmouth here based on my catch rate last night, but I know its the other way around.

Cuyahoga Valley National Park

Its name means crooked river.  Clevelanders know it as the burning river.  The Cuyahoga earned the nickname burning river because the water on the river caught fire.  While it caught fire at least 13 times in its history, the Cuyahoga River claimed its name after the 1969 fire brought the river into the national spot light as the most polluted river in the country.  That fire resulted in the Clean Water Act and the creation of the EPA.  

Just south of where I live we have a wonderful natural resource, Cuyahoga Valley National Park.  The park has been there my whole life, when I was younger it was a National Recreation Area.  In 2000 Cuyahoga Valley was upgraded to a National Park.  I’ve driven through the park to get to places like Blossom Music Center or Peninsula Ohio, but I have never hiked around or fished in the park.  The Towpath Trail runs through the park along the Cuyahoga River from Akron to Cleveland.

I’d always avoided fishing the Cuyahoga because its reputation for being polluted.  A few years ago I began to hear stories about people fishing the Cuyahoga for steelhead and more recently for small mouth bass.  After hearing about huge small mouth caught with big crayfish sticking out of their gullet I decided I had to go fish the crooked river that caught fire years ago.

My wife came with me.  She walked the towpath trail while I fished the river.  I was surprised at the size of this river.  It is big water, actually huge water compared to the upper Chagrin where I normally fish for small mouth.  I covered about a quarter mile stretch of water rather quickly since I only had two hours before I was supposed to meet my wife at the car.  I accessed the river at a bridge near the parking lot.  I fished under the bridge and down river a bit where I caught a 10” smallie.  Ok, I got the skunk off, but it was not an impressive fish by any means.  I walked up stream and around the bend to where a braided section of river came back together.  This water looked very fishy, I was sure there was a huge bass lurking in there.  I tried everything.  I swung and stripped streamers.  I dead drifted and slowly stripped crayfish through the pool.  I even fished poppers on the seams and near the rocky bank.  I only had one fish follow and refuse a foot away from the rod tip.  I just couldn’t catch a fish.

I made sure I was back at the bridge where I started about 10 minutes before I was supposed to meet my wife.  I called her to see where she was, she was about 15 minutes away.  I decided to fish the up-stream side of the bridge where I only devoted a couple of casts when I began fishing.  I caught another smallmouth in the soft water between the bank and the bridge column.  I released the fish and continued to work that area.  Something smashed the crayfish fly and pulled hard.  I felt a few head shakes, saw a flash of bronze and the line went limp.  I lost a huge smallmouth!!  I put several more casts into the area, but that fish was not going to be fooled a second time.  The phone rang as I was changing flies.  As I answered the phone I dropped the fly in the water losing it, I reeled in my line; it was time to go.

The National Park is beautiful and the Cuyahoga has a healthy population of smallmouth.  I managed to catch a few fish the first time out.  I will definitely be back.  There is so much to explore and miles of new water to fish.                 

Crayfish, its whats for dinner

I got out for a couple of hours on Friday night.  I caught a few smallmouth, some creek chubs and a few rock bass.  One of the rockbass was a real slab of a fish.  The fish of the day was also the fish of the summer so far.  It was an 18" beast of a smallmouth.  All the fish I caught that night were on a crayfish pattern.  When I landed this huge small mouth I noticed its last meal was still sticking out of its gullet.  The bass had eaten a HUGE crayfish.  The crayfish's large claw and an antenna was sticking out of the fish's gullet, but you could tell it was more like a small lobster than a  crayfish.  This thing had to be four or five times the size of my fly.   Big food = big fish.  I need to tie some bigger crayfish flies.



Check out the cool black edges on its fins

Mmm... crayfish!

  

Day Trip to Oil Creek

On May 19, I left the house early and headed to Oil Creek.  I arrived at about 9:00ish.  I rigged up real fast then headed to the special regs area near the parking lot.  Fish were rising.  I caught several browns and rainbows on dry flies before noon when things on top slowed down.  I re-rigged with a tandem nymph rig and began fishing subsurface.  I had a few fish on and off and decided to break for lunch and a trip to the fly shop.  After a pb&J sandwich I headed to the fly shop grabbed some flies and got some direction for a good place to set up for the sulpher hatch at dusk.  Then I headed to a spot in the middle of the park where I fished a few heavy runs and caught several rainbows nymphing.  I noticed some fish rising upstream and switched to a dry fly to fish the surface for risers.  I missed a couple of fish, and put a few others down before I left to drive down river to get in position for the sulpher hatch.  When I got there, there were anglers lined up almost shoulder to shoulder.  I walked down stream and found a spot to squeeze into.  The bugs started but never really got going strong.  Some fish were rising but not many.  I fished to two risers one to my ten o-clock the other to my twelve o-clock.  I stated with an emerger and a dun without any luck.  When I saw a spinner in the water I replaced the emerger with a rusty spinner.  I couldn’t buy a fish.  It was completely frustrating.  At about the same time it got too dark to see the fly, the fished seemed to shut down.  I got out the head lamp and began the long walk back to the car.  By the time I broke down my rod and packed up the car it was about 9:45 when I hit the road for home.  I was starving, I had a two hour ride to get home, and I still had to pack for the Vegas trip.  I was going to have to leave the house at 5:15am the next morning to get to the airport to catch the flight to Vegas.  It was going to be a long day, but it was so worth it!    

     

Afternoon on Neshannock

Since I couldn’t go to Central PA, I began looking for afternoon and day trip opportunies closer to home.  It turned out the heavy rain missed Western PA, but provided enough water to cool the streams and bring water levels up to normal from levels.  On Thursday of two weeks ago, I headed to Neshannock creek in hopes of catching the brown drake hatch.  I got there I didn’t see any bugs on the water, but there were a ton of bugs in the air.  I saw a number of rises and quickly began casting a dry fly to the rise forms.  I started catching shiners and creek chubs.  It turned out the trout were not really rising.  As the afternoon faded into evening, I saw a couple of trout sporadically rise, but couldn’t bring any to the surface.  All I had to show for my trip were a few shiners and creek chubs… it was a real disappointment.  

  

Plan B

Two weeks ago I was supposed to be trout fishing in central PA while my wife was in DC, that didn’t happen.  Since I was stuck at home with no responsibility after work, I went fishing and fished until dark thirty.  I fished four bodies of water in an evening.  First I fished the river near my house and caught a couple of creek chubs and smallies.  Then I headed to a small tributary of the river near where I was fishing and picked off some fish with a distinct black lateral line and a small creek sunfish on dry flies. 

 From there it was off to a local pond for blue gills on dry flies, then another small creek near the pond.  The final destination was a second pond about a quarter mile from the first.  When it got too dark to fish, I headed out for dinner.  The fishing was great.  I caught more fish than could count, bass, blue gill, and small stream fish on dries and streamers.    It was a great evening.

Rained out

I was supposed to go to central PA last week to chase the green drake hatch on Penns, but it started raining on Sunday and rained all week blowing out all of the central PA streams.  I was bummed.  The next time I will be able to go to central PA is at least a week or so into June.  The Drakes will be gone and who knows if there will be any kind of hatch and if the weather will cooperate.  I sure hope I can chase some central PA trout this season, but it’s not looking good.