The great outdoors

Here are some pictures of the natural beauty of the river and critters that call it home. 

Swallows nested in the side of a cliff

Hello Mr. Crayfish

Secret Waterfall

Deer 10' from me (taken with my phone)

Koi  fish

Sunday Moring Trifecta

I hit the river yesterday morning at about 7:00am.  It was already 85 degrees and humid.  The water was warm, over 80 degrees.  The flow was about 60 CFS, low and clear conditions.  I decided to explore and fish a new stretch of water between two places where I’ve fished a lot.  I found some decent water separated by long stretches of fishless water that was real skinny and had no structure.  I finally got to a nice pool and pulled a couple of smallmouth and even a few largemouth from.  In the next pool down, I got a good tug and found an acrobatic smallmouth on the end of my line.  It was a good sized fish.   I kept working downstream and hooked a real beast of a fish a good 18 incher, maybe bigger.  Then, from the same spot I must have pulled 10 or more rock bass on successive casts.  I kept going back to this spot until I came up empty.  I came to a large bend pool and worked a brush pile at the bend.  I caught a 12 inch fish.  As I was stripping the small bass in, a huge smallmouth chased it down and almost ate the fish I had caught.  It was a holy sh!t moment.  I’ve seen that kind of thing before, but it always amazes me.  I immediately put on a big streamer and went back to see if the big fish was still juiced up and would hit the streamer.  No luck there, he wasn’t fooled.  I walked down stream and started working the flats of a huge pool down from the bend.  I spooked a carp and caught another good sized smallmouth.  The last big bass I caught came working a crayfish across the bottom of the big pool.  I got the fly within a few feet of the rod tip and stopped to untangle the fly line.  When I went to pick up for another cast there was a small tug at first.  I set the hook and the fight was on.  At first I thought it was a carp because of how hard the fish pulled.  I got the fish on the reel and finally worked it to the surface to find that it was another huge bass!  Three huge bass in one morning and several other good sized fish, it was a great morning.  I headed out at 11:00 for brunch one very happy angler.         

Smallies on Hoppers

I’ve been tying hoppers in preparation for my trip to Yellowstone.  I decided to take one of my recently tied hoppers for a test spin.  First cast, bam!  A sunfish came up and wacked it.  I caught a couple of smallies on the hopper too.  In a short hour on the water, my hopper stung several fish.  I can’t wait to see how the trout like them!

Big crayfish for big smallmouth

Most books on smallmouth fishing say to fish small crayfish flies because the big crayfish put up too much of a fight and the little ones are an easy meal.  It makes sense; big crayfish with big claws are going to nip something in the fight.  I’ve caught some big bass on small crayfish flies too.  Earlier this summer, I caught a big bass with a huge crayfish sticking out of its gullet.  At that point I knew I needed to get some big crayfish flies.  I finally got a nice big size 2 crayfish fly with some really big lead eyes to sink it.  I caught three smallmouth on this fly today and all were nice fat bass.  The critics agree, big crayfish catch big smallmouth. 

On a side note, people are pigs.  I picked up a bunch of trash on my way out today.  I threw away some tangled up fishing line, an empty granola bar box and granola bar rappers, and a kid’s raft.  I’m sure the raft got away accidentally, that’s why they prohibit them in the park.

I saw a snapping turtle and an orange koi fish.  Someone must have dumped the koi fish in the river, they certainly are not native.  I took pictures of both under water.  The snapper is hard to see because it was getting dark and the water was deep and dark.  It was pretty cool to see these critters.    

First smallmouth on a popper this season

My goal has been to catch a smallmouth on a popper for the first time this season.  I have not fished a popper much yet this season because I have not seen any surface activity and when I’ve been out I haven’t had a whole lot of time to fish so I’ve been fishing flies that I knew would have the highest chance of catching a fish. 

Yesterday evening I went out for a couple of hours before my wife got home for dinner.  It was 94 degrees and humid.  The river was low and cloudy and over 85 degrees.  I decided I was going to fish a popper until I caught a fish.  Nothing in the first pool I fished, on to the next pool.  I worked the rocky bank where there is a drop off pretty hard.  The first few casts didn’t get any kind of reaction.  On the sixth or seventh cast through this pool, a large dark shadow emerged below the popper.  As the shadow emerged, it become clear that it was a very large smallmouth, it hovered below the popper inspecting it.  I gave the popper a twitch.  The huge fish could not resist and ate the fly.  I struck to set the hook.  I felt a slight tug and lost the connection.  The fish quickly disappeared into the deep.  I switched flies out of desperation because I couldn’t get a fish to eat the popper.  I caught a rock bass on a crayfish fly on the last cast to avoid the skunk.

I went out again today.  It was 93 degrees and humid today.  The water was over 85 degrees.  The water was still low and cloudy, but had cleared some with about two feet if limited visibility.  I began fishing a crayfish fly because it was still rigged from last night and I wanted to get the skunk off before I switched to a popper.  I quickly caught a beautifully colored sunfish, and then a crappie.  I decided to switch to the popper for the rest of the evening.

I cast across a slow pool and gave the fly one good pop after it hit the water near the far bank.  A big smallmouth crushed the fly!  The fish leaped two feet out of the water, shook its head and threw the fly.  I was disgusted when I lost this fish.  It was a “f*cking damn it” moment!  Two big smallmouth lost on the popper.  Was I striking too soon?  Was the hook point dull?  What was I doing wrong?  Why was I losing these big fish?  Why couldn’t I land a bass on a popper?

I shook it off and kept fishing the popper.  I was determined to land a smallmouth on a popper today.  I worked my way around the bend and began working some rip rap on the far bank.  BAM! Fish on!! I finally landed a big smallmouth on the popper for the first time this season.  It was a nice feeling to finally have some success with the popper after some big disappointments.  I kept working the rip rap and caught another smallmouth, a big rock bass with some kind of parasite, and another good sized smallmouth.  I had worked my way to some posted property and had one small pool left to fish.  This pool had an eddy at the head of the pool and a downed tree on the far side of the pool.  I worked the eddy without a response and moved on to the downed tree.  First cast near the tree was a déjà vu moment.  A big dark shadow appeared from the depths below the fly; it hovered below the fly for a moment and sipped it in.  A brief tug and the fish was gone.  I saw it turn and swim away.  This was one of the biggest bass I have ever seen in this river.  It was literally the size of a carp; I could not believe I lost another big fish.  F*ck!

On the way back to the car I made a little friend, a squirrel that kept following me in a playful kind of way.  He was pretty cute so I took some pictures of him.              

Quick outing before dinner

 I took an hour and went fishing before dinner last night.  It was warm and humid out, about 82 and cloudy.  The water was warm, above 80.  Warm water usually means aggressively feeding fish.  I really wanted to catch my first fish this summer on a popper.  I fished a white popper without luck.  Since I was short on time, I changed flies and went with a crayfish fly because they were pretty active.  I must have seen more than a dozen crayfish dart under rocks as I walked trhough the stream.  On the thrid cast with the crayfish fly, it got crushed by a big smallmouth.  After a good fight and the obligatory picture, I let him go and continued to fish.  I hooked one more smaller bass on the crayfish fly and then decided to switch to another popper now that I got the skunk off.  I threw a yellow diver for a while, I had one fish nip at it and one follow that wouldn't commit.  I walked down stream to another pool where a creek comes in and put a few casts through there before I had to go to meet my wife for dinner.  I caught two good fish, but still haven't gotten one on the popper yet this year.

Green Trout

I went out for an hour after work yesterday.  I fished a stretch of river that is about a 15 minute drive down stream from my house.  It's a short stretch of fishable water about a quarter mile of access.  Going upstream, there are two pools, then some pocket water before a bend in the river where the river transitions into frog water.  The first two pools were a bust.  The pocket water usually fishes well, but most of the pocket water was too low to hold fish yesterday.  I picked off a very aggressive fish in the last pocket before the frog water.  This bass leaped out of the water like a wild rainbow and continued to fight more like a trout than a bass, finally when I landed the fish, it was long and slender like a trout.  This smallmouth was basically a green trout.  I fished the tailout of the frog water near where a small creek dumps in and caught a few other small bass before heading home for dinner.