Urban Bass
PART 1: Thursday -
I've been working my ass off for the past few weeks. The attorney I work for had a jury trial scheduled for August 21st and August 22nd, which means I've worked the past three weekends. Additionally, I started back to my last semester of law school on August 21st. Basically, fishing time has been elusive. We've all been there, but the itch is particularly bad considering the condition of Indiana's rivers right now. To say river smallie fishing is hot right now would be a major understatement. Smallie fishing is smoldering and I've been staring at drywall. I finally had enough on Thursday night...
I get out of class around 7:30 p.m. and the smallie water between school and home is negligible. I know about one decent place to get wet and I decided to take a quick look. The weather was perfect and I had to scratch the itch. The spot I stopped at is weird to say the least. It's a boulder dam with shoots of water constantly flowing through. There's no real reverse suction and no fall from the overhead dam, so it's relatively safe. I've stopped there once before and I immediately left because there were more than 100lbs of catfish rotting on the bank from some idiot who either forgot his fish or enjoyed wasting them. The Dam gets absolutely hammered by bank fishermen since you can park there and crawl out to the middle of the river, but it looked relatively sparse last Thursday.
I stopped even though I did not having anything other than a few crayfish flies and my 5wt Echo Base. I didn't even have wading clothes, but I went in the water in my jeans and tennis shoes... That's how hard up I was. All the guys around me are fishing live bait with giant lead weights. A few stripers are coming in and a guy in a kayak is slaying with conventional bass gear. The kayaker lands a decent Smallmouth from what I could see from my vantage point (I later learned it was around 18"). So, I crawled out on the boulder dam and start fly casting near the middle of the splash pool.
People from the nearby running trail and my fellow river anglers are mesmorized and looking at me like I'm an alien as a result of my long and looping fly casts. I was a foreigner in this carp and catfish paradise. About 10 minutes into my display and after suffering through an embarrassing gear malfunction, I dead drift my crayfish cross-current. The fly gets down in the water column and I can feel it bouncing perfectly off boulders. About 20 seconds into my drift, I get absolutely throttled. A broad shouldered smallie breaks surface, much to the delight of my audience, and I spend the next 5 minutes getting high on the tug. My little 5 wt was doubled over and I finally brought the 18" smallie to hand. I got an ovation from a few of my fellow fishermen and a fist pump from a jogger who stopped to take in my display. I snapped a photo and he flopped back in the water. All in all, it was a good impromptu little stop and something I desperately needed. I sat on the top of the dam for another few minutes and enjoyed the last sun soaked moments of the day. Even though I was in the city still and around a bunch of other people, I can't help but be romantic about river fly fishing for meat eating Smallies.
