Much ado about nothing...

I had big fishing plans this weekend...  This year has been rough for Indiana's river Smallmouth fishermen.  The windows for prime Smallmouth water have been small and there have been very few weekends that fishermen could choose their water without worry of high water or incoming storms.   Don't get me wrong, there have been plenty of chances to fish good looking water, but you had to choose your rivers carefully and choose the time you would hit those waters carefully.   This weekend things were lining up for prime water. It was fisherman's choice for any river and any time to hit those rivers.   

My wife had to work Saturday morning, which means I had the rugrats.  Then, my brother had only a short window to get out on Saturday.  I decided to forego the prime waters and explore a new skinny stretch of a local stream. My brother and I have been fishing this stream since we were 8 years old, but we went way upstream with the long rods to see if there were some hidden honey holes.   The stretch held a good population of Smallmouth, but it had some negative signs.   Namely, the carp and suckers we ran into were on the small side.   It may not be a perfect system, but I've found that big carp/suckers = big smallmouth.   We ended up with around 25 in three hours with a 16" Spotted Bass and a 17.5" Smallmouth (10 x SMB Jeremiah and 14 x SMB and 1 x Spot). This was some skinny freaking water and a stretch we likely won't repeat.   Oh well, I knew I was planning to go out Sunday evening...

For Sunday, the bench was empty and I was on my own.   Josh had plans to go out with one of his best buddies, Dustin (aka "Mexican MacGyver" - a story for another day). Josh planned to hit a stretch of water on the same river I was planning to wade that evening.  I'm sure he'll blog about how great of a morning he had and how he couldn't miss... yadda... yadda... yadda.  On Sunday around 10:15 a.m. I just checked-in to see how Josh and Dustin were faring.   He texted back that they were near 100 Smallmouth to hand. Man, 4:00 p.m. couldn't come quick enough!

An hour into my stretch that evening, I still hadn't caught a single fish.   Not a dink, Rock Bass or even a Pumpkin Seed...  I rationalized the first 15 minutes by saying I wasn't in good water yet and I had a fly rod, blah, blah, blah.  After 15 minutes, there were no valid excuses...  I was feeling pretty good about my prowess as a fishermen, needless to say.   I decided to slow things down and just dead drift a size 6 popper with no movement whatsoever.   About 45 seconds into a dead drift through slow water, BOOM! I ripped my rod to the side and landed the crap out of a relatively huge Rock Bass. I almost took a picture, but I think taking a picture of a Rock Bass is only acceptable when you're catching other fish.  The next cast yielded a 15" Smallmouth and the cast after yielded a 14" Smallmouth. They usually barely suck down the poppers when you work them this way, but they were straight up inhaling these poppers and moving major water.   As I fought one of the Smallmouth, I caught a glimpse of a monster chasing the fish I had hooked.  I stood in the same spot and landed 10 Smallmouth.  

I moved down to the first medium speed riffle and caught another 20 Smallies without moving my feet. Dead drift all the way.   Most of the fish were in the 13"-16" range, so the current made for good fighting.  I collected a couple more in the 15" range downstream and then headed back towards the truck.  On my way back, I hit a tight spot near the bank that was guarded by a couple boulders.  I broke off a "monster" there a couple weeks ago with a blue popper.  I dead drifted my popper down and hooked up with a long and skinny Smallie.  He coughed out a blue popper and I picked it up before landing him. He looked like the popper had made it difficult for him to hunt or eat effectively.  The popper is surprisingly in good condition.  Kind of a cool souvenir for the trip. 

With about 45 minutes of daylight left, I cast my popper into the very bottom of a long pool.   There couldn't have been more than 6" of water in this spot.  I could see a big tail moving back and forth, so I knew there was a big fish hunting in this spot.  I put my popper about 2 feet to the left and upstream of this fish without putting my fly line over him.   About 5 seconds after my popper touched the water, he ripped towards my popper, moving a considerable amount of water.   He missed and I couldn't entice him again.  I know this stretch holds big fish.   Maybe the fish that ripped towards my popper was the 23" I've been looking for... Either way, you gotta love summer Smallmouthing.