So I'm hauling butt, running late with only around an hour till dark. finally the trail breaks out onto the river bank with a lovely view downstream. I catch movement on the bank opposite. Ok so this a pretty heavily wooded section on the LMR down in a bit of a gorge. A deer I expect, a bear or bigfoot not out of the question. But Not this, Not here. For calmly picking its way down the rocky shore, a long long way from anywhere was... a chicken! I've seen otters, eagles, minks, beavers but this was a first. Unfortunately chickens, I've found, are impossible to see in a photo when photographed at a hundred yards across a river.
The water level wasn't bad but the color is still pretty bad. On a small rock bar filling up an inside bend I picked up an 8" drum on a swimbait. Oh well at least I wasn't skunked. I fished for a while with no more action. Closer to dark I tied on a clone dancer. This is a beautifully finished vibrating crankbait I'm liking a lot. It was given to me to try by my friend Scotty at Queen City Outdoors. I cast it out and reeled it back rather quickly trying to create as much vibration as possible. In a big eddy above a riffle a pretty smallmouth hammered it. After a bit of a battle I snapped a few pictures. Then it flopped right out of my hand just before I could measure it. Not wanting to stress it any further I just realeased it as quickly as I could. I'm guessing somewhere around 17 inches. On the way out a pretty doe let me walk right by her as I hurried down the bike path towards the truck. It sure is nice to be back on the river again...
No comments:
Post a Comment