The ten

If you count my lousy attempts to catch a shark that wasn't a baby I'd been fishing nine days in a row. So if I went today it would be ten. Double digit days in a row. That only happens maybe once or twice a year for me so that was my excuse to sneak out for a couple hours before work. Middle of the day. Hot. Sunny. Just goes to show the best time to fish is when you can. I hunted up the fastest water I knew of. It's a chute of water about ten feet across that is really moving. Like faster than the water below a lowhead dam fast. Maybe below a dam on the Ohio fast. Scary fast. In a stream that you can wade across in a lot of places. This time of year I find I have the best luck on quality fish in fast water close to deep water. I think the fish's metabolism is ramped up so they want to feed. But it's hot so they want deep cooler water. So they make feeding runs up into that fast water that has lots of oxygen all day long then back to their deep spot, then repeat. At least that's my swat (scientific wild ass theory). Anyways that chute of water has a big eddy curling back upstream that's actually moving faster than most riffles on the rest of the stream. That's how fast the chute is. I positioned myself about ten feet below the eddy made a short cast into the edge of the chute and let the clear with silver flake grub tumble out of the chute and curl back upstream along the bank. Wham! and the fish ran right into the fast water. The rod bent double as the fish used the heavy current. I thought for sure it was a medium sized shovelhead. That is till it went airborne. Then airborne again. Then back into the heavy current. Finally after a longer than usual fight because of the fast water I finally landed the fish. No twenty incher like I'd thought. Heck the 19.5 I'd landed with Dan this spring was a smidge longer but not nearly as heavy. Ten days in a row got me a fish that was a ten in my book. Fat healthy and colored gorgeously, I couldn't have been happier with her...