Good Friday...

It's a pretty sweet deal actually.  I put the yak in and float about a mile down down the river. It's a long slow stretch and pretty easy to paddle back up afterward so there is no need for a car shuttle. About two miles down a creek hits the river. But I don't float all the way down to there. I've learned over the years if I stop about halfway down and hide the yak in the bushes a short five minute walk will have me hitting the creek about 3/4 or a mile up from it's mouth. Right in it's sweet spot. My spot. Where I've never seen a bait container or a piece of fishing line, only deer and beaver and the occasional wild turkey. I try not to overfish it so that all summer when I really need to feel a nice fish on the line I know I can come here and have a good chance at one.I'ts a little creek, just an easy short cast across and in most riffles you can cross in just a pair of rubber boots. But here there are three or four deep runs where you could get very wet if you weren't careful. At the first two gravel bars stretch all the way across the creek like mini low head dams with nice pockets of deep water below them and swift chest deep runs feeding into the holes.
At the Columbus Fishing Expo Vic had a bunch of sweet 1/4 ounce willow leaf spinner baits for sale and I'd nabbed a couple. One of the perks of being cheap help is that you do get to sample the product. Willow leaf spinnerbaits are perfect for current and track thru it where a colorado blade won't. And these spots screamed spinnerbaits. Sure enough at both I caught a dandy smallie right where the fast and slow water meets and lost another big enough to elicit a bit of light cursing. In a creek this size these are mostly one fish spots with a nice smallie tailwalking across the little pools spooking things for a while. The next hole is different. The current is all shunted over against one bank and there is a long deep run right along the bank. One step off the bank and you would be in over your head. And the bank is covered in rock and twisted sycamore roots. I pitched a clear with gold grub out and let it sink deep and drift along as close to bank as I could I get it. (it's been the color of choice all week) Bam! the fish dart out from the rocks and twisted roots and caverns under the water and just hammer the jig. Here in the deeper water catching one doesn't scare the others and I catch a half dozen smallies from ten to fifteen inches. Not as big as the other fish but more of them. Also here and at the next two riffles I start picking up a few white bass and small hybrids starting their spring run.  It's been swell fishing all week and the kind of spring time fishing we dream about but don't get every year, get out and enjoy this one if you can.