Grey Fox...

The thickets and woodlands bordering the river are more often the home of the grey fox than it's more famous brother, the red fox. While the red fox loves nothing more than the open fields and pastures away from the riverbank, the grey fox is right at home. The gray fox's ability to climb trees is shared only with the Asian raccoon dog among canids. Its strong, hooked claws allow it to scramble up trees to escape predators such as the coyote, or to reach food sources. The grey fox is omnivorous and eats everything from rabbits and mice to wild grapes, and the myriad of small creatures that abound along the river.

flood pics...

I think whats so remarkable about this year is not that there was a giant flood but a series of a half dozen separate crests at flood stage.


Heres some older flood pictures...

1959





1913



1959



2008

buzzard babies...

Hatched fron the eggs I showed you about a couple weeks ago, they seem to be doing well

Super fast smallie fly...

With the water FINALLY starting to fall it's time to think about some smallmouth fishing. Here's a super easy smallie fly you can whip out in no time...

Thread a bead on a size 2 or 4 hook.



Like with every fly wrap the shank with thread to keep things from sliding around. Then tie in a tail of mylar and just a bit of deer hair.



Tie in a piece of pearl core braid brown and wrap it forward to form a body



Next tie in a saddle feather and using hackle pliers wrap it around a couple times and tie it off



Ill often stop right there and use the fly as is. Sometimes I'll tie in a wing of mylar and a few whisps of bear hair for a different look.



I call the fly the Junction simply because thats one of my favorite spots on the river to use it.

Big fish...

One day last week Frank came to work with some photos of a really huge bass AND the offer to take a couple of us fishing there. After seeing this picture it didn't take long to decide going there might just be a good idea...



Now Franks a very big man with huge hands so the fish is much bigger than it looks at first glance.



I arrived about a half an hour early and walked around to get a feel for the place. Here a gravel company had dug a series of big pits. Large enough that you could see someone on the other side but not tell who they were. In this spring of neverending rain the nearby river had overflowed and breached the high banks between and was now connected to the back pit. The closest pit was also overflowing running thru a fifty yard channel into the pit by the river. Here at this cut Frank had caught his giant bass. There was current and clear water running into muddy water, the right water temperatures and that magic mojo that only sets up once or twice in a decade. Franksaid he had caught several big fish here along with his giant last week and after looking the place over I certainly believed him. Not wanting to horn in on his spot without him I began fishing around the pits far side while waiting on him. On a small bench two small bass hit a spinnerbait then a better one. A good bass around four pounds...



Soon Frank showed up and we went to his honeyhole. Standing where the channel cut thru from one pit to the next he hauled in one fish after another on a diving crankbait.





Another good sized bass thumped my crankbait...



As action slowed we explored another pit to rest the spot and wait on Josh. This pit was muddy and also breahed by the river and we caught nothing. Nothing that is till Franks crankbait struck something and he was into the fight of a lifetime. In the muddy water the treble hooks had snared a huge fish. Up and down the bank went this huge fish. Forever. After maybe five minutes it rolled up giving us a look at a tail ten inches across. Then back to swimming wherever it wanted with Frank holding on for the ride. Sometime later (a half hour, forty minutes? I'm not sure) it seemed to tire just a bit and began to roll closer to shore. Frank's Moby Dick didn't have the burnt orange color of a huge carp but was more of a blue green. We never got a good look or a positive ID but a buffalo seemed a good guess. The giant had the right color and buffalo get huge. Just as the great fish began to seem to weaken a bit the crankbait popped free. Just like that no big drama it was just on one second and off the next. Josh arrived and we went back to the spot. Where once again they hauled in several fish.



For some reason my luck temporarily left and I caught only one fish. After a couple hours we left to eat and I decided to check out a nearby park for a future trip with the grandkids. Leaving there my way home led past the pits and with forty minuts of daylight left I decided to fish till dark. And some guy was camped on the spot with a lawn chair baitfishing. As i watched he caught a nice bass and released it.



I walked down to where the channel emptied into the muddy water of the other pit. The level in the channel had already fallen since earlier and the outflow looked completely different than just a few hour earlier. The first cast into the mixing water caught a nice bass...





Then one after another till a big fish hit my lure right before dark...



It looked like by tomorrow the water would fall and the cut would be gone. Soon the big bass would spawn and leave the shallows. All the things that had added up to making this magic spot would be gone I was thankful to have been there.

Into the marsh...

With the river in flood and the areas lakes dozens of feet above pool, if I'm going to find clear water around here I'd better head for Spring Valley Wildlife Area and the swamp. With a pair of knee high rubber boots and my camera I head out. Even here the water is high, along the bike trail muddy river water is lapping at one side while the other has the gin clear water of the marsh lapping at it. But the acres of flooded vegetation and cattail marsh act as a giant filter and except where my boots disturb the thick black muck the water is aquarium clear. The back side of the marsh is under water, muck and water cover the trails and no one has been there since the rains started weeks ago. This is of course where, safe in my tall boots, I head...




The swamp is lovely and truthful in a way that belies classic beauty. Not beautiful in the sense a meadow with a feeding moose is or with the beauty of a sunset kissing mountaintops. But instead beauty in a small setting, the perfect square foot teeming with life.







The swamp feels alive. Even smells alive like a wet dog just inside out of the rain.
Except for the water there is little clarity in the swamp. All is rustle, glimpse, and splash. The best way to see anything is to slow down, stop, insinuate yourself into the landscape and let life come to you. Sit quietly on a log with your feet in the muck and watch an open pool. After a bit the eyes of frogs appear on the surface, small birds flit thru the brush. After a long time a snake or a muskrat might swim across the pool. The Earth is a water planet, the TV doesn't call it the blue planet for nothing. And here in the swamp that water wells up out of the land, bubbles to the surface and is filled with life. If you can sit on your log long enough, all day and evening perhaps, dozens of small dramas, life and death struggles, play out before you. Every step I take in the swamp, I must tell myself to slow down, notice everything before taking the next step. For every step opens up tiny windows thru the cattails and willow. Two inches to the left brings a sora into view. Another step and a turtle slides off a log, startled by two steps too close togethor...