getting muddy with it...

Sometimes you are rewarded for fishing when everything is all blown out and almost thick enough to walk on. . In an up and muddy Ohio River. Nothing like having a shovelhead longer than your leg nail a five inch clear with silver grub four feet off the bank. Lucky for the paddlefish I hooked it, it had a jigging spoon stuck firmly in its back where it had broken off someone else.

The biggest smallie I've ever caught out of the Little Miami...

So southern Ohio rivers aren't exactly a mecca for smallmouth anglers. Nobody travels from four states away to fish them like people do rivers in other states. Heck what we do here in southern Ohio is go to the New, or the James or the Susquehanna. Or we go to Lake St Clair or Erie or the BWCA. We have some great fish here don't get me wrong, it's just not exactly trophy fishing. But it's home so I fish our rivers a lot. Like 150 to 200 days a year. Every year. And just about my favorite river is the Little Miami. Now the Little Miami isn't even the best trophy smallmouth stream in southern Ohio. I can think of at least three that you probably have a better chance of catching that 20 incher in than the LMR. But I grew up on the LMR, I like to think I know it better than anyone. And over the years I've caught a few 20 inchers out of the LMR. If you fish anywhere long enough you are bound to luck into an exceptional fish every now and then. I just wasn't prepared for tonight's fish.
I actually started out taking the yak to the GMR. And I lost a pig. No drama, no nothing, not even a jump, it just came off. Well it started storming and I didn't want to be on the river in a yak in a bad storm. And I had to be on the other side of town later on so I quit. But that fish ate at me the way only losing a big fish can. And I found myself on the LMR trying to get in a bit of fishing before another storm hit and darkness fell. It's actually an easy spot to get to. But it doesn't look fishy and no one fishes it. But years ago I found out there are some big chunks of concrete at the bottom of this very fast run. I chucked out a pearl with green back curly shad on a 1/4 ounce jighead because the water is fairly swift. Whack! And the fish took off like a big hybrid with the drag screaming. I raised the rod high to clear a big rock which the fish passed at about mach 2 and the fish was in the pool. No jumps just fast hard runs and in a few minutes I landed the fish uneventfully. Oh my goodness. probably 3/4's of an inch longer than any LMR smallie I've ever caught in thirty plus years of fishing the LMR. The fishing god's work in mysterious ways, If I hadn't lost that fish on the Great Miami there is no way I would have fished the Little Miami tonight.

40 smallmouth < 1 crappie

Waded a little creek this evening and caught one smallmouth after another. There was just one problem, out of at least forty fish not one topped the 15 inch mark and most were about ten.  That is until I caught the crappie! Considering he came out of a little creek and not a lake I gotta think it's one of the best fish I've caught all year. There was a deep run about shoulder deep and when I walked up there were little minnows skittering on top like something was after them. I threw in a clear with silver curly shad and caught two ten inch smallies and the crappie out of the same three foot section of the run where it swept against a big rock.

Paddlefish

Tonight Chris and I couldn't buy a hybrid or a white bass to save our lives. We did manage to land these guys while we were trying tho...

Heavy jighead and clear with silver glitter curly shad in heavy current. As hard as these guys fight when you mix in strong current it can make for an epic evening.

Why I fish...

So why do I do this? I'm asked that a lot. Why do you fish? And why so daggone much? Never mind that those that are asking have probably spent more time watching television than I have fishing this week.
The answer is pretty simple really. (in a complicated sort of way) People watch movies or TV or follow a sports team to get away from life for a while. To forget about their lousy job or bills or their horrid spouse. Not me, I'm not out there trying to get away from life. Out there is where I am most alive, where I am free to be completely me.
If you fish a lot you find you don't get away from life at all. Instead you get it under your fingernails, smeared all over your tee shirt and baked into your skull. You even smell it on yourself sometimes when you get back home. Doing something genuine like fishing is reality, all the stuff we do in our "real" lives is absurd when you really think about it.
For me the ultimate, the very best kind of fishing trip is the overnighter, or week long one for that matter. Where, tired from fishing all day, I can sit by the fire. Possibly hear the hoot of a barred owl or just the soft music of the wind in the treetops up on the ridge. Watch the sun set or rise and experience time the way you are supposed to, the way a deer in the woods does. Not the artificial, contrived, fake time we have created to get us to work and back in time to see our favorite TV program. But instead real time where things unfold at just the rate they are supposed to. You cannot make the evening rise on a trout stream happen any earlier. You cannot make the topwater bite on your smallmouth river not end with the coming of the heat of the day. Out here in the "real" real world things happen according to their own rhythm and there's not a damn thing you can do about it.
People talk of the beauty of nature and I have seen great beauty while out fishing, thundering waterfalls, tiny mountain streams, first light coming thru the trees, brook trout seemingly painted by the hand of God. Things so beautiful they almost bring tears to your eyes and are beyond mere words. But I've also gotten stuck in the mud, rained on, snowed on, baked by the sun and nearly hit by lightning or washed away in flash floods. I've fished behind factories, under highway overpasses and in bad neighborhoods. I've cut myself, hooked myself, fallen, had my eyes nearly put out by sticks and nearly bashed my brains out. But all of that, the good and the bad, all of the things listed above and ten thousand other things I would never have experienced sitting on the couch.
I think some people have to do certain things. They have to paint, or hunt to feel alive. There are runners who have to run. They would run even if it weren't good for them, even if they could never race. It's just a part of who they are. It's like that with me and fishing, without it I wouldn't be whole. I could never be completely me.
I sometimes get to the grocery store and forget what I came for or where the car is parked. But I can name you every creek or river within a hundred miles of my house and probably half of those within three hundred. And give you a pretty good run down on how their individual food chains differ. I fish for the same reason I breathe. I cannot help it, it's just who I am. A fisherman.

Hybrid fever

Another day of chasing trash fish. Caught a couple good ones and several smaller guys on curly shads.