high jumper

Out for a quick trip this morning at daylight and off the water by 8am. On a grub fished on a 1/4 ounce jighead. The fish in the photo came ripping out from behind a rock in heavy current and just hammered the jig in about a foot and a half of fast water. Wonderful fish, it jumped twice straight up seemingly waist high like it was posing for a sports afield cover. A few smaller fish on a buzzbait and a few more on the grub but high jumper was a fish to remember.

Monster mash.....

 On Vic's lipless crank, pearl white with a red head. Fished slow in calm slack water about waist deep well away from the riffle an hour before daylight. Quickie trip with a few lures thrown in a ziplock baggie and no measuring board so I don't have a length. Rather than guess and open up that can of worms I'll just go with it was pretty big.

potty time

Being outside alone as much as I am I've had some crazy stuff happen. I'll have to sit down by the campfire some time and make a list of some of the stranger ones. The reason I bring this up is I just had one happen that's way up one the list. I've found some decently large smallmouth holding on some chunks of concrete in some super fast current. Classic hot weather stuff. It's also at the base of a small hill that has a homeless camp on it. The place is littered with empty mad dog bottles, trash and the occasional needle. Let's just say it's not the upper Little Miami River much less the Boundary Waters or Algonquin park. Anyways I'm fishing, pitching a swimbait along this twenty foot long piece of concrete wall, letting it sweep along the length of it on a tight line, reeling in and chucking it back up, repeating the process. The wall is lying midstream in very heavy current and I'm tinkering with different jighead weights trying to cover the whole thing. So out of the bushes on the other bank comes this lady. We are in plain view of each other. She glances my way, back up the bank, up and down stream, drops her sweat pants and squats. What the... Just about then, tink, tink, a strike, and I'm into a fish. I fight and land the fish, putting on a show I guess for the lady while she does her business. I land the fish, snap a few pictures and as I'm releasing the fish I notice her wandering back up the hill. Anyways the moral of the story is I guess that in the heat of summer finding enough current and finding fish holding structure in that current is more important than any other consideration if you ask me. I know here in my part of Ohio there's a ton of places from Dayton to Cincinnati, Hamilton, Middletown, Columbus, Portsmouth and on and on that you might catch a smallie at that doesn't exactly look like a magazine cover.

summer nights...

A recap of the weekends fishing. I've been having some luck right in the middle of the night, like 3 or 4 in the morning catching hybrids in the river. On Vic's Proswim fished on a heavy half ounce jig head in the fastest water I can find. Which of course makes the exceptionally hard fighting stripes seem like freight trains when they hammer your swimbait and take off on a run in heavy current. I also snuck out for an hour right in the middle of the heat of the day and managed to catch a nice smallie. Those same super fast riffles that hold hybrids in low light conditions often hold a nice smallie smack dab in the middle of the day. Fast highly oxygenated water is a magnet for any smallmouth that takes a notion to feed once things settle into a summertime routine.

Three Knives....

In my gun case sit three knives. One was my great grandfather's, and one belonged to grandfather. And now sits one that belonged to my father. All togethor as a set, while not valuable to anyone else, they are one of my most precious belongings.

the early bird...

A decent stripey fish on a swimbait about an hour before sunrise. In the fastest water I could find in a tributary about four miles up from the Ohio River

The hybrid hilton...

It pays to explore new water. This past week I've been fishing a new place. A completely new place, which after 40 years of going several times a week is kind of a big deal. I try to explore at least a little once every week or two but finding completely new water is rare.  Here a small river hits a long diagonal rock bar and ninety percent of the current is pushed all into one slot right along the bank. A classic summertime fish trap. The only problem is access. You park on one road walk it a hundred yards or so till it dead ends into another. You walk that another hundred yards then down some railroad tracks. Way down some railroad tracks. I haven't timed it but its got to be 15 or 20 minutes. Then when you get there the obvious spot to fish from is horrible to reach down over a shoulder high cliff. The first time I fished it I thought, well, I might have to swim to get out as I lowered myself  over the undercut cliff hanging from a small tree trunk with my feet dangling in midair. But once you get down there you see some exposed tree roots that almost let you climb out comfortably. A bit of rope tied to a tree has since made things easier. I fished it last week in daylight to get a feel for the place and blaze a few trees so I could find it in the dark. But I really wanted to be there before daylight and be fishing just before sunrise which I did the last two mornings.
Turns out the swift slot right along the cliff is full of saugfish right before daylight, I've caught several every trip on a ribeye paddletail. But what excites me is what happens right before daylight. Then throwing a lipless crank both days I've had big hybrids strike. A nice hybrid in really swift water is a glory to behold as it will make your drag scream for mercy.  Most places get a nickname, I think I'll call this the Hybrid Hilton. Then as full daylight came I switched back to the ribeye one morning and found a big smallie hanging out where the saugfish were in the dark. It's been a nice couple days.