Black Friday/ Big Smallmouth

I'm not sure if it was eating too much all day or what but I found myself wide awake at midnight. A quick check of the weather showed it was still 58 degrees. And from the sound of things still the warmest its going to be for quite some time. So off I went to one of my favorite holes on the river. I threw a three inch grub on a 1/4 ounce jighead and right away was into sauger in a big way. They were surprisingly shallow right off the end of the rock bar right where the current sweeps by. Id throw the grub out and let it hit bottom then lift and reel it back steadily right off the bottom and thump they were nailing it pretty hard. Completely different than how they were hitting during the day. Then I felt a big thump and set the hook into something huge. It had to have been something like a paddlefish or a huge buffalo foul hooked because I couldn't turn it in the least. It bore upstream for a while then turned and decided to leave. It left the hole I was fishing and was going out the riffle in the next as I struggled to follow. It kept going as I kept tightening the drag to the point where my 20lb braid was threatening to break my rod. As my spool began to show I heard it splashing in the shallow riffle below. Then just slack, it was off. Maybe if I could have followed it, who knows. Then it was back to sauger in just about as steady a bite as I've ever seen them. I must have caught a dozen really nice ones in a couple hours. The rock bar stuck out far enough that there was an eddy above and below it though in normal flows theres only one below. I threw into the upstream eddy and after three or four casts felt a soft thump and set the hook. The rod bent double and then the fish jumped completely out of the water! A very big smallie. After what seemed like forever I lipped it on about the third try. Saugers I expect but I couldn't believe catching a big smallie in the middle of the night this time of year. Kind of an exclaimation point to a pretty good years fishing I guess, thank you fish gods....

trail camera photos

thanksgiving day

With the house cleaned up and the folding chairs and card table set up it seemed that the best way to stay out of trouble till meal time was to go fishing. I've been bowhunting pretty hard and went two weeks four days without going fishing! That hadn't happened since february so I was itching to go pretty bad. I grabbed a rod and a handfull of jigheads and three inch grubs and snuck out the door and headed for the LMR. I fished a nice deep run close to a big hole and fished slow. After about ten minutes I set the hook on a mushy feeling and was fast to a dandy smallmouth. He even came up and shook his head a bit. A bit later another smallmouth was on the end of another mushy strike. Then a few minutes after that I caught a beautiful redhorse sucker. By then I was running low on grubs and it was getting close to turkey time. The river is as low and clear as it ever gets. Happy Thanksgiving day everyone.