Smallmouth Heaven

Without giving away too much, Ill say Dave and I have been talking about how to actually get on this stretch of river to fish for a year or so. For the longest time it seemed you needed a helicopter or a jet pack to get there legally. Well I finally worked out access and we tried it today. It's still something of an adventure just to get there but its just barely possible. I'd missed one day of work in four years and I called in sick today, thats how much I thought of the place. I got there early and had a four or five hour head start on him. The fishing was in a word unbelievable. I caught three fish over 17 inches and a big ole girl that went 19. To give it perspective when Dave arrived he caught a bass and pulled out the tape measure to see how long it was. I thought now whats he measuring that for? I asked... "Umm how long is he?"... "just a bit over 14". I was shocked. Dont get me wrong, a 14 inch river fish is a swell fish. I usually take a picture of a 14 inch river fish and here I was wondering why he was even bothering to measure this fish. I'd caught, I dunno, ten that big allready this morning and several much bigger. Enough to completely throw off my sense of what a nice smallie was. It wasn't that there were millions of fish, you caught about the same number you would in any really good spot. The difference is that here they get the chance to grow up. I'm sure by the end of the day Dave wasn't measuring 14 inchers any more either. Even though things had slowed by the time he got there I saw him catch a few big uns of his own, I know one was 18 inches. I'll let him tell about his fish. I also know he lost a stud too at least as big as the 18. About 9 am I set the hook and the rod bent double. The fish just ground around and around the hole, too big for my smallmouth rod. Down below was a huge sweeping riffle that was probably a hundred yards long. Finally I saw the fish it was a very big carp. Tired the fish began to lose ground to the swift current and began going down the riffle. I could do nothing but follow. At one point the fish swept under a log hung up in the shallows. I had to put the entire rod under the water to pass it under. Somehow the fish stayed hooked and I landed it at the bottom of the riffle a hundred yards downstream of my starting point. it was a bit over 30 inches, big in the swift water we were fishing. The long riffles were perfect water for channel cats as well as smallies and I'd landed ten or so by the time Deltaoscar arrived. It slowed in the middle of the day but I landed three or four more and he landed some too. I think I caught more channels today on grubs than I've ever landed when trying for them with bait. Finally tired and soaking wet I left Dave there and headed out. I gotta give the guy lots of credit, the weather had turned lousy and he was soaked and cold but fishing hard. At the last place you can look back I paused and turned for a peek. He was fighting a big smallie that got past him in the current that had him spinning in a 360 to fight it...