Dawn on the LMR

I left the truck about an hour before daylight. I had to be at a flyfishing clinic at nine so it was a headlamp start or no start. I'm glad I did. The river was actually pretty off color from the rain but not unfishable. I've had some of my best days in this weak coffee colored water that I used to moan and groan about so now I'm actually pumped up to see some color in the water. Right away a good 14 inch smallmouth clobbered my buzzbait. Then nothing for a little bit. So I switched to a minnow plug. Wham something hammered it in a current seam and began peeling drag. It turned out to be a gorgeous 17.5 inch silver bass. This is the furthest upstream I've ever caught a good one. Right in the heart of the middle section of the river, or I guess as the LMR hybrid posse calls it thee upper LMR. I then switched to a buzzbait and had a 17 or 18 inch smallmouth clobber the bait and jump four or five times before breaking my heart and getting off. But thankfully the fish weren't done every few minutes a nice smallie would hit the buzzbait in a fury. I think I ended up with four in the 16 to 18 inch range before I had to pack it in and head for work. The little parking lot Id started out from now had 14 cars where there had only been me a few hours ago. Walking back to it along the bike trail, I tested my theory that the more serious the biker the bigger jerk they were. I said good morning to seven got one response. Walkers birdwatchers, casual bikers all go out of their way to be friendly. But see a guy in spandex and with a $100 hemet on and he's never going to even nod to a guy walking along with a knapsack and a spinning rod. Got to truck right on time and pulled out with a big grin on my face after the best two hours of smallmouth fishing I've had in at least a month. Looks like its starting...