If you get a chance to pick up a copy of THE OUTDOOR guide to the tri-state there's an article on local fishing by me that I thought turned out pretty well....

Wow, what a day...

Today Dan, Dave and I went to umm...that one place and did a little fishing in the rain. The water temp started out at 59 and was 61 the last time Dave checked it on his electric temperature ray gun. ( I was glad I forgot my $1 dollar store thermometer at home) and a great color. In other words perfect for the first time in what seemed like forever. After a bit of hunting for a stout limb to use as a wading staff we headed across the death riffle. If this riffle was anywhere else I'd never risk wading it but on the other side lies smallmouth heaven. I think twice last year this riffle got me and that was in lower water than this. Somehow after each of us feeling like we were going to buy the farm we all made it across relatively dry. We usually spread out a bit and I'm not 100% certain what everybody threw all the time but I'm pretty sure the hands down winners were grubs and curly shads for everybody. The action wasn't fast and furious but it was steady all day and the average was amazing. I started off with a smallie in the 16 inch range and a nice channel. Then I got lucky and landed a gorgeous 25 1/2 inch saugeye after it gave me a scare by going down the super fast water of the death riffle. And then an hour or so later Dan and I had the prettiest double I've ever seen. After a great fight I taped my smallie at 19 1/2 inches and Dan's was just a bit smaller! 
I rested a bit and threw out a nightcrawler catching a small catfish and watched Dave catch a hybrid striper, a largemouth, a smallmouth and a Kentucky spot so I know he was catching fish pretty good also. About then Dan caught a great hybrid that I'm guessing went 25 inches. Then after like only seven or eight hours of hard wading in the pouring rain Dan and Dave left. I sat for a bit again resting and catching a couple more small channels on nightcrawlers and waiting out the rain. Which miraculously stopped with an hour or so left of daylight. I caught a few more decent smallmouth with a couple in the 15 or 16 inch range when a dandy grabbed my jig right at my feet and danced across the surface. 19.25 inches! What a day! Exhausted  I headed home where my wife and granddaughter made fun of my for looking like a drownded rat.

A couple exciting things happening now....

two things happening now that I'm pretty pumped about:


I've started writing a monthly column for www.buckeyeflyfishers.com
in their newsletter "The Buffer".

And this Sunday night at seven I'll be a guest on Fox Sports 980 WONE radio show talking fishing.
www.wone.com

hurry up and wait

So it's been a waiting game. Watching the river gauges every day and knowing that when the rivers get low enough to fish this time the fishing season will be in full swing. To keep from going completely crazy I've been out a few times chasing those other bass at a local wildlife area. Slow rolling a spinnerbait next to but not quite in the shallows has been the best producer for me. But then again it seems like every time I've been able to go this spring it's been cold. All the pretty mid sixties have hit on days I haven't been free. Oh well that's all part of fishing...