It was the first in a couple weeks and I was dying for more so I took a personal day today and went fishing in a big way, from daylight till dark. Right at daylight I hooked a decent smallie which jumped and threw the hook. And then... Nothing no smallie action whatsoever. I fished a place where in the past I'd tangled with big smallies often. Zilch. I landed the yak on a small island and walked across. Off the other side two fawns launched themselves into the stream and swam for shore. Here the water was very swift and they soon came up against an entire tree in the water blocking their way. The first fawn lunged against the trunk a couple times and then was over and soon on shore. The second struggled seemingly unable to get over the tree trunk. It struggled for several minutes and I looked for a way across to help it. But the water was way too swift and neck deep between us. Just when I thought the little fawn was not going to make it hooked it's front two legs over the log and struggled over and on to shore. I fished for a bit longer with only a couple channels to show for it and decided to move.
The next location was a steep nearly vertical bank of big rocks that gets hit by a strong current. It's always been a reliable place to catch stripey fish. By now it was raining pretty good and this seemed to turn the fish on. Every few minutes a wiper would savagely slam my clear with silver glitter grub.
And right in the middle of the stripey feeding frenzy I caught a huge river crappie.
Finally the action slowed and soaked to the skin I decided to dry off and change location once more. Paddling back to the truck I surprised a family of wood ducks. I was surprised to see these guys still not feathered out. Maybe the first nest had been broken up by a predator and this was the second try. The little ones scattered under overhanging trees while mommy duck swam ten feet from the yak beating the water doing the broken wing imitation to draw my attention from her babies. Very cool.
I decided to make a big move and go to spot I knew on the Whitewater. Which today was anything but whitewater. It was blown out and a red muddy color with zero visibility. But It hadn't rained that much here. It must have really downpoured way up in Indiana but here the creeks were all an okay color. which sets up one of the great fish traps of all time. I found where a pretty good flow of clear water met the ugly water of the main river. And the river fish were stacked up in the clear calmer water. I caught four small bass, a bunch of wipers and white bass and big old stud of a saugeye. All standing in one place casting to a spot no bigger than my living room.
What a day from 6am to 8pm, most of it in the rain, I saw some great wildlife, landed some bass, some white bass, some channel cats, a fish ohio crappie, a fish ohio saugeye, and somewhere around 20 stream wipers! It'll be a while before I have another day to top that one. I don't think I'll have any trouble falling asleep tonight...
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