This week in fish...

This week was mostly just a bunch of short trips. Most of the smallies I caught this week were in pretty fast water. The stripey fish were mostly in deep fast runs and catfish seemed everywhere. No big cats but it seemed I caught at least one on a grub every time I went. The striper was pretty cool. It was right at daylight and suddenly it looked like someone was throwing big rocks in the water. I cast a topwater but no luck. It seemed every time I would cast one would blow up on bait somewhere else. I finally gave up and tied on a clear with mylar curly shad. I cast out quartering into the main current. Then zing the drag started singing. At first I thought I had the drag too loose but it was just a nice fish in heavy current. It headed to the other bank and then downriver. Oh no, no way I can follow the bank is just steep and a jungle. But it turned and came back towards my bank. Which happened to have a big limb hanging down with grapevines trailing into the water. I held the rod horizontal then the tip underwater as the fish swam under the grapevines. After that it was just dogging it out in open water for which I was very grateful.