So I had three days off. To hunt the opening of Ohio's archery deer season. Just one little problem it was supposed to be in the upper 80's. That's just too hot to deer hunt and enjoy it if you ask me, so I did what comes naturally to me, I fished a lot . I concentrated on the Ohio river and tributaries from Meldhal to Markland. Sat was almost too hot to fish. I spent most of it waist deep trying not to melt. I caught several small hybrids a few channelcats and four or five small smallmouth. Sunday was better. Over the course of the day I caught around ten hybrids, again all smaller, topping out at maybe 20 inches, plus five or six smallmouth. In the last hour of day things got exciting. I was fishing the Prop R topwater and it seemed like a concrete block was thrown on the plug but I never hooked up. Then a fish knocked the plug two feet in the air and again no hookup. Then a good fish hit, probably 24 or 25 inches. As I beached the fish the hooked popped out in like three inches of water with the fish lying on it's side. I fell to my knees trying to grab the fish but it flopped a couple times and was gone! The very next cast a fish slashed at the topwater and was hooked solid. Jump, then another, holy cow it's a smallmouth! A very very long smallmouth. I slipped off the backpack fumbling in the fast darkening light for the tape measure. With the tail pinched right at 20 inches!!!! And very skinny, nothing like the LMR or GMR smallies I was used to. This was for sure the lightest fish this long I've ever caught. With a big head and all that length I wonder how old that fish is. No Fish Ohio though this fish was in southern Indiana. I've never managed a smallie anywhere close to the length of this fish out of the main stem of the Ohio and I was thrilled with the fish. The year of the smallmouth continues...
The next day I was privileged to fish a river about five miles up from the Ohio with two great guys. I forgot to ask them if I could mention their names so I'll just call them Mr. X and Mr. Y. These guys take their hybrids as seriously as I do my smallmouth and it was awesome to fish and talk fishing with them. They also went out of their way to make sure the dumb smallmouth fisherman caught some nice hybrids. Believe it or not the big hybrid in my photo wasn't even the biggest of the day. Mr Y caught one just as big or bigger and Mr. X caught a huge one that was one of the biggest I've ever seen in person. It was a helluva day and a great ending to a great adventure..
In my excitement over telling about the long smallie and the big hybrids I forgot a couple weird things that happened...
ReplyDeleteOne was finding a tarp strung out on some limbs on an island in the mouth of an tributary right at daylight. Underneath was a huge pile of blankets and junk lying everywhere. Well the blankets started moving and out crawls two guys and a blonde chick dressed only in her underwear. She casually takes her time pulling on a shirt, lights up a cigarette and they begin carrying their stuff to shore. She then makes two trips across the stream. Barefoot with just a shirt and no pants with a cig hanging out of her mouth.
The other was following down the road a pickup truck with a cap on it that was completely stuffed with as many mannequins as it looked humanly possible to jam inside. A very surreal moment.