The biggest smallie I've ever caught out of the Little Miami...

So southern Ohio rivers aren't exactly a mecca for smallmouth anglers. Nobody travels from four states away to fish them like people do rivers in other states. Heck what we do here in southern Ohio is go to the New, or the James or the Susquehanna. Or we go to Lake St Clair or Erie or the BWCA. We have some great fish here don't get me wrong, it's just not exactly trophy fishing. But it's home so I fish our rivers a lot. Like 150 to 200 days a year. Every year. And just about my favorite river is the Little Miami. Now the Little Miami isn't even the best trophy smallmouth stream in southern Ohio. I can think of at least three that you probably have a better chance of catching that 20 incher in than the LMR. But I grew up on the LMR, I like to think I know it better than anyone. And over the years I've caught a few 20 inchers out of the LMR. If you fish anywhere long enough you are bound to luck into an exceptional fish every now and then. I just wasn't prepared for tonight's fish.
I actually started out taking the yak to the GMR. And I lost a pig. No drama, no nothing, not even a jump, it just came off. Well it started storming and I didn't want to be on the river in a yak in a bad storm. And I had to be on the other side of town later on so I quit. But that fish ate at me the way only losing a big fish can. And I found myself on the LMR trying to get in a bit of fishing before another storm hit and darkness fell. It's actually an easy spot to get to. But it doesn't look fishy and no one fishes it. But years ago I found out there are some big chunks of concrete at the bottom of this very fast run. I chucked out a pearl with green back curly shad on a 1/4 ounce jighead because the water is fairly swift. Whack! And the fish took off like a big hybrid with the drag screaming. I raised the rod high to clear a big rock which the fish passed at about mach 2 and the fish was in the pool. No jumps just fast hard runs and in a few minutes I landed the fish uneventfully. Oh my goodness. probably 3/4's of an inch longer than any LMR smallie I've ever caught in thirty plus years of fishing the LMR. The fishing god's work in mysterious ways, If I hadn't lost that fish on the Great Miami there is no way I would have fished the Little Miami tonight.

40 smallmouth < 1 crappie

Waded a little creek this evening and caught one smallmouth after another. There was just one problem, out of at least forty fish not one topped the 15 inch mark and most were about ten.  That is until I caught the crappie! Considering he came out of a little creek and not a lake I gotta think it's one of the best fish I've caught all year. There was a deep run about shoulder deep and when I walked up there were little minnows skittering on top like something was after them. I threw in a clear with silver curly shad and caught two ten inch smallies and the crappie out of the same three foot section of the run where it swept against a big rock.

Paddlefish

Tonight Chris and I couldn't buy a hybrid or a white bass to save our lives. We did manage to land these guys while we were trying tho...

Heavy jighead and clear with silver glitter curly shad in heavy current. As hard as these guys fight when you mix in strong current it can make for an epic evening.

Why I fish...

So why do I do this? I'm asked that a lot. Why do you fish? And why so daggone much? Never mind that those that are asking have probably spent more time watching television than I have fishing this week.
The answer is pretty simple really. (in a complicated sort of way) People watch movies or TV or follow a sports team to get away from life for a while. To forget about their lousy job or bills or their horrid spouse. Not me, I'm not out there trying to get away from life. Out there is where I am most alive, where I am free to be completely me.
If you fish a lot you find you don't get away from life at all. Instead you get it under your fingernails, smeared all over your tee shirt and baked into your skull. You even smell it on yourself sometimes when you get back home. Doing something genuine like fishing is reality, all the stuff we do in our "real" lives is absurd when you really think about it.
For me the ultimate, the very best kind of fishing trip is the overnighter, or week long one for that matter. Where, tired from fishing all day, I can sit by the fire. Possibly hear the hoot of a barred owl or just the soft music of the wind in the treetops up on the ridge. Watch the sun set or rise and experience time the way you are supposed to, the way a deer in the woods does. Not the artificial, contrived, fake time we have created to get us to work and back in time to see our favorite TV program. But instead real time where things unfold at just the rate they are supposed to. You cannot make the evening rise on a trout stream happen any earlier. You cannot make the topwater bite on your smallmouth river not end with the coming of the heat of the day. Out here in the "real" real world things happen according to their own rhythm and there's not a damn thing you can do about it.
People talk of the beauty of nature and I have seen great beauty while out fishing, thundering waterfalls, tiny mountain streams, first light coming thru the trees, brook trout seemingly painted by the hand of God. Things so beautiful they almost bring tears to your eyes and are beyond mere words. But I've also gotten stuck in the mud, rained on, snowed on, baked by the sun and nearly hit by lightning or washed away in flash floods. I've fished behind factories, under highway overpasses and in bad neighborhoods. I've cut myself, hooked myself, fallen, had my eyes nearly put out by sticks and nearly bashed my brains out. But all of that, the good and the bad, all of the things listed above and ten thousand other things I would never have experienced sitting on the couch.
I think some people have to do certain things. They have to paint, or hunt to feel alive. There are runners who have to run. They would run even if it weren't good for them, even if they could never race. It's just a part of who they are. It's like that with me and fishing, without it I wouldn't be whole. I could never be completely me.
I sometimes get to the grocery store and forget what I came for or where the car is parked. But I can name you every creek or river within a hundred miles of my house and probably half of those within three hundred. And give you a pretty good run down on how their individual food chains differ. I fish for the same reason I breathe. I cannot help it, it's just who I am. A fisherman.

Hybrid fever

Another day of chasing trash fish. Caught a couple good ones and several smaller guys on curly shads.

start your engines...

Yep the white bass run has begun...
Find any creek, river, or stream running out of the Ohio river and odds are there are some white bass running up it today.

Good Friday...

It's a pretty sweet deal actually.  I put the yak in and float about a mile down down the river. It's a long slow stretch and pretty easy to paddle back up afterward so there is no need for a car shuttle. About two miles down a creek hits the river. But I don't float all the way down to there. I've learned over the years if I stop about halfway down and hide the yak in the bushes a short five minute walk will have me hitting the creek about 3/4 or a mile up from it's mouth. Right in it's sweet spot. My spot. Where I've never seen a bait container or a piece of fishing line, only deer and beaver and the occasional wild turkey. I try not to overfish it so that all summer when I really need to feel a nice fish on the line I know I can come here and have a good chance at one.I'ts a little creek, just an easy short cast across and in most riffles you can cross in just a pair of rubber boots. But here there are three or four deep runs where you could get very wet if you weren't careful. At the first two gravel bars stretch all the way across the creek like mini low head dams with nice pockets of deep water below them and swift chest deep runs feeding into the holes.
At the Columbus Fishing Expo Vic had a bunch of sweet 1/4 ounce willow leaf spinner baits for sale and I'd nabbed a couple. One of the perks of being cheap help is that you do get to sample the product. Willow leaf spinnerbaits are perfect for current and track thru it where a colorado blade won't. And these spots screamed spinnerbaits. Sure enough at both I caught a dandy smallie right where the fast and slow water meets and lost another big enough to elicit a bit of light cursing. In a creek this size these are mostly one fish spots with a nice smallie tailwalking across the little pools spooking things for a while. The next hole is different. The current is all shunted over against one bank and there is a long deep run right along the bank. One step off the bank and you would be in over your head. And the bank is covered in rock and twisted sycamore roots. I pitched a clear with gold grub out and let it sink deep and drift along as close to bank as I could I get it. (it's been the color of choice all week) Bam! the fish dart out from the rocks and twisted roots and caverns under the water and just hammer the jig. Here in the deeper water catching one doesn't scare the others and I catch a half dozen smallies from ten to fifteen inches. Not as big as the other fish but more of them. Also here and at the next two riffles I start picking up a few white bass and small hybrids starting their spring run.  It's been swell fishing all week and the kind of spring time fishing we dream about but don't get every year, get out and enjoy this one if you can.

what a fattie...

Back to the river today. Still throwing the clear with gold flake grub though. This girl hit in a tiny eddy right inside an otherwise raging riffle. What a cool fish, with a great paint job and bigger around than she was long I think.

The wade of a lifetime

 two smallies/39.5 inches!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Fishing a creek about 3/4 of a mile up from where it runs into one of the rivers that feed the Ohio River here in Southern Ohio. The first fish hit in really heavy current and the rod just bent double and she bulldogged it for a while. I was certain she was a good channel or shovelhead right up until she suddenly went airborne just about giving me a heart attack. I was sure she was going to get off as I could do little with her in the heavy current and couldn't follow but after a few heart in my throat moments I managed to land it.
The other fish was in a bathtub sized hole right in the tail of a riffle and hit like a freight train and jumped three or four times, once end over end. I measured on at a bit under 19.5 and the other at a bit over 20 conservatively and as fat as any Ohio stream fish I've ever seen. If anything the pictures don't do justice to the guts on these fat girls. I'd say it's the second heaviest Ohio smallie I've ever caught in 40 years of doing this pretty hard. Yeah the tapes not pulled tight in the pic but you can see she's hanging over the 20 mark on each end with her mouth open and without the tail pinched. She was flopping a bit and that was as good a pic as I was willing to take and still get her back in the water as fast as possible. I also caught three smallies in the 14 to 15 inch range. Everything on a clear with gold glitter grub in pretty stained water. What a trip. Life was never better for an old river rat.

Mudline...

With the river up and the color of chocolate milk I found some spots where a bit of clear water enters. A whole bunch of stripey fish and a couple bonus green ones. On a clear with silver glitter curly shad on a 1/4 ounce jighead.

4/3 smallies

A half dozen big smallies, a channel cat, and a river bottom carpeted in marsh marigolds. It doesn't get much better than that. In a deep run with some big rock on the bottom on a clear with mylar curly shad with a black back.

I'm lucky to be alive....

So I'm out fishing, enjoying the warm temperatures and all that. I happen to look down and I'm standing in the middle of what must have been a snake orgy or at least a snake spring break party till I rudely interrupted. There were two or three snakes within a couple feet of me in every direction. And I must have been standing there for ten minutes fishing before I noticed. Yep keen observer of nature I am at times. I wonder what we walk right over top of we never see at times. At least several were kind enough to pose for pictures. And the catfish weirdness continues with a shovelhead and a dandy channel on the three inch grub tonight. That's six flatheads and a channelcat on Vic's three inch with silver glitter grub in the last three days. Maybe I'll start calling that color flathead.

last week of march

I caught some dandy gills out of a pond one day then finally the river was back down to nice levels. Fishing a clear with silver grub in the same place a couple weeks ago I was catching nice smallmouth, I caught five shovelhead in two trips. Five on a grub, no monsters but pretty cool none the less. Since I do a ton of jig fishing in a years time I catch quite a few cats but five is pretty wild for this time of year. I also had a nice carp inhale the little grub. No smallies that were photo worthy in the last few days though from looking at the forecast that hopefully will change soon...