Four days on the river

Whew, what an adventure. Rain, sunny, storms, clear water, muddy. It seemed every hour had a personality of its own. Things I'll remember most; sitting in an old barn on a hay bale waiting out a storm and having a mouse walk around between my feet just like he owned the place. Being waist deep in the river and having a beaver swim up to like four or five feet away before slapping his tail and diving. And even though I caught several 19 inch smallmouth the fish of the trip was for sure the fattest broadest 18 inch smallie I've ever seen who just absolutely hammered a big willowleaf spinnerbait right at the rod tip then tore off in heavy current like a freight train. And the catfish, by trips end I spent more time seining bait and catfishing than anything else. The cats were going nuts in the rising river and you could catch a shovel or a channel on seemingly every cast. No giant cats but just one right after another. Between the rising muddy river and the catfish I felt like Huck Finn and Jim. The smallmouth bait that worked best over the four days was a big curly shad on an underspin jighead just chucked out and winded back like you would a spinnerbait. The biggest smallie was right at 19.5 and between the smallies, an occasional hybrid, four white bass and a whole bunch of cats I'd guess 150 fish were landed over the four days. In four days of river camping in some challenging conditions new gear I tried out and I would highly recommend are Cabela's dry bags, North Face quick dry pants and XPG bug repellant shirts. I've worn the North Face pants on three separate three and four day trips so far this year as well as a dozen other wading trips and find the things are bulletproof and worth spending a little extra on. Another piece of gear I've found I really like having in the Jackson or in the canoe is a Sawyer Squeeze. Having a regular pump water filter is still the best thing to process a bunch of water in camp but having the Sawyer on a water bottle you can just dip in the river as you float along and get a drink is really nice. Between all the rain and portaging the canoe and a bunch of gear around a couple lowheads this was for sure the most physically challenging trip of the year but also probably the one I'll remember best in a few years. warning there are a whole lot of photos even though I didn't even take some photos of some nice smallies because it was raining so hard one day…

Four days down the river...

Whew, what an adventure. Rain, sunny, storms, clear water, muddy. It seemed every hour had a personality of its own. Things I'll remember most; sitting in an old barn on a hay bale waiting out a storm and having a mouse walk around between my feet just like he owned the place. Being waist deep in the river and having a beaver swim up to like four or five feet away before slapping his tail and diving. And even though I caught several 19 inch smallmouth the fish of the trip was for sure the fattest broadest 18 inch smallie I've ever seen who just absolutely hammered a big willowleaf spinnerbait right at the rod tip then tore off in heavy current like a freight train. And the catfish, by trips end I spent more time seining bait and catfishing than anything else. The cats were going nuts in the rising river and you could catch a shovel or a channel on seemingly every cast. No giant cats but just one right after another. Between the rising muddy river and the catfish I felt like Huck Finn and Jim. The smallmouth bait that worked best over the four days was a big curly shad on an underspin jighead just chucked out and winded back like you would a spinnerbait. The biggest smallie was right at 19.5 and between the smallies, an occasional hybrid, four white bass and a whole bunch of cats I'd guess 150 fish were landed over the four days. In four days of river camping in some challenging conditions new gear I tried out and I would highly recommend are Cabela's dry bags, North Face quick dry pants and XPG bug repellant shirts. I've worn the North Face pants on three separate three and four day trips so far this year as well as a dozen other wading trips and find the things are bulletproof and worth spending a little extra on. Another piece of gear I've found I really like having in the Jackson or in the canoe is a Sawyer Squeeze. Having a regular pump water filter is still the best thing to process a bunch of water in camp but having the Sawyer on a water bottle you can just dip in the river as you float along and get a drink is really nice. Between all the rain and portaging the canoe and a bunch of gear around a couple lowheads this was for sure the most physically challenging trip of the year but also probably the one I'll remember best in a few years. warning there are a whole lot of photos even though I didn't even take some photos of some nice smallies because it was raining so hard one day…

Four days down the river...

Whew, what an adventure. Rain, sunny, storms, clear water, muddy. It seemed every hour had a personality of its own. Things I'll remember most; sitting in an old barn on a hay bale waiting out a storm and having a mouse walk around between my feet just like he owned the place. Being waist deep in the river and having a beaver swim up to like four or five feet away before slapping his tail and diving. And even though I caught several 19 inch smallmouth the fish of the trip was for sure the fattest broadest 18 inch smallie I've ever seen who just absolutely hammered a big willowleaf spinnerbait right at the rod tip then tore off in heavy current like a freight train. And the catfish, by trips end I spent more time seining bait and catfishing than anything else. The cats were going nuts in the rising river and you could catch a shovel or a channel on seemingly every cast. No giant cats but just one right after another. Between the rising muddy river and the catfish I felt like Huck Finn and Jim. The smallmouth bait that worked best over the four days was a big curly shad on an underspin jighead just chucked out and winded back like you would a spinnerbait. The biggest smallie was right at 19.5 and between the smallies, an occasional hybrid, four white bass and a whole bunch of cats I'd guess 150 fish were landed over the four days. In four days of river camping in some challenging conditions new gear I tried out and I would highly recommend are Cabela's dry bags, North Face quick dry pants and XPG bug repellant shirts. I've worn the North Face pants on three separate three and four day trips so far this year as well as a dozen other wading trips and find the things are bulletproof and worth spending a little extra on. Another piece of gear I've found I really like having in the Jackson or in the canoe is a Sawyer Squeeze. Having a regular pump water filter is still the best thing to process a bunch of water in camp but having the Sawyer on a water bottle you can just dip in the river as you float along and get a drink is really nice. Between all the rain and portaging the canoe and a bunch of gear around a couple lowheads this was for sure the most physically challenging trip of the year but also probably the one I'll remember best in a few years. warning there are a whole lot of photos even though I didn't even take some photos of some nice smallies because it was raining so hard one day…

Four days down the river...

Whew, what an adventure. Rain, sunny, storms, clear water, muddy. It seemed every hour had a personality of its own. Things I'll remember most; sitting in an old barn on a hay bale waiting out a storm and having a mouse walk around between my feet just like he owned the place. Being waist deep in the river and having a beaver swim up to like four or five feet away before slapping his tail and diving. And even though I caught several 19 inch smallmouth the fish of the trip was for sure the fattest broadest 18 inch smallie I've ever seen who just absolutely hammered a big willowleaf spinnerbait right at the rod tip then tore off in heavy current like a freight train. And the catfish, by trips end I spent more time seining bait and catfishing than anything else. The cats were going nuts in the rising river and you could catch a shovel or a channel on seemingly every cast. No giant cats but just one right after another. Between the rising muddy river and the catfish I felt like Huck Finn and Jim. The smallmouth bait that worked best over the four days was a big curly shad on an underspin jighead just chucked out and winded back like you would a spinnerbait. The biggest smallie was right at 19.5 and between the smallies, an occasional hybrid, four white bass and a whole bunch of cats I'd guess 150 fish were landed over the four days. In four days of river camping in some challenging conditions new gear I tried out and I would highly recommend are Cabela's dry bags, North Face quick dry pants and XPG bug repellant shirts. I've worn the North Face pants on three separate three and four day trips so far this year as well as a dozen other wading trips and find the things are bulletproof and worth spending a little extra on. Another piece of gear I've found I really like having in the Jackson or in the canoe is a Sawyer Squeeze. Having a regular pump water filter is still the best thing to process a bunch of water in camp but having the Sawyer on a water bottle you can just dip in the river as you float along and get a drink is really nice. Between all the rain and portaging the canoe and a bunch of gear around a couple lowheads this was for sure the most physically challenging trip of the year but also probably the one I'll remember best in a few years. warning there are a whole lot of photos even though I didn't even take some photos of some nice smallies because it was raining so hard one day…

Four days down the river...

Whew, what an adventure. Rain, sunny, storms, clear water, muddy. It seemed every hour had a personality of its own. Things I'll remember most; sitting in an old barn on a hay bale waiting out a storm and having a mouse walk around between my feet just like he owned the place. Being waist deep in the river and having a beaver swim up to like four or five feet away before slapping his tail and diving. And even though I caught several 19 inch smallmouth the fish of the trip was for sure the fattest broadest 18 inch smallie I've ever seen who just absolutely hammered a big willowleaf spinnerbait right at the rod tip then tore off in heavy current like a freight train. And the catfish, by trips end I spent more time seining bait and catfishing than anything else. The cats were going nuts in the rising river and you could catch a shovel or a channel on seemingly every cast. No giant cats but just one right after another. Between the rising muddy river and the catfish I felt like Huck Finn and Jim. The smallmouth bait that worked best over the four days was a big curly shad on an underspin jighead just chucked out and winded back like you would a spinnerbait. The biggest smallie was right at 19.5 and between the smallies, an occasional hybrid, four white bass and a whole bunch of cats I'd guess 150 fish were landed over the four days. In four days of river camping in some challenging conditions new gear I tried out and I would highly recommend are Cabela's dry bags, North Face quick dry pants and XPG bug repellant shirts. I've worn the North Face pants on three separate three and four day trips so far this year as well as a dozen other wading trips and find the things are bulletproof and worth spending a little extra on. Another piece of gear I've found I really like having in the Jackson or in the canoe is a Sawyer Squeeze. Having a regular pump water filter is still the best thing to process a bunch of water in camp but having the Sawyer on a water bottle you can just dip in the river as you float along and get a drink is really nice. Between all the rain and portaging the canoe and a bunch of gear around a couple lowheads this was for sure the most physically challenging trip of the year but also probably the one I'll remember best in a few years. warning there are a whole lot of photos even though I didn't even take some photos of some nice smallies because it was raining so hard one day…

socially distant

Spent the last few days wandering around Tennessee, catching stripes, sturgeon and huge drum on 2oz jigs below TVA dams one minute then catching miniature brook and rainbow trout out of tiny brooks on the flyrod high in the mountains. Sleeping in the car and out on the rocks. Drinking hot chocolate made on the backpacking stove one day and waiting out a storm eating deviled ham on saltines under a big leaning tree the next. In other words just living the good life...

Three days on the Great Miami

I was given my late uncles canoe last summer. A big stable wide, pick up truck of a canoe. Right away I started making plans for this year. This is the story of the first of three floats I plan to do this month on the Great and Little Miami rivers. It was going to be a four day float but with record cold in the forecast which would knock the fishing in the head I shortened it to three. What shape the river was in, just the right amount of flow, perfect clarity. I ended up the first night camped about a hundred yards away from a great blue heron rookery. What a ruckus, chicks begging for food, birds squawking, gliding in and out looking like pterodactyls. What I didn't expect was that they would keep it up at night. I don't know if it was the full moon or what but I fell asleep to and woke to the sound of the mob, a definite first. The first night I ate one of those little tinned hams heated over the fire. What I didn't finished I cubed up and the next evening used to catch a nice channel for supper. I also caught a nice saugeye on a curly shad that I also ate. Both fish were filleted and seasoned with salt, pepper and garlic, wrapped in foil and baked in the coals of the campfire. Life just doesn't get much better than sitting by the fire tending the fish and watching the full moon rise across the river if you ask me. I have a habit of getting up way too early because of my work schedule. I found making a batch of hot chocolate and setting on a log watching the sun come up is pretty swell too. The fishing was more than I could have asked for. The winning lure was the classic pearl with a black back curly shad. I caught some fish on a ned rig, a skirted jig, a grub and a willow leaf spinnerbait as well but I kept going back to the curly shad. I also had a giant fish on a suspending minnow plug. Either a big shovel hit the plug or I snared a really big carp or buffalo as it towed the canoe around a few seconds before pulling off. I also found on a huge rock bar two small stone axes or hammers. I can't imagine what the world was like for the last guy to hold them in his hands.
My father last year gave me his old tackle box, one of those giant ones that opens in both directions with little cantilevered trays. I remember as a kid loving to open that box and playing with the lures and dreaming. Anyways in that box were two Heddon crazy crawlers, a topwater with weird metal arms that fold up on the cast then catch the water and make the thing flop across the water looking to me like a tiny bird trying to take off when you retrieve it. This winter when setting up tackle bag for this year I put in those two crazy crawlers thinking that if something as wild as a whopper plopper or a buzzbait sometimes would turn on the fish I'd try these guys. Anyways on the day it rained mid morning the rain quit for a bit, the wind was still and the water was smooth as glass. I had to try it. On about the third cast the crawler is about ten feet away plopping along and in the clear water I see perfectly an eighteen inch smallmouth come up and just murder the plug. The first of two fish ohio smallies that hit the crazy crawler before the rain started back up. They certainly aren't the biggest fish I've ever caught or even close to the biggest this trip but they are among the most memorable I've ever caught. Big fish this trip were a fish a quarter inch under 20 and two a bit over 19. Two on a curly shad and one on a willow leaf spinnerbait. The fishing was almost an embarrassment of riches, I lost track of the 17 and 18 inch fish caught over the course of the trip, fish that normally one of would make for a fine trip. Between the unreal fishing, the sentimentality of using my uncles old canoe and dads old lures, the native American artifacts and the normal enjoyment of camping on the river it was close to the perfect trip in my eyes.