Sunday, August 9, 2015
Tuesday, August 4, 2015
Timing...
Although the very best time to go fishing is whenever you can there are a few moments worth planning for.
It's midsummer and it's been hot for a week or two. The best fishing has been early and late and that's been slow. But the weather man says a front is going to hit today. Possibly even some severe stuff. A major break in the weather. You might think the best time is after the storm, But if your brave and don't mind risking a bit of wind or hail in your quest for THE fish the best time is right when all hell breaks loose. Those sheets of rain, that muddy water pouring out of tiny normally dry drainages off the hillsides. The very first inch the river raises, All of these can trigger magic. That riffle that has seemed dead for the last hour suddenly seems a different place. Where no fish were present you get now get a strike on five of ten casts. And one of those is the best fish you've caught in a month. I remember last year a half hour before the storm it was ninety and I was melting down. Up out of the rivers cut you could hear the storm rumbling as it bore down on my location. Big rain drops began splatting the water's surface as the trees up on the rim began to sway in the wind. Twenty minutes later I was pressed against the trunk of a big sycamore trying to hunker down even further into my rain poncho. But in those previous twenty minutes I'd landed six nice smallmouth with one stretching the tape past nineteen inches. Thirty minutes after I'd sought shelter under the sycamore the sun was out and the river had risen a foot and was the color of chocolate milk. Soaking wet I hit the trail muddy soaking wet and happy.
Just the opposite weather can be the ticket in midwinter. You want that week of abnormally warm weather. When you can venture out with a hoodie and light jacket instead of a heavy winter jacket. The sun has warmed the cold clear winter water a couple degrees. In afternoon during the heat of the day river smallmouth might be tempted to move a couple dozen feet to a shallow hump or up a steep rocky bank in their wintering hole. Up to where sunlight was making things comparatively warm. Here I like to throw a hair jig. My favorites are ones I tie myself out of coyote. Not our course Midwestern coyotes but from ones I get online from Montana. These create a jig with wonderful light hair that simply comes alive in the water. You need a light flowing hair on your jig whatever the type because the best retrieve you can use is the slowest one you can manage. But if you have done your homework in the fall and tracked big smallmouth to first riffle up or down from this hole you know your showing your jig to fish. Often instead of a solid strike you simply feel a weight on the line an find yourself attached to a nice fish. But sometimes a nice fish will surprise you and really thump a jig. Either way any fish caught in winter is a great fish to me.
Jumping back to that hot steamy stretch of late summer weather. Sometimes the best time to go on small rivers and bigger creeks is right in the middle of the heat of the day. What?, how can that be true? It kind of goes against everything we instinctively know about smallmouth. But those smaller rivers and creeks don't always have really deep cool refuges for fish to escape the heat. Even the deepest pools might only be barely waist deep and as warm as a hot bath. Well the most comfortable place for a bass then is right up in the fastest riffle he can find. His metabolism is also ramped up and that riffle provides lots of food as well as much needed oxygen. If you can keep yourself cool and avoid heatstroke the work of finding the fish is done for you. I find the best riffles are the very first ones upstream of the deepest holes in the creek.
Monday, August 3, 2015
The ten
If you count my lousy attempts to catch a shark that wasn't a baby I'd been fishing nine days in a row. So if I went today it would be ten. Double digit days in a row. That only happens maybe once or twice a year for me so that was my excuse to sneak out for a couple hours before work. Middle of the day. Hot. Sunny. Just goes to show the best time to fish is when you can. I hunted up the fastest water I knew of. It's a chute of water about ten feet across that is really moving. Like faster than the water below a lowhead dam fast. Maybe below a dam on the Ohio fast. Scary fast. In a stream that you can wade across in a lot of places. This time of year I find I have the best luck on quality fish in fast water close to deep water. I think the fish's metabolism is ramped up so they want to feed. But it's hot so they want deep cooler water. So they make feeding runs up into that fast water that has lots of oxygen all day long then back to their deep spot, then repeat. At least that's my swat (scientific wild ass theory). Anyways that chute of water has a big eddy curling back upstream that's actually moving faster than most riffles on the rest of the stream. That's how fast the chute is. I positioned myself about ten feet below the eddy made a short cast into the edge of the chute and let the clear with silver flake grub tumble out of the chute and curl back upstream along the bank. Wham! and the fish ran right into the fast water. The rod bent double as the fish used the heavy current. I thought for sure it was a medium sized shovelhead. That is till it went airborne. Then airborne again. Then back into the heavy current. Finally after a longer than usual fight because of the fast water I finally landed the fish. No twenty incher like I'd thought. Heck the 19.5 I'd landed with Dan this spring was a smidge longer but not nearly as heavy. Ten days in a row got me a fish that was a ten in my book. Fat healthy and colored gorgeously, I couldn't have been happier with her...
Busting at the seams
Hit the river a bit before daylight. As the sky brightened hybrid stripies were busting bait hot and heavy right where a seam of really fast water poured into the pool. Sometimes I think watching them blow up and smack a minnow three or four times on the surface before getting it is about as exciting as catching them. Very cool when it all goes off like it's supposed to. Managed two like this one and a few little guys before things stopped. As soon as the sun cleared the trees and hit the water you'd have thought there wasn't a stripe within a hundred miles.
Saturday, August 1, 2015
opportunity knocks
I'd been gone for a week. When I left the rivers around here had been blown out for a month. I'd been reduced to farm ponds and gravel pits. Not my kind of fishing but fishing at least. Well on the way home every stream I crossed looked prettier and prettier. After driving ten hours home and taking a short nap I was off to rush to the bank before it closed. I took a minute to throw a rod and a baggie of jig heads and curly shads in the truck. I made the bank with two minutes to spare and then the river with two hours left till dark. Sigh. Sometimes obsession does pay off...
Losing hearts and minds for conservation
So I receive my monthly newsletter from my city. On the front page is a story titled "Duke Energy rates show significant increases". Inside the article is this gem, "The largest portion on this increase, 7%, is to permit Duke the ability to recover $33 million in lost revenue it has incurred due to implementation of energy efficiency programs mandated by state law. As energy efficiency programs are implemented and revenues decrease...".
So the average Joe who winces and mutters "please, please, please," under his breath when he opens his utility bill this winter is going to have to pay more because of the push to be more energy efficient and use less energy? And no one thinks this guy isn't going to support efforts to conserve energy use in the future? That he is going to support conservation groups and vote for politicians that support conservation?
In 2012, President Obama called the call to drill for oil domestically, "drill baby drill", "a slogan, a gimmick, and a bumper sticker ... not a strategy." Almost every single politician supported by national conservation groups echoed this sentiment. And every single politician that supported drilling was painted as evil and against clean air and water. That same average Joe who was paying $4 for gas is now paying close to $2. Joe knows he was lied to. In todays world of black and white where no common ground is ever reached the political pendulum is swinging away from the screeching hypocritical politicians flying their private jets home from Washington every weekend while telling Joe he's ruining the Earth by driving a pick up truck. Instead of electing politicians who understand the need to drill at home BUT do so cleanly and in a way that won't wreck the environment, Joe is going to support politicians who were painted by conservation groups as evil. Do we really think these guys will give a flip about clean air and water when they are elected? Ignoring the fact that living in the world is a delicate balancing act where the input of all sides is considered is going to cost conservation dearly. Common ground, common sense, all thrown away in the rush to wring out an extra dime while fund raising.
Yesterday I'm listening to National Public Radio on the long drive home from South Carolina and every hour they played this piece, "Climate Change is Forcing Bangladeshi Girls into Child Marriage". According to the reporter climate change was forcing families to marry off their girls at an early illegal age where they are beaten abused and raped by their new husbands.
Why? because families were losing their homes and land to river erosion; others lose crops every year to flooding or had lost everything in a cyclone and could no longer support their children. All caused by climate change of course, In another story a supposed climate expert claimed we could expect the following scenario:
"ALLIGATORS bask off the English coast, the Sahara desert stretches into Europe and 10 per cent of humans are left. Science fiction? No, this is the doomsday prediction if global temperatures make a predicted rise of 4C in the next 100 years. Some fear it could happen by 2050…"
And on and on, childhood insomnia, cannibalism, bird strikes on airplanes, civil unrest, cabbage shortages, and hundreds of other absurdities have been blamed on climate change. Our average Joe knows this is a huge steaming pile of bull crap. Just like the debate over oil drilling their is no common ground or common sense. No one is allowed to say, we need to study this in a sane manner, we need to see how much is a natural process and just part of the natural cycle in temperature that has gone on since the beginning of time. Say that and you are painted a moron who cares nothing about the planet. That same average Joe who quit throwing his trash out the car window years ago, quit rolling that old washing machine in the river, who gave money to groups like the Nature Conservancy is starting to realize todays conservation movement who seemingly cares about nothing but climate change is not really helping the world in tangible real ways.
Who's going to lose out from all this extremism? Real conservation groups like the Nature Conservancy and thousands of local groups like the Little Miami Conservancy, Friends of the Great Miami, Friends of the Little Miami State Park. People trying to make the world a better place are going to find it harder and harder to get support from Joe. All because of the idiocy of the "mainstream" conservation movement and the idiots in Washington they support. It's time we speak out and take the conservation movement back and put the emphasis back on making the world a better place instead of being about how much money can be squeezed out of guys like Joe thru hysteria and half truths.
So the average Joe who winces and mutters "please, please, please," under his breath when he opens his utility bill this winter is going to have to pay more because of the push to be more energy efficient and use less energy? And no one thinks this guy isn't going to support efforts to conserve energy use in the future? That he is going to support conservation groups and vote for politicians that support conservation?
In 2012, President Obama called the call to drill for oil domestically, "drill baby drill", "a slogan, a gimmick, and a bumper sticker ... not a strategy." Almost every single politician supported by national conservation groups echoed this sentiment. And every single politician that supported drilling was painted as evil and against clean air and water. That same average Joe who was paying $4 for gas is now paying close to $2. Joe knows he was lied to. In todays world of black and white where no common ground is ever reached the political pendulum is swinging away from the screeching hypocritical politicians flying their private jets home from Washington every weekend while telling Joe he's ruining the Earth by driving a pick up truck. Instead of electing politicians who understand the need to drill at home BUT do so cleanly and in a way that won't wreck the environment, Joe is going to support politicians who were painted by conservation groups as evil. Do we really think these guys will give a flip about clean air and water when they are elected? Ignoring the fact that living in the world is a delicate balancing act where the input of all sides is considered is going to cost conservation dearly. Common ground, common sense, all thrown away in the rush to wring out an extra dime while fund raising.
Yesterday I'm listening to National Public Radio on the long drive home from South Carolina and every hour they played this piece, "Climate Change is Forcing Bangladeshi Girls into Child Marriage". According to the reporter climate change was forcing families to marry off their girls at an early illegal age where they are beaten abused and raped by their new husbands.
Why? because families were losing their homes and land to river erosion; others lose crops every year to flooding or had lost everything in a cyclone and could no longer support their children. All caused by climate change of course, In another story a supposed climate expert claimed we could expect the following scenario:
"ALLIGATORS bask off the English coast, the Sahara desert stretches into Europe and 10 per cent of humans are left. Science fiction? No, this is the doomsday prediction if global temperatures make a predicted rise of 4C in the next 100 years. Some fear it could happen by 2050…"
And on and on, childhood insomnia, cannibalism, bird strikes on airplanes, civil unrest, cabbage shortages, and hundreds of other absurdities have been blamed on climate change. Our average Joe knows this is a huge steaming pile of bull crap. Just like the debate over oil drilling their is no common ground or common sense. No one is allowed to say, we need to study this in a sane manner, we need to see how much is a natural process and just part of the natural cycle in temperature that has gone on since the beginning of time. Say that and you are painted a moron who cares nothing about the planet. That same average Joe who quit throwing his trash out the car window years ago, quit rolling that old washing machine in the river, who gave money to groups like the Nature Conservancy is starting to realize todays conservation movement who seemingly cares about nothing but climate change is not really helping the world in tangible real ways.
Who's going to lose out from all this extremism? Real conservation groups like the Nature Conservancy and thousands of local groups like the Little Miami Conservancy, Friends of the Great Miami, Friends of the Little Miami State Park. People trying to make the world a better place are going to find it harder and harder to get support from Joe. All because of the idiocy of the "mainstream" conservation movement and the idiots in Washington they support. It's time we speak out and take the conservation movement back and put the emphasis back on making the world a better place instead of being about how much money can be squeezed out of guys like Joe thru hysteria and half truths.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)