Rain Rain, Go away. Fished with my Brother Anyway!

 My brother and I have been planning an overnight float for months that was supposed to occur this past weekend.  Well, as usual, mother nature didn't cooperate.  Storms moving from the gulf up the east coast the days leading up to our trip had me scouring the USGS water data <http://waterdata.usgs.gov/nwis/rt> and weather forecasts all week trying to pick the most favorable float.

Sidebar - The USGS water data is probably the single most important internet resource I have in determining where to go fishing.  It also saves me a huge amount of time and frustration by not attempting to fish rivers that are in bad shape due to rain or high/swift due to unscheduled dam releases.  Additionally, some of the flows log temperature data, which is great for predicting local river fishing patterns. 

Back to the trip ... We decided to bag our overnight.  I was trying to figure out a way to salvage the weekend and actually do some fishing and I suggested that we try a small flow near Raleigh.  The rain didn't hammer it and I've fished it in the spring where other rivers were pure mud and this one was in good shape.  We took a small gamble and planned to meet at the put-in at 7:30. 

The gamble paid off.  I arrived about 7:15 and scouted the water.  I was pleasantly surprised to see stained water with 18"+ visibility.  We launched and starting throwing topwater right away.

Brother caught a small bass within 10 min of launching and followed it up with a nice sunny, both on a Pop-R.  We caught several bass in the morning and brother caught a nice white crappie.  We switched positions in the canoe for the afternoon and I took full advantage.  I started off after lunch with the biggest fish of the day (3.5 lb largemouth), caught on a simple small white curly-tail grub on a plain 1/4 oz lead jig-head.  I was actually trying to catch some more crappie, but I'll take it!

The rest of the day was spent tossing the buzzer and I finished with close to 20 bass on the day.  I'll never get accustomed to seeing a viscous topwater strike near the boat.  I had several on the day and man are they startling and exciting! 

Great weather and good times on the river ... quality time with my brother.  He walked away with my MH spinning rod/reel because he liked it so much.  At least he paid me :)