No Bass Here!

Mack and I switched up our Sunday plans and decided to try some new and big water down south. With rumors of monster blue catfish, I mounted an abu 6500 with a power handle and 17lb mono onto a 6'6" MH bass rod the night before. It's big and heavy, but I don't have a functional 5000 series abu and my 4600s have lighter line. I'm glad I brought the heavier gear.

We launched about 30 min after daybreak. The water was cool and the river was peaceful. As the sun rose over the trees from river left, we scooted past a few parties catfishing the flatwater in john boats and I snapped this photo.



I started with a buzzbait and spinnerbait. Neither were getting any love. As we got into the first stretch of rapids, I anchored up in a pool behind some swift water to wait for Mack. I was slow rolling my white booyah spinnerbait when it got hammered and the drag started zinning. A few minutes later, I hauled in my first catch of the day ... an 8 lb channel cat.



A few casts later in the same pool, the spinnerbait got hammered again, this time it was a 18-20lb blue cat. I only had boga knockoffs (no net) and couldn't get them in its mouth before this fish destroyed my spinnerbait and broke the wire in half!

Mack caught up and we began to see schools of big fish trashing in the shallows. We anchored up near one of these "pods" and I tossed in my replacement wallyworld chartreuse spinnerbait. After a few casts, I got hammered again. After a short fight, I got the fish near the boat and discovered it was a nice 5lb striper!



As I fiddled with the striper, Mack hooks up with something huge on a lipless crank with a medium action spinning rod and 10lb line. He asks me to chase down his canoe as he jumps out of the boat into waist deep water. A 20+lb smallmouth buffalo wasn't what either of us expected, but it sure was exciting.



We continue downstream through the various shoals and rocks, seeing pod after pod of big fish swirling and running, but none would take our offerrings. In one area, we parked the boats on a rocky shoal to cast to the pools below the fast water. As Mack was videoing the area on his point and shoot, I hooked into another striper on the chartruese spinnerbait. This one was a little smaller.

Shortly after catching this striper, I landed a ~3-4 lb channel cat, again on the spinnerbait.  That would be the last fish landed on this trip.  A few hours later, I lost another striper on a weightless fluke and Mack got blasted near the surface by a huge fish on his spinnerbait (we assume a big cat), but it missed the lure. 

The most surprising thing is that we caught no bream and no largemouth bass. In fact, neither of us saw a bream or a bass in the 7 miles of water we covered. We also didn't see any shad or minnows. Water clarity was ~2-3' with a green hue, flow was ~1800 cfs. 

All fish were caught in swift water areas.  Another memorable trip. 

On a Roll

Today made three straight weekends where I got out early for a 1/2 day of river fishing. Many thanks to my loving and understanding wife for making this possible!

Last weekend, I fished some new water on a very small rocky flow west of Raleigh and did very well with the pickerel and had 53" with my best 3 of ~15 bass.  I caught most of my fish on topwater (spook, fluke, and buzzbait).



Today I chose to fish a larger local favorite, but a section I've only fished once prior. I pushed my range a bit more today, waded and drug quite a bit, and was ultimately rewarded with some nice fish.

All the area flows are relatively low, as you would expect this time of year without any significant rainfall. Today's location was fairly clear, with visibility around 4'. The rocky bottom was only out of sight in the deeper holes. Shady banks and the edges of the deeper holes is where I found the bass.

Things started fairly slow with a couple dinks and a couple decent fish on my usual offerings (buzzbait, spook, fluke, swimbait).



Once the sun came up the fish were spooky and I started to notice follows, but no strikes. I was standing next to a deep hole near a creek mouth on the last follow and I decided to switch up my lures and presentation altogether. I broke out a finesse jig that I purchased last winter. It's a small profile 3/16 oz black and green jig and I added a 3" smoke/black flake curly tail trailer.

On my 3rd cast, I landed the best fish of the day.



I proceeded to land about 15 bass on this same jig and had to change the trailer twice due to wear. No more dinks on the jig, all fat and healthly fish 15"+, including this 18"+ I caught right in front of a few bank fisherman who were coming up short.



Shortly after switching to the jig, the weather changed. Clouds rolled in and the breeze picked up. With more favorable conditions for my typical presentations, I tried the swimbait a little more in promising areas with mostly short strikes, except for this ambitious fellow ...



I totalled 56.25" with two around 19". There may be something to this jig thing afterall!