A learning man's game

FINALLY some freaking warm weather! I didn't think this winter would ever end. The midwest spent the all of March and a good chunk of April dodging frigid temps, snow, and ice. As if this wasn't bad enough, once all that precip melts, up come the rivers. I am normally patient when waiting on the spring thaw, but this year I found myself with a bad case of cabin fever. While I am game to fish in the winter (and did have some success this past one), it's just not the same. The fish are sluggish, and they simply don't fight like a smallmouth should. I always sit around and dream about the first day when the smallmouth are chasing lures, like REALLY chasing. Well, that day came. We'll get to that later, but I want to contrast 2 different trips I had in the last 2 weeks. One with good results, and one with not-so good results. I'll start with the not-so good one.

Trip #1 : THE SKUNK

I like to think of myself as an experienced angler, and a fairly skilled one at overcoming less than ideal conditions. There are a lot of obstacles we deal with as fishermen: wind, rain, water clarity (too clear or muddy), fishing pressure, pressure changes. These are just a handful of the many negative factors that can push a bite into submission. We learn how these affect fish, and the good anglers are able to overcome them, and find a way for fish to bite MOST of the time. There are those factors, that some of us, even the good ones, just can't find a way to crack. Mine is cold/high/muddy rivers. For whatever reason that combo just hasn't been one that I have found any amount of success with. Now, I know fish CAN be caught in these conditions, mainly because I have seen plenty of guys do it. I haven't figured it out yet. Normally, I just stay home when the rivers look like a flowing torrent of chocolate milk. This time however, I was too fed up with staying home and decided to give it a go.

I loaded up my brand spanking new Wilderness Systems ATAK 120, my old trusty Ride 115 (a loaner for a new guy), picked up my buddy at his house with the trailer, and hit the road. We were actually meeting a guy who had never fished out a kayak before. Those trips are always cool when you are bringing a new guy into the fold. It was immediately apparent when we arrived at the river that it was in bad shape. Less than 6-inches of visibility plus sub 45 degree water (the flow was also about double what it is normally) had us pretty discouraged. This was also a fairly unfamiliar stretch of river, that none of us really knew well. There was honestly not much way to distinguishg 9 inches of water from 9 feet. It made for a really really really hard day. Not one bite between the 3 of us. It was fun to get out, but this trip was a B.U.S.T.

Eluding to the title of this entry, I always try to learn something from every trip I take on the river (and every fish honestly). It's what makes me a better angler. Mentally assessing and breaking down the trip (also documenting it) can make these types of trips better in the future. With that said, here is what I learned from this trip:

Never fish a stretch of unfamiliar water when presented with muddy conditions. We do not use electronics much as most of the water we fish is shallow and rocky. Without the help of sonar, it's impossible to figure out depth. When you can't figure out depth (especially in the late winter/early spring), it makes for a tough day. I believe we would've had a much better chance on the same day on a river we were intimately familiar with.
Rivers always take longer to clear than you think they will. I KNEW in the back of my head that this river would be a mess. This time of year, especially when you haven't been out in awhile, sometimes logic gets thrown out the window. We had optimism that the river would have 1.5-2 foot of visibility. Boy were we wrong.
Dont take a new guy out in these conditions. Derek aka "The New Guy" was a complete gamer, but I hate for that to be his first experience in a kayak. This guy is a fishing animal, so I think it'll take more than 1 trip to discouarge him, but kayak fishing is tough when conditions are great. All those factors from this trip almost made it almost impossible. Shout out to Derek for taking on that rapid going backwards like a Champ!

Trip #2: ATTACK MODE

Short warm spell. Water Clearing. Game on. Set out for a mid-week trip when I had a day with not much going on work-wise. Took a friend out on my home river that I have fished a couple tournaments with. This kid is a REALLY good fisherman, and happens to be reigning Angler of the Year for the local Kayak fishing club. We had been talking about going out for a couple years, but couldn't seem to make it work. This time it did, and we had a blast! I arrived a couple hours before him due to him getting out of school later and decided to wade upstream of our float. After about 45 min of no action, I finally got to a spot where I thought they might be. Tossed a Rage Craw on a shaky head behind a car-sized boulder blocking the current. BAM! Finally a strike worth writing about! This fish immediately took me out of the slack water and into the current, stripping drag like a freight train. He made a couple majestic leaps out of the water before I was able to scoop him up into my net. He wasn't a giant, but 17-inches of Hoosier bronze pasted a smile on my face immediately.

After catching a few more small guys, I decided to turn around a float back to meet Aidan. I had to rush a bit as he was going to be there soon, so I decided against my better judgement to throw a faster moving lure. Two casts in and my spinnerbait got absolutely pounded! I had another nice fish on. Fought the old girl for a minute as I wanted to savor every second of her tugging. Fish to hand, and a 17.5 incher on the board!

I then proceeded to meet up with Aidan, and we started our float. I decided to stick with the spinnerbait, (well because it's just more fun to catch fish that way), and Aidan tied on a Zman TRD. Aidan put on a freaking clinic with the Ned Rig. He outfished me numbers wise sticking on bottom. I didn't mind though, every strike on that spinnerbait felt like a 20 incher. We both got on a really solid pattern and continued to take advantage of the aggressviness of these fish. We were able to find most of our fish in scoured out holes lacking major current. I observed fish holding really tight to cover such as mid-river boulders and root wads. We finished up our float with 50+ fish between the 2 of us. What a great day!

Reflecting on this trip, here are the 3 main things I took away from my experience:

I have a working theory that river smallmouth will be aggressive following long periods of flooded water. We had some pretty hardcore flooding around here the week prior, which makes life much harder on a river smallmouth. No easy meals when the river is raging and visibility is null. This makes me postulate that these fish are starving and want to eat. Add in the fact that their food intake was minimal just coming out of winter, and you have yourself a recipe for aggressive fish. I was right...at least this time.
The transition from winter sluggishness to spring aggression can be a quick one. It was just a couple weeks ago that these fish seemed to still be well in their wintering holes and moving at a snail's pace. All it took was some warmish rains, and a temp spike to get these fish moving. Heck, I even had a fish come up and hit my spinnerbait on top!
Be willing to expiriment. I picked up the spinnerbait as a necessity for fishing while I was moving quickly. Had I not needed to speed up, I most likely would have continued to throw low and slow. The fish had other plans.

Long post here, but it's been a long winter. I can't wait to get out again! Shout out to Aidan and Derek for both going. Looking forward to new friends and new adventures this season! That 23 is out there lurking...