Some Summer Smallies

A small smallie, but caught on a fly that I invented. Success!

A combination of a busy personal life and HOT temperatures have kept me off the water for the most part (I did get out to catch some pike in Minnesota during a family visit).  Yesterday, I finally had enough.  Since Cheryl needed me at home for most of the day, I got all prepared on Friday night, got to sleep early, and was on my way to an Eastern Ozark smallie stream by 3:15am.  After a three hour drive I arrived at a new for me creek, excited about the possibilites. 

Early morning.  Note the welcoming committee (two deer) in the center of the frame.

I started working a popper, and caught a handful of sunfish, but couldn't get any bass to come up.  Eventually I found a riffle dumping into a deeper hole.  I tried the popper in the eddies, but when that didn't produce, I broke out the spinning rod with the trusty tube jig.  Almost immediately I caught three or four small bass, but eventually that action died off.

I really wanted to catch a smallmouth on my flyrod this trip, so I thought it would be a good time to take off the popper and put on a crayfish pattern.  I tried the crayfish pattern that I posted about in January for the first time.  Second cast - fish on!  It was a little guy, but I was excited!

First smallie on my "new" fly!

The great thing was, the action didn't stop there!  I ended up catching half a dozen smallies in about 15 minutes - including one combination of three fish in three casts!  Eventually the fish stopped hitting, and I ended up losing the fly.  I tried a clouser for a while with no success, so I switched back to my spinning rod and caught one small largemouth with before moving on.

My little largemouth.  I caught his bigger brother later in the day, but he was camera shy!

I gradually made my way back upstream.  At one spot I was using a small grub on my spinning rod and back to back caught a 14" largemouth and a 14" smallmouth. The largemouth was camera shy, but the smallmouth let me take a couple photos before returning him to his shadowy home.  I love the way smallies fight!  This fish bent the rod right over, and even gave a couple awesome leaps before giving up.

The big smallie for the day.  What an cool species of fish!

I had been catching bream with a hopper on my flyrod in the meantime, but decided it was time to catch some more bass on the long rod.  I but on a rubber-legged woolly bugger and started fishing again.  I never got another smallmouth, but I did catch a shadow bass.  Shadow bass are in the same family as Rock Bass.  This was my first one ever!  In the past two months I have caught three of the four species of Rock Bass: Ozark Bass over Memorial Day, Rock Bass in Minnesota, and Shadow Bass over the weekend.  Now all I need to catch is a Roanoke Bass to complete my Rock Bass summer slam (it won't happen!)

Shadow Bass.  A new species for me, and on a fly no less!

I took a picture of one of the bream that I caught.  I caught two different species of bream, and although I don't know exactly what species they are, they sure are beautiful!  Sometimes they are annoying when targeting bass, but on the flip side, when the bass fishing is slow, they give you something to do!

Bream:  Aggressive and beautiful!

I was off the water by 11:30am and home before 3:00pm.  Six hours of driving for five hours of fishing is kind of crazy, but it felt great to be out.  I hope to get back to this stream - next time with my kayak, so I will be able to access more water and hopefully have more success.