7/25/15 Time Flies When You're Having Fun

After a few more rain events, the White River was on it's way back down again. Hope turned to optimism and as we approached the weekend, the forecast called for nice weather and the USGS gauge was looking really good. Saturday came and we were on the road by 06:30 to head south. This was Larry's first river float in a kayak. For the most part, he did well keeping himself upright and out of trouble. Although at one point he did run a riffle backwards on accident. I had a lot of success two weeks ago throwing a nose-hooked fluke on a spinning rod so over the two weeks in between trips I tied several big streamers similar in size to the flukes. My favorite was a clouser minnow I tied on a size 2 hook, with large dumbell eyes, 3 colors of craft fur, and some flashabou. I also brought a spinning rod in case the fish were not into the streamers. This proved to be pointless as the fish were eager to take my streamer all day. The technique for fishing streamers like this is pretty simple. Cast out and retrieve with a strip-pause technique. The fish usually seem to strike on the pause. I usually try to mix it up from cast to cast until you figure out if the fish are liking a fast or slow retrieve. This style of fishing is so much fun because you get to see almost all of the strikes. Over the course of the day I caught somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 fish, 6 of which were between 14 and 16 inches. No monsters but plenty of nice fish to keep my rod bent all day. I continue to be extremely impressed with how these fish use the current to their advantage. At times it was hard to move them with the 6-weight! There are few things better than a visual strike, a couple acrobatic jumps, and some bulldogging runs. I can tell my fly casting has improved greatly over the last several years. Two years ago I would have a hard time even catching a couple fish during a day with the fly rod! At one point during the day I hooked a decent fish. As I was bringing it to the boat I could see two other bass chasing it. When I got the fish to the boat, it jumped and spit the hook into the air. The fly landed back in the water and one of the other fish darted up and grabbed it! Pretty ridiculous and I love seeing Smallmouth doing crazy stuff like this! Larry got to experience first hand how difficult it can be to navigate a river, manage your fly line, and try to catch fish all at the same time. He caught a couple decent fish and I hope he wasn't too discouraged by the day. Kayak fishing can certainly be challenging and quite a learning experience. One of the few times during the day that I picked up the spinning rod, I ended up getting my crankbait snagged. I thought "no problem, I'll just paddle over and get it". Boy was I wrong. The crankbait had actually gone underneath a rock ledge and wedged itself at least 5 inches underneath it. No amount of pulling from the kayak was ever going to get it free. I thought about breaking it off but I decided that the water didn't look too deep so I was going to get out and see if I could get it out. The water was almost up to my waist. I had to bend over with my face literally less than an inch from the surface of the water to be able to get anywehere near my lure. I had to reach underneath the rock ledge and pop it free. Somehow I was able to manage to free it. I almost can't believe that I got it back at all. All in all, I spent close to 10 hours on the water. The weather, water, and fish were all very cooperative. I couldn't have asked for a better day. Once we got off the water I stopped for dinner at Cammack Station just north of Yorktown. While eating my burger, I read yet another newspaper article about the proposed dam and reservoir in Anderson. The lake would extend 7 miles upstream from Anderson and flood some beautiful portions of the river that I've fished the last several years. If you love fishing, kayaking, and free-flowing rivers please see my post about the dam, sign the petition, and contact governement representatives in Anderson, Chesterfield, Daleville, and Yorktown and tell them that you don't want to see a dam on this section of river. It would be an absolute shame to lose a big part of one of the best Smallmouth rivers in the state!