The Up-Down Approach
Filed under: Adventures — admin @ 8:43 am
There’s more to a slow moving sandy river than a fishing destination. Yesterday a group decided it was time to float a small river near my home. Four gals and one guy. Normally pretty good odds right?
My wife, daughter, and two other good friends in inner-tubes in brightly colored regalia tried to scare every fish in the river.
I did the smart thing and enlisted my Crow Wing Kayak to maneuver and keep away from this floating disruption.
This river is controlled by a dam and is normally very low in the middle of the summer. Recent rain storms have brought it up allowing for super floating and fishing.
I assumed the fishing would be tough since there are few holding areas for fish along the shallow sandy bottom. I did finally manage one decent (16 inches) smallie on a yellow popper.
I arrived at a known hot spot down river and got out of the kayak, attached it to my waist with a rope, and slowly waded my way down the run. I hit a fish on the first cast and then missed a big one on the third. I got him to come up one more time and held him briefly before we parted. That was it for the popper action.
I decided to switch tactics and probe beneath the surface. One can do this when wade fishing to cover good spots more thoroughly than when drift fishing. Sure enough, a green Clouser produced three more fish out of the run that never would have hit the popper. I cover this in quite a bit of depth in my eBook: Top Ten Flies for Smallmouth Bass.