Yesterday was one of those days. The universe was telling me not to go. It was going to be brutally hot. Recent rains had all the major flows around me muddy. My hope was to hit a small feeder creek to one of the bigger flows, but it was a gamble whether or not it would be clean enough to fish. I rolled the dice. When I passed the main flow, it was pure YooHoo. Chocolate milk. When I saw the feeder creek, though, it was clean enough. It's usually gin clear, I still probably had at least 18" of visibility yesterday. It would end up getting cleaner and cleaner the farther upstream I went.
With it being a small stream, usually catching smaller fish, I carried a 1 weight fly rod. Basically, the super UL spinning rod of the fly fishing world. It's a twig. But, it matches well to the normal catches here, mostly sunfish and rock bass.
My favorite fish in Ohio is the longear. These little guys are amazing.
I found a few bass, they usually run under 12" here with the occasional 13-15" bass. I catch both spotted and largemouth in this stream. This spot made my day for a while. A bass that size has that little fly rod buckled to the cork.
More average size, largemouth.
So I had come to one large hole, and spotted a big shadow (right of the stump in the pic below). My first thought, "that can't be a fish." My second thought, when I realized it was a fish, "that can't be a bass." Wrong again. It was a TOAD for that little creek. I had never seen a bass this size there in several years of fishing it.
I was pretty sure it had spotted me scaling the bank to get into position to cast, before I saw the bass. I made a few casts with a few different flies, it wouldn't budge. I figured I'll work upstream, rest the fish, and try to sneak back in on it in an hour. Upstream, I found some bobcat tracks (I think) in the mud.
I came back to that big hole, and carefully waded in to about knee deep, in casting range of that stump. I watched, saw nothing, made a couple of casts, then spotted her. She was swimming with a 10-12" bass, towards the bank on my left, and she was close. When she turned back towards the middle, I put the fly about 3' in front of her and gave it a couple of twitches. She casually swam towards it, opened her mouth, and inhaled it. I was in shock. She went nuts, jumping like crazy. There had to be 8-10 jumps, most of them completely clearing the water and crashing back in. After a couple of tense minutes, I had her.
I think the jumping played to my advantage. She wore herself out going nowhere. Had she run on me, I probably could not have stopped her. I held her in the current for a minute or two until she was revived, and off she went. My rod measurement I took had her just under 21".
This is what she ate. Just a nothing-imitating "critter fly" I tie.
With it being a small stream, usually catching smaller fish, I carried a 1 weight fly rod. Basically, the super UL spinning rod of the fly fishing world. It's a twig. But, it matches well to the normal catches here, mostly sunfish and rock bass.
My favorite fish in Ohio is the longear. These little guys are amazing.
I found a few bass, they usually run under 12" here with the occasional 13-15" bass. I catch both spotted and largemouth in this stream. This spot made my day for a while. A bass that size has that little fly rod buckled to the cork.
More average size, largemouth.
So I had come to one large hole, and spotted a big shadow (right of the stump in the pic below). My first thought, "that can't be a fish." My second thought, when I realized it was a fish, "that can't be a bass." Wrong again. It was a TOAD for that little creek. I had never seen a bass this size there in several years of fishing it.
I was pretty sure it had spotted me scaling the bank to get into position to cast, before I saw the bass. I made a few casts with a few different flies, it wouldn't budge. I figured I'll work upstream, rest the fish, and try to sneak back in on it in an hour. Upstream, I found some bobcat tracks (I think) in the mud.
I came back to that big hole, and carefully waded in to about knee deep, in casting range of that stump. I watched, saw nothing, made a couple of casts, then spotted her. She was swimming with a 10-12" bass, towards the bank on my left, and she was close. When she turned back towards the middle, I put the fly about 3' in front of her and gave it a couple of twitches. She casually swam towards it, opened her mouth, and inhaled it. I was in shock. She went nuts, jumping like crazy. There had to be 8-10 jumps, most of them completely clearing the water and crashing back in. After a couple of tense minutes, I had her.
I think the jumping played to my advantage. She wore herself out going nowhere. Had she run on me, I probably could not have stopped her. I held her in the current for a minute or two until she was revived, and off she went. My rod measurement I took had her just under 21".
This is what she ate. Just a nothing-imitating "critter fly" I tie.
