Beguiled
2 Evenings
1 River
4 Locations
12 Flies
100's Spotted
0 Landed
That's my story for Monday and Tuesday.
Sometimes exploring new territory can be frustrating. Especially when fish are immediately spotted but refuse to cooperate. The Mohawk has still been my venue this week. I had actually hoped (wished) to fish above just the falls, but couldn't quite seem to find access down there. So I worked some other areas.
Managed to hook up with one 6" smallie at stop 1. Of course, I couldn't even keep him on the line. But, the area looks to have potential for future visits. Saw some bubbles from what could turn out to be feeding carp.
Stop 2 looked to hold much more promise. Massive carp rooting, rolling and splashing everywhere. I threw everything I had in every direction I could, hoping that if they weren't interested, at least I could entice a largemouth out of the weeds. All I ended up with was a 3 second struggle with a 4" pumpkinseed.
Stop 3 was a little change of pace. It essentially comprises a small spillway around one of the locks. When I say small, I mean small...no more than 15' across at most spots, and running for only about 150 yards in length. But it looked like perfect small stream smallie water when I stopped by Monday night. Tuesday however, after the rains, it was raging a little harder. Still, as I approached the head of the run from the concrete wall, I thought I saw tailing fish. Big ones. Black tails. Either these were gigantic smallies or random trash that had gotten sucked down the chute. Then one rolled. Drum. BIG drum. 10 lbs + big drum. And I could see about 10 from where I was standing, all holding in the current, tails high. I tried some buggers. I tried some bunnies. That was all I could really get down to them with the currents pushing hard. Nobody was interested. Then, I felt some weight. I was hooked up! The weight gave some and I saw why they weren't interested in my offerings. I pulled up a solid 3" square chunk of mussels. These things must be covering the bottom here. I gave up for the time being and tried swinging bunnies downstream for some smallies, but to no avail.
Stop 4 was actually what you might consider the "tailout" of the spillway run, when it re-enters the main canal. Water looked good. Good sized bass were taking things off the surface, along with some panfish. But once again, I couldn't find the key.
Hey, nothing ventured, nothing gained. At least I found some promising territory.
Unfortunately, nothing I do has been able to get this dish out of my head this week. This is the second morning in a row I woke up smelling it, only to be disappointed. Curse you FOTL!
1 River
4 Locations
12 Flies
100's Spotted
0 Landed
That's my story for Monday and Tuesday.
Sometimes exploring new territory can be frustrating. Especially when fish are immediately spotted but refuse to cooperate. The Mohawk has still been my venue this week. I had actually hoped (wished) to fish above just the falls, but couldn't quite seem to find access down there. So I worked some other areas.
Managed to hook up with one 6" smallie at stop 1. Of course, I couldn't even keep him on the line. But, the area looks to have potential for future visits. Saw some bubbles from what could turn out to be feeding carp.
Stop 2 looked to hold much more promise. Massive carp rooting, rolling and splashing everywhere. I threw everything I had in every direction I could, hoping that if they weren't interested, at least I could entice a largemouth out of the weeds. All I ended up with was a 3 second struggle with a 4" pumpkinseed.
Stop 3 was a little change of pace. It essentially comprises a small spillway around one of the locks. When I say small, I mean small...no more than 15' across at most spots, and running for only about 150 yards in length. But it looked like perfect small stream smallie water when I stopped by Monday night. Tuesday however, after the rains, it was raging a little harder. Still, as I approached the head of the run from the concrete wall, I thought I saw tailing fish. Big ones. Black tails. Either these were gigantic smallies or random trash that had gotten sucked down the chute. Then one rolled. Drum. BIG drum. 10 lbs + big drum. And I could see about 10 from where I was standing, all holding in the current, tails high. I tried some buggers. I tried some bunnies. That was all I could really get down to them with the currents pushing hard. Nobody was interested. Then, I felt some weight. I was hooked up! The weight gave some and I saw why they weren't interested in my offerings. I pulled up a solid 3" square chunk of mussels. These things must be covering the bottom here. I gave up for the time being and tried swinging bunnies downstream for some smallies, but to no avail.
Stop 4 was actually what you might consider the "tailout" of the spillway run, when it re-enters the main canal. Water looked good. Good sized bass were taking things off the surface, along with some panfish. But once again, I couldn't find the key.
Hey, nothing ventured, nothing gained. At least I found some promising territory.
Unfortunately, nothing I do has been able to get this dish out of my head this week. This is the second morning in a row I woke up smelling it, only to be disappointed. Curse you FOTL!
Comments
Lately surface feeding fish have liked dry flies more than woolly buggers.
Promising water is almost as good as productive water. Its just turning promising water into productive water thats the tricky part.