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5/25 - I waded in with the spinning rod at one of my favorite spots around 9AM. Things started slow, I threw a couple things around before I tied on a brown Mini-Trap that got broadsided by a fat 14" smallie. I was getting ready to take a picture, but I noticed a wound on it's side that was probably a lesion and didn't want to stress it anymore so I let it off as soon as I got it unhooked. A few minutes later I lost a 12" smallie on a pumpkin brown tube after that.
After the sun got up and things got slow, so I went to my lazy option of black rubber hellgrammites on 1/32oz crappie tube jigs. Caught a dink smallie. Around 11AM I threw across the current into some shade and got a serious hit. I saw that I had a big smallie, 19-21", and I started backpedalling to try and minimize the advantage the current would give the fish. It was a great fight, the fish jumped, I almost fell over into the water, but eventually the little crappie jig hook bent and the big one threw the hook. I caught another small one, lost another unidentified fish and called it a day at noon.
Final look: 3 hours, 3x smallmouth, 2x more +1 unknown lost. Slow action for stable water levels and seasonal weather, some decent size. Surprised by the absence of sunfish, largemouth or fallfish/sucker bites. There's usually a couple.
5/31 - Fly rod day at another spot. Later start, 10AM this time. Caught 5 smallies, all under 10". I'm entering this farcical total in the PRSC annual contest. Also caught a run of the mill shellcracker. Big fish of the day is this fallfish:
put up a good fight. All fish caught on a white and red deceiver.
Final look: 4 hours, 5 smallies, 1 fallfish, 1 sunfish. The fallfish was the only impressive fish landed. Promisingly I did see a big 4-5 lb. largemouth in a slough. I think I caught the same fish two years ago there, glad to see she's still around and growing. Will be going back this summer to get reacquainted.
6/7 - Did a float this time with Kris from PRSC and our friend Austin. We went from Strasburg Town Park to Catlett's Landing with a dam portage. No real good stories.
Final look: 5-6 hours. 3x smallmouth, 1 fallfish. No size to speak of, all in the 6-9" range.
Last year's fish kill of smallmouth and sunfish looks to be showing. I've been fortunate to run into a few good sized smallmouth, but over all numbers are down. The less than dazzling incidental catches of sunfish and fallfish are disappointing as well.
Last edited by CrankbaitGuy (Jun-18-15 8:46PM)
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Thanks for the detailed report! I may do a short float on another river this weekend.
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Glad you had that big one on.....I hope things pick up soon though!
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Heard the NF got hammered by the fish kill this year.
Sad, that was such a sweet fishery
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