Thursday, before Hurricane Isaac came through, I decided to hit the stream. And good thing too - it has rained quite a bit. The wind started up about 11 am and whipped up a good flurry every now and then. The clouds had come in and it rained all Thursday night and into Friday. Friday, it rained off and on. And, again today. We need the rain, NO DOUBT. It is going to change the streams up. I just hope water levels are not as high as when Hurricane Ike dumped rain on us. The location I fished Thursday was four feet higher and stayed that way for a long time. Not only had Hurricane Ike poured on us, we received a lot of rain throught the spring. Not to mention all the runoff from the unusual amount of snow.
The drought has caused fish to pile up in pools and small portions of streams. I've been following the fish all year. At least now, the fish can move around won't die. Riffles should pick up and smallmouth should travel more within areas of streams. Now, maybe I won't have to worry about bait fisherman emptying my pools of fish.
I tied up a new pattern this week. You can see it in the photo above. It's a smaller hopper/terrestrial than I am accustomed to casting but it was a more productive pattern than I used Saturday. The panfish were drawn to it but due to it's size, the smaller ones couldn't take it. And that's my preference. This fly was designed to attract skittish bass and juicy panfish. I caught several smallmouth bass on the Juicy Foam Fly but no panfish. I think someone pulled the Rock Bass out of my hole.
White and green was the successful pattern. Brown and black just didn't cut it. I do believe that the white foam caught some sunlight. I pulled out the Pistol Pete and caught several smallmouth. The largest came at the end of my trip and wouldn't you know it, my camera had crashed. My Android phone got wet on Saturday and slowly crashed. We has a little rain since I had fished last Saturday which caused the bass to move away from the bank and back into the riffles about 10 yards downstream and against the other side of the bank. As I walked down the elevated bank, the smallies saw me coming and hi-tailed it out of the stream and amongst the grass and algae. I did catch a lot of small bass on a brown Pistol Pete. I waded further down stream and into the current behind the bass. I didn't make too much noise while walking and casting into the riffles and drifting it back to me in a low and swift current. I would also cast up against the cliff where bass were hiding out in the shadows and chasing my fly into the sunny riffles.
Wading back upstream, I hit the bank my bass moved to earlier. A nice bass tagged my Pistol Pete. It was a good fight. I had a hard time keeping the line tight. He ran downstream and back upstream. I would say that fish was a good one pounder. I was casting my 4 wgt. which is tightly wound like a 3 wgt. It was a great fight. He hid in some rocks as I tried to keep the line taught. Then he darted off back to the bank where I waded over closer too and finally wrangled him out. And of course, my phone died. The camera would only take a photo when you hit the camera button which meant you had to position the phone first before initiating it. With all this new rain, fishing should pick up. September and October smallies should be hitting more topwater patterns. I've been tying up some Clousers too.
I bought a new 3 wgt. fly rod at Cabela's. The tip of my 4 wgt. rod. It seems that the 3 wgt. has the same diameter and length from handle tip to rod tip. Although, my 7'6" rod is now 7'4". I lost 1.25 inches on the rod. The tip guide came off and down the line to my fly. I tried to twist it back on and snapped the tip. I really don't like to go any lower than a 4 wgt. but we'll see how this new 3 wgt. handles my smallmouth bass.
Broke
Fixed
