The Lonely Smallmouth - March 31st, 2011

I fished from 11am till 1pm on the Greenbrier. I hole hoped and pitched tubes.  It was cold with colder air on it's way in. This has been a slow start to spring so far. The river level was stable but by no means high. I caught only on but was a solid 2.5lbs smallie that was cuaght behind WWCC's old pier. It seems that the fish want a jig-n-pig more when the water is flood level high and when it's lower and cleaner they prefer tubes.

First Smallies of the Year - March 30th

I have been cold water smallmouth fishing no less than 10 times this year with no smallmouths to show for it.  Dozens of lost jigs but no fish. Finally today my luck changed. I fished the Greenbrier for 2 hours on a cold rainy day. The river was stable to coming up and the water seemed clearer than it had in some time. I caught all 3 of my fish on earthly colored tubes. I caught a 2.5lbs, 2.1lbs., and  a 4.4lbs fish. The 4.4 was very long and if was caught again in the fall will probably weigh 5+lbs, it was a long fish 22 inches. plus. The pics aren't great because I was by myself and had nobody to take them. Despite a slow start to my smallie season and many lost jigs today sure was sweet.

The forage. Small Gitzit tubes 

2.1 lbs. Smallmouth



4.4 lbs. Smallmouth




Tired after the fight



2.5 lbs. Smallie

Cold Weather Trout Redux - March 25th

We decided since spring weather is on hold we would go back to winter trout fishing until the weather started to break. Brad I trout fished from 2:30 to 5:30 in fairly high water, it was 62.5 on the USGS. I previously had thought anything above 55 percentile was too high but we did well. The water was falling on the hydro graph and it was stained but not muddy. We ended up catching 37 trout total. All good sized fish. I caught 21 and Brad 16. I had one fish over 4lbs and another over 3lbs. We hooked and lost several more fish. The cold weather is supposed to continue for several more days. We were unable to determine if they had stocked some more fish or if there were hold overs that hadn't been fished in a while.  If they did stock new fish they came from the same supplier not the state because they were the same Canadian subspecies of rainbow that they have been stocking for the last 4+ years up here.                                                            

The Musky That Got Away - March 24th

I fished by myself in the cold at the JB reservoir for an hour, below the dam, and below the house. The air was cold, in the high 30's. It had been real warm the previous few days and the I knew the sudden temp drop would make chasing bass particularly difficult. I got zero bass bites, but did hook and lose a Musky below the dam adjacent to the spillway. I was working a jig-n-pig in real slow when right a the bank I saw a flash behind the jig so I just killed the jig and let it fall. I felt a small tick and set the hook. For about 4 seconds it was on. A musky came up jumped, turned, did a little tail walk and then spit the jig. He was a solid 35 inch musky. I tried fishing there for about 45 more minutes but had no success in getting him to hit again.

Trips to the Lake

I have had my bass boat since July 2, 2007.  After some checking on this blog I figured out that I have had it on the water fishing 145 times in 10 days short of 3.5 years. That averages out to 41.4 trips per year. It would be more had a couple of my friends not also have bass boats and a trend toward fishing the river more.

Greenbrier Smallie - March 21st, 2011

Joe and I fished the Greenbrier near the house from 8am till noon. We fished with jig-n-pigs, tubes, and I even tried a jerkbait. I had one bite I am sure was a smaller fish with no other bites. Joe caught one bass that was 3.1lbs and had another larger fish hooked up above lowell market.

Plum Out of Luck - March 16th

Dad and I fished Plum Orchard Lake on a beutiful day with air temps in the 60's and only a little wind. The water was clear and still very cold with surface temps only around 45 to 47 degrees. We tried jerk baits and then drop shot with no luck. I saw one bass up shallow but it spooked out to deeper water quickly before I could even get a cast off.

Feels Like Spring - March 13th

 We launched out of Ivy Hill on what was to be the last day of our trip. It was close to 50 degrees at daylight and would warm up to the lower 70's with very little wind. It was the best I've felt outdoors in months. Staying with our jerkbait pattern while trying to refine it a little we caught 5 bass and missed one more in the beach coves. Then we picked up 3 more in campground cove. From there we went on to hammer the fish in the back corner of Island Creek. At one point back in Island Creek Jason put on a larger clown colored Smithwick Rouge only to hook a good sized 3lbs. bass that broke his line at the boat when he tried to pick it up. The last time we saw the Rouge it was in the fishes mouth as he swam off. We also caught fish in Rushing Creek and Powerline Cove. We caught fish everywhere and every time we stopped the boat. We ended up with 16 fish, I had 9 and Jason had 7. 13 of our 16 fish were > 14 inches. And we had 3 fish over 3lbs in that bunch. It was a fun day. We fished till 3 and started our long trip home.

First Bass of the Year - March 12th

We fished Grassy and it was slow at first. But the sun was out and it was warming up. We tried shallow junk fishing then figured out that in 50 degree water the fish were out deeper. Jason suggested that we go throw jerk baits on points and coves that were near main creek channels. It made perfect sense and it was working. We caught 3 in the first place we tried including a 3lbs fish that Jason caught. We then ran all over Grassy picking up a fish here and a fish there. The right side of Beaver pond creek had some of the better stucture that places I had fished in Grassy before. We tried fishing back in Essex and we did catch some fish at the mouth of Essex but there were fishermen everywhere back there so we skipped fishing farther back. We ended up with 9 bass, 7 of which were keepers. The other guys on this trip were fishing shallow and were really struggling despite being some talened and accomplished fishermen.

White Bass Only - March 11th

Jason & I left Hinton at 9am to go prefish Kerr for his BASS weekend series the following weekend. We left Hinton with snow flying. When we got to Bluestone Creek launch ramp it was only 47 degrees with wind 10 to 20mph. The main lake was muddy, but the creeks were very clear. We fished secondary points, Goodell creek, Clarksville rip-rap,rocky channel banks and even launch ramp cove. We tried cranks, spinnerbaits, jigs, and lipless cranks with no luck. The wind nearly pushed us off the lake. Jason did land one 8 inch white bass off the main Bluestone creek channel.The was was only 50 degrees. Muddy cold water can be a real killer for an LMB bite. Luckily for us the weater for Saturday and Sunday were expected to dramatically improve.