Fishing With One of my Fellow Bloggers

Today’s trip was not quite what I expected as far as number of fish was concerned, but the companionship and the friendship I developed today with Jay from The Naturalist Angle Blog was worth the trip. Jay arrived at my house around 5: 15 and we left and proceeded to Smith Lake to try our hand at some of the big Kentucky Spots. There was only one problem the Spots forgot to turn on that violet hit mode. So we both spent the morning landing some nice bull bluegill and Jay did manage to land a 12 ¼” spot and another smaller one both on top. The top wasn’t working not because of the weather, but because of the feeding pattern. I told Jay that late yesterday evening there was a lot of cloud cover in the area and that was probably when the feeding occurred. Some of the best top water action is on cloudy days on Smith. This morning there was little wind to speak of and the water temp was around 85, which is excellent for top water action but nothing was happening.

I found out what I already knew about Jay, that he is an accomplished fly fisherman. He was making some exceptional fly presentations and some extremely long cast this morning, because most of the morning we were some distance from the bank. I told him at the start of the trip that if the spots could see you they would not hit, so some long cast was in order. As the morning wound down and the sun started to take away the shade banks we switched to nymph style flies, which produced one spot for me on a size 8 crayfish: nothing else happened from down under the rest of the morning. It was not from like of trying because we both put forth a valiant effort, with exceptional placement and presentations, but none of that matters if the fish aren’t there and not hitting. I looked forward to another trip with Jay and hope the Kentucky Spots are in a better mood whenever he makes his way back to Jasper again. 

   Jay with one of the big bull bluegills

Jay with the best spot of the day

Rock, Bluegill, Spots, Largemouth Combo

Little did I know this morning at 3:45 AM, which by the way is the time I crawled out of bed I would land a four species combo? Why so early to go fishing? Well in the Deep South especially during the summer months, you have to be on the water early to avoid the heat and humidity. After 10 AM it starts to get humid and hot and the longer you stay on the water the more it feels like a sauna bath. In other words don’t brother to go the gym and sit in a sauna, just get out in this weather and in a few minutes your clothes are all wet and you have accomplished the bath.
Back to the combo where it all started with the typical Kentucky Spot which Smith Lake is famous for and shortly later a good largemouth . Both these fish were taken on the size 4 Boggle Bug Popper using my 5 wt Redington 8 ½ ft. As the morning progressed I picked up a few more Spots and a another largemouth. Both of these fish were taken on a size 8 orange popper using my Temple Fork 4 wt. The 4 wt. also help me land some nice bluegill and one Rock Bass which gave me the combo. This was not one of those hot popper days. The fish were somewhat finicky so I started to scan through for fly box for a different color popper. As the morning progressed I fish through 4 different colors and two different patterns. Yellow was really early, followed by a white and then I lost a turquoise popper because I didn’t brother to check my line at the fly eye, and it broke off with a tiny gill, which may still be swimming with my $4.00 Boggle Bug Popper. Around 8:30 I tied on the Green Grasshopper, which I could see after some casting that it was too close to the color of the water and it was put back into the fly box. The trip ended  around 10 AM with the Orange size 8 popper which actually produced most of the fish I landed. It is an amazing little fly because it is so unusual in color and has black legs not white legs to compliment the look. I have used this fly for the past couple of years and it always seems to rescue me on slow popper days. Today’s conditions were a slight wind out of the south, with water temps hovering around 85, which I think before by the end of the day would have reached 87. Some days fishing with the poppers produce violet hits, but today all the takes were very sudtle with the fish rolling onto the fly. Sudtle or violet I'll take the hits either way. Charles made the trip with me today, and I hope we can get together again real soon.

Sorry for the dark image, but it was still dark when I took this picture of my first spot of the day on the Boogle Yellow Popper

This largemouth kills this white popper deep down

A nice largemouth on the white popper, no this fish did not die, he had a small cut in the roof of his mouth from the popper hook, I watched him swim off.

This big gill gave the 4wt all it wanted, it made numerous deep runs before it finally gave up. Great fighter.

This 2lb. largemouth was taken on the little orange popper, he just roll on the popper, no violet hit

Nice Rock Bass on the orange popper, first one of this season

This big gill inhaled the orange popper deep in its throat. Forceps was the ticket to get to the popper

Last Spot of the day on the little orange popper

One good meal from these 3 bulls

I will be getting more of these little bugs

Landing Slab Crappie on Legion Lake Fishing With my Brother

This is one Memorial Day Weekend I won't forget for some time. My brother, Bobby and I spent the holiday weekend landing some of the largest crappie we have ever landed on the local lake near his home. I know the title of this post can be a little confusing, so here is the explanation. We were using 4 different techniques to land all the fish we kept the past three days. Let’s start with the Micro Light technique. I have talked about this technique before on this blog but let me give you a little more information. It is the method we started with Friday evening on the lake, which produced 17 crappie and bluegill. The micro-light method is just what it implies LIGHT fishing, using a 7 to 7 ½ ft. rod with a light spinning reel loaded with 4 lb. test light. This method emulates a short fly rod, which makes for some fantastic action when you are playing the size crappie and bluegill we were landing. We were using both rods Friday evening with reels that produced the perfect balance for the big 12 to 13-inch crappie we were catching.
The Jigger Pole was another set-up we used. My brother has used this set-up for a number of years. He is extremely good at playing and landing crappie with this technique. I am still in the learning stages here, but I must admit it is a lot of fun learning. Here the individual uses a long graphite rod usually 9 to 13 ft. in length with a small spinning reel or close face reel. This set-up is perfect to fish in tight places such as stomps or treetops. We used this technique Saturday evening in treetops and submerged stomps we found in some of the nooks on the lake. The best lure for the Jigger is a tube jig or a minnow. The advantage one has here is holding the lure in front of the crappie longer. 

If we had not switched from one set-up to another during the days fished we would have never landed 50 fish, we did and dressed the 15 best fish we brought home. and brought home the 44 we cleaned for a big fish fry. As always it is good to visit and fish with Bobby!  

Fishing With Jason on Smith Lake Landing Spotted Bass

Monday, Jason and I left the house at 5 AM for a daylight fishing trip on Smith Lake. I seldom get to fish with Jason, because he is in school and that has taken up pretty much all his time for the past two years. We were going to fish for some of the Kentucky Spots using the fly rod and also to see if there were still any crappie left in the area I fish Saturday. Starting at 5:30 AM has not produced the fish I consider good this season, and Tuesday was in the same lane. The first fish came at 7:30, with one of the crappies in the same area where I had success Saturday. Jason and I spent about an hour in the honey hole and landed 6 more slabs using the smoke and glitter curly tail grub with the redhead jig. The fish this time was bigger and slower to hit. I suspect the reason for the low numbers was the fact that we had caught all of them or the on-off hit factor crappie process. Leaving the crappie area we decided to start looking for shade because the sun had taken over most of the banks where we had fished earlier. If you are going to fish Smith topwater, you need to look for shade after the sun comes up because the lake is so clear the fish can see you at a considerable distance. It also helps to wear dark clothing instead of white or bright clothing. The Kentucky Spots on this lake have seen it all and are very wary of anything that threatens them. So you need every advantage you can muster. With that said, we pulled up on a steep rock wall bank near the dam where Jason did a long shoot cast that propelled his size 8 little white popper right next to the rock wall. He let the popper sit motionless for a few seconds before he gently moved it, which produced a violet hit yielding a 16” Spot. He had quite a fight on his 8 ½ ft. 4 wt fly rod. He played the fish to perfection and eventually landed it. This is what makes fly fishing so exciting and challenging is the play and landing a fish that is most of the time superior to the tackle you are using. It is the fish and you and sometimes the fish wins and sometimes you win. I noticed something on this trip that may make the next trip even more productive, which is popper size. The larger poppers haven’t produced as well this season so today was a test using smaller poppers, which really worked well getting the larger spots to hit. Before we left Jason and I landed 6 more spots and one largemouth, all on the white popper with the white legs. It was a great trip with my son whom I very seldom get to fish with. I hope we can make many more trips after he graduates.                    

My Best Crappie Fishing Trip on Smith Lake EVER!!

Not a fly fishing report sorry to say. The fishing trip started off today as being a bass fishing outing using topwater lures at daylight. Fishing the Rapala one of the oldest topwater lures was the choice at daybreak. Things started off slow and didn’t improve until the sun came up and 3 Kentucky Spots were boated, with the Rapala. If you haven’t used this lure it is deadly when worked with a slight jerk imitating a wounded minnow. This jerk motion is what produced the BEST crappie fishing trip I have ever had on Smith Lake today. 10:30 is when I spotted some tiny minnows skipping across the surface in the back of a nook just off the main body of the lake. By 10:30 on any Saturday fishing Smith you have got plenty of big ski boats churning and steering up the water to the point where you have dingy water mixing with the super clear water. This situation will cause the small minnows and tiny shad to ease into this type of water and try to hide in the dingy water from the bass that is chasing them: and this you might say is what produced the best crappie trip I have had on Smith Lake. Before today I had never caught more than 3 or 4 crappies on this lake. The first cast I made into the dingy water I thought was going to produce bass, but instead, produce huge crappie on the Rapala. I knew when I landed that first fish they had to be more where that one came from and as I suspected there was, to the tune of 18 in this little nook with a few brush piles for them to trap the minnows in. The 18 was caught in 1 ½ hours, which seems like a long time to land 18 crappie, but consider the conditions, wind 10 mph, out of the east, heavy boat traffic producing huge wakes and last the lost of my trolling battery trying to contend with the wind and boat traffic; but with a trip like today, I will count my blessings.  

I don't have to tell you how good these fish are when fried or baked. I was lucky and may never catch this many carppie again in one place on this lake. As a matter of fact, you might say that this catch today was truly by accident---but that is what makes fishing so interesting to me, you never know what you are going to encounter when you hit the water. That is why I love it so.