Small Mouth Bass - Big Piney River

Yesterday evening, I was bored, it was looking like it was going to settle in and start raining. About 4pm,I loaded up my ultra light, a stringer, and a small box of my river lures. Now my lure selection for the piney , during the heat of the summer, is pretty basic, and fits in a small fly box, at least, that's what I call it! Several small spinners with different colored twisters or rubber minnows. About 6 or 7 small ultra light crank baits , like the rebel craw dad, bass magnets, to name a few, you should notice that I really down size my lures.

The river is only about a mile from my house, so it makes a short trip and a fast start at fishing. I had on some old sneakers, shorts, tee shirt and a hat! Into the river I waded. I had tied on a black and red crawdad crank bait, and about the 3rd cast, I snagged a nice goggle eye! Maybe I should say he snagged me! He was about a 10 inch goggle eye, and between the current and his pulling power, getting him on the stringer, was quite the challenge! Nevertheless, the fisherman , wins this battle!

This was a good beginning to start the evening, and I anticipated a successful event. It was still early, like 4:30 or so, as I didn't have my watch with me, I always seem to forget something! But, time really doesn't matter, when you're having fun in the outdoors, and especially when I am fishing! Time just seems to stand still.

It didn't seem to be a hot day,even though it was 85 degrees. There was a nice breeze a blowing , and the birds and frogs, where singing their songs, and it was just a down right , quiet, beautiful evening to be wade fishing and soaking it all in including the nice cool water, which is probably why I wasn't noticing how hot it was!

I waded on down a few shallow riffles and got into the little eddie, I call "goggle eye eddie!" The name I call it should be obvious as to the story fixing to unfold! I love to wade this quarter mile eddie as it has good current, lots of huge boulders and logs, it makes great cover for fish and the small mouth bass just love it! Maybe 5 or 6 ft deep at the most!

I had been just goofing off and killing time, trying to fish, this excellent water, the last 2 hours of sun light. Prime time for some nice small mouth and goggle eyes! But now the time has come to get serious, and I tied on a natural colored rebel craw dad, and proceeded to catch some nice goggle eyes and several small, small mouth bass! I had managed to keep 8 keeper goggle eyes and truly enjoying the fight on the ultra light. It really gives the fish the upper hand, but is a blast as these goggle eyes bend the ultra light rod double, wow, too much fun! Is it really possible to have too much fun? Not really!

I had waded back up to the upper end of the eddie and threw that crawdad crank bait into the back up swirl over by the bank and started the retrieval when , "wham" a nice small mouth had struck and was running all over the river at will! He wanted to go up over the riffle, but some how I managed to stop him and again ran, at will, wherever he wanted. He finally tired out and he was a 20 inch small mouth, not bad for the piney river and an ultra light battle!

The very next cast, another bigger, a lot bigger small mouth slammed me hard, and we fought for 5 or 6 minutes as he was not about to give up so quick and then he ran straight at me , and came off! In the next 30 minutes I would hook 3 more big small mouth bass, that came off! And a huge small mouth, did some tail walking and threw my lure back at me and slipped back into the river as if nothing had happened and left me standing there looking stupid!

I waded up on a raccoon, who was fishing for crawdads, in the riffle and he didn't even notice me for about 15 minutes. He was so busy catching, crawdads and eating them that I was able to sneak with 10 feet from him and observed him up and close, I guess you could say up close and personal! Very interesting, as I had never witnessed this in the wild before.

So to sum up the evening, man won a few, beast won a few, but all was enjoyed to the fullest! It is simply put, amazing what nature and the outdoors, has to offer! We have to help her maintain herself, and we have to do our part, and watch over her and manage her. In the end, we all, win!

So until next time, enjoy the "Great Outdoors!" See ya out there, I hope!