1-21
Posted: Mon Jan 21, 2013 8:04 pm
Well the cold weather is bringing the ice back to the river. Some stretches just have ice along the shore in the slower stretches, others are flowing ice shore to shore and others have some shoreline ice with ice chunks flowing. The gauges are suspect due to the ice but the eyeball exam says it's about normal flow for this time of year. The only time I took the water temps it showed 32.4, why bother checking again, that's cold no matter how you slice it.
Air temps were in the single digits, I heard on the radio wind chill was below zero. I know the wind was blowing hard enough to send large white caps upstream. It was cold enough that taking my hands out of the gloves to clean gunk off the lures and getting them wet made them ache.The line guides iced up just about every other cast and had to br cleaned. Other than that it was a beautiful day, for some reason I had the river to myself.
I tried jigs/plastic and jig/pigs on current seams with a variety of speeds. I let it bounce along with the current and dragged/let sit by using a little heavier jig. I didn't get any fish and after re tieing 4 times with bare hands that was enough of that. I tried slow rolling and jigging single spins, no go. I tried rattlebaits, jerk baits and floating and suspending minnow baits, no fish on those. I gave the topwaters a go in the upstream whitecaps as that is a pattern that works at times, just not today.
The only thing that worked was casting a glass shad rap downstream and bringing it upstream along the current seams. The only retrieve that worked was to slowly reel for a couple turns of the reel handle and let it hover and shimmy in the current for about a thirty count. Then start it again and repeat. When I felt it hit a large rock/boulder, I would drop the rod tip and let it slip back downstream. I would ease it forward with the rod tip until I hit the rock again. I would repeat that about 5 or 6 times and go on. Twice, while doing that, I felt a little something extra weight wise and set the hook. I only got two smallmouth bass but they were both in the 17 to 18 inch range.
Not a bad way to spend a day off work.
Air temps were in the single digits, I heard on the radio wind chill was below zero. I know the wind was blowing hard enough to send large white caps upstream. It was cold enough that taking my hands out of the gloves to clean gunk off the lures and getting them wet made them ache.The line guides iced up just about every other cast and had to br cleaned. Other than that it was a beautiful day, for some reason I had the river to myself.
I tried jigs/plastic and jig/pigs on current seams with a variety of speeds. I let it bounce along with the current and dragged/let sit by using a little heavier jig. I didn't get any fish and after re tieing 4 times with bare hands that was enough of that. I tried slow rolling and jigging single spins, no go. I tried rattlebaits, jerk baits and floating and suspending minnow baits, no fish on those. I gave the topwaters a go in the upstream whitecaps as that is a pattern that works at times, just not today.
The only thing that worked was casting a glass shad rap downstream and bringing it upstream along the current seams. The only retrieve that worked was to slowly reel for a couple turns of the reel handle and let it hover and shimmy in the current for about a thirty count. Then start it again and repeat. When I felt it hit a large rock/boulder, I would drop the rod tip and let it slip back downstream. I would ease it forward with the rod tip until I hit the rock again. I would repeat that about 5 or 6 times and go on. Twice, while doing that, I felt a little something extra weight wise and set the hook. I only got two smallmouth bass but they were both in the 17 to 18 inch range.
Not a bad way to spend a day off work.