And I can't believe I can't get out to take advantage of it.
After dropping like a rock in one day, the river has stalled at 1330 cfs this morning. Damn near perfect.
Personally, I'd be running up and down the river looking for which creeks got fish. Mill, Ferson and Tyler used to be the first ones this early to have smallies move in. Down my way around Yorkville, seems to take them a little longer to get into the creeks. Never could figure out why.
Some fishing tips I used to tell anglers at my fishing classes. This isn't rocket science, but I still see and hear about anglers that don't seem to get it.
If fishing things that look like minnows, make them behave like a minnow. Facing into the current, move it up, down, left, right no more than 6 inches at at time. Move it in and out of current. Move it in front of and behind anything that is blocking current flow. Nothing natural in the river tumbles down the river. Why are you casting up stream? Nothing moves in perfectly straight lines at a high rate of speed up or down stream. You will get a reaction strike, but you also missed 98 percent of the other fish in the river that don't chase things down.
If throwing bugs and worms, did you ever sit and watch how they move? They don't go zipping along the bottom or swimming through the water column. They sit on the bottom of the river. Probably for hours. I'll bet in a day you're lucky if they move 2 feet. Toss something that looks like a bug or worm, let it sit, twitch it, move it an inch. I would give each cast 5 minutes.
Crayfish, they don't swim much, they sit and crawl. They don't jump in 2 foot leaps, so why do that. On the Apple River I once let a Yum crayfish sit on the bottom of a pool with a bunch of smallies. The smallies were interested, but not that much. I kept ringing the dinner bell by moving it an inch and twitching it. They would keep coming back to look, but no takers. Finally one came and hovered next to it, as if to claim it. It wasn't even the biggest fish in the pool, but obviously the only one interested. It sat there, then slowly made an arching turn, picked up the lure and slowly swam away. I caught it, it took 5 minutes.
Last one. Out fly fishing on a lake in VIrginia years ago. Using a fly rod and popper. I put the popper near shore and let it sit to see what would happen. A largemouth came up out of a small patch of weeds under the popper. It drifted painfully slow upwards, always keeping an eye on the popper. I counted to 20, that's how long it took for it to slurp the popper off the surface. The slurp barely caused a riffle on the water. I expected it to turn and run. Instead it just drifted back down to the bottom of the lake, tail first like it was in reverse. I counted another 20 and set the hook.
So, running and gunning is fine if that's the way you like to fish. But if you want a chance at catching the 98 percent of the fish that are ignoring you at the moment. Slow down.