Rule #11: Never promise something you even suspect you might not be able to do. Keeping promises is keeping your word--as such it is a key quality of a person's character. Save promises for important things; don't promise to take out the trash, just say you will.
When writing about my Bass Tournament experience, January 15, I referred to that feeling fishermen always get now and then wherein something goes wrong at the beginning of your outing and from that point on, everything just continues to spin out of control. Today, as I was setting out:
I thought I'd get a coke at the Marathon, but of course, had no money or the Marathon card in my wallet. I had to drive back to the house and start over.
When I got to the spillway by the Treatment Center, and parked the truck, it started to rain.
The first cast I took snagged a "Wacky Worm" rim I was fishing, and I had to break the line. Though I'd stuffed the pack of worms in my front pocket, I had forgotten to bring anymore hooks, so that made that rod pretty much ineffective.
Ignoring the rain, I fished on and caught a smallmouth--only about a pound--but unfortunately, he swallowed the Panther Martin 1/16 oz spinner I was using, and to get it out, I had to kill the fish. Great.
After I caught a couple more very small bass, all on the Panther Martin, the rain began to come down in earnest, and so I called it a day.
That being said . . .
CONDITIONS
Temperature: I mowed the yard yesterday and the sky was high and blue. A storm cell moved through to our north last night, and this morning it was again looking clear and warm. About 1:00, however, clouds moved in and it became more humid, and hotter, about 85 degrees.
Water Clarity: I fished just above the "dam" across the river from the Treatment Center, because John Craddock told me that the smallmouth were thick there when the water officials had electro-shocked the White while making a species count. The water today was that dark green color we get sometimes when the river is going down from being high and brown. When I was retrieving the spinner, I could see it ten feet out at about 6" below the surface (the water is very shallow at this place on the river.)
Depth and Flow: Just above 5', and flow rate, just above 0.4. (I found a National Weather Service web-page that keeps record of this data. It's measured close to the Elm Street Bridge, but still, this could be profitable information to keep an eye on!)
Bottom/Vegetation: Vegetation was marginal, really. (Just "vegetation" isn't as big a category in the river, at least at this time of year. So, I'll expand this to include "bottom," which is more important.)
The bottom in this area is very rocky, with even some gravel bottom closer to shore. The river runs hard here, it's shallow, with some large stones beneath the surface that create eddies. Those eddie areas were where I received the majority of my bites. Snags too!
Cloud Cover: Cloudy, rainy.
Wind Speed: 2 MPH, Maximum 12.
Pressure: 30.13
LURES/METHODS
Because I lost that Wacky Worm on my first cast, I used the other outfit I brought, which was my new ultralight reel on an old floppy fiberglass rod, designed for 6-10 pound test. I used the Panther Martin 1/16th oz. spinner in bronze with a black body with little yellow dots on it.
I always take a pair of needle-nosed pliers to the treble hook on these lures to open the curve of each of the hooks just a bit, and I think it makes a huge difference.
I switched to a chartreuse Road Runner late in the outing, made maybe 12 casts with it, got one hit, though it's hard to tell with that fiberglass rod whether it was a hit or a snag.
I only fished about an hour today. I think I'll start making my way down the river, starting where I ended up last year. So, I'll begin at the lone sycamore tree upstream from the large concrete pad on the shore. I might return to this spot, however, for a while, the bite was pretty heavy.
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