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From
the Editor 15 June, 2006
It's Been a Good
Week
On the way up to
eastern Tennessee last Thursday, I told my buddy Will that I had two
goals for our weekend fishing the French Broad and Pigeon rivers.
The first goal was to catch a smallmouth bass that weighed over two
pounds. The second was to catch a smallie on topwater. I didn't
expect I'd manage both on the same cast. Will and I were wading a
huge pool, working our way up to some shoals were we expected to
find active fish working. I was flinging a big popper as far as I
could, maybe halfway across the river, and chugging it back at a
pretty good clip when the smallie pictured above nailed it. After
releasing the fish, I couldn't help thinking back on the weekend.
The fishing was
extremely tough all weekend. Both the French Broad and Pigeon rivers
have reputations as excellent smallie fisheries, but we struggled
all weekend to catch fish. On the French Broad, they seemed to only
want small stuff crawled on the bottom and on the Pigeon they only
wanted big stuff burned near the surface. I was accompanied by two
of the best fishermen I know, Will (Kokosing Lover on GRF) and Bo
(Bingo), and we all had long stretches of time were we just couldn't
buy a strike. I can think of worse places to float along and watch
the scenery though.
The fish we did
encounter tended to be pretty big, and I was blessed with some of
the biggest smallies of my life. Bo and Will caught their share
also, and you'll be able to see a buch of pictures over at
Tennessee
River Fishing in a few days. Here are some of my best fish to whet
your appetite:
So then we got
back to boring ole Georgia and Will and I decided to go fishing one
morning. We decided to explore a small area flow and intersperse
some catfishing with our usual bass chasing. Well, the bad news is
that I didn't catch any catfish (although Will caught four). Here's
the good news:
This 5-5 largemouth nailed a
spinnerbait in about six inches of water right below a shoal. She
isn't supposed to be hanging out in places like this in June.
This 4-14 largemouth nailed the same
spinnerbait and fought like the dickens. She was hanging out exactly
where she should have been: in deeper water in a huge tangle of
cover.
Like I said
earlier, it's been a good week. I need to run and go buy some
lottery tickets fast.
Creekstalker
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