| High, Muddy, and Cold
How I salvaged my spring break despite cold
fronts and six inches of rain
These two nice fish were taken during extremely difficult
conditions in two very different environments. At left is a 2-10 largemouth bass
and at right is a 2-8 spotted bass.
One of the great things about my job as a
teacher is the breaks. I get time off in early fall, Thanksgiving, Christmas,
Spring break, and two months in the summer. Spring break is my favorite, as it
usually coincides with the white bass run and the black bass are generally fat
and aggressive. This year's Spring Break was going to be twice as good, since my
county adopted a two-week break over the last week of March and the first week
of April. I was licking my chops.
And then the bottom fell out. The first
weekend of spring break saw about four inches of rain dumped on northern
Georgia, and double that amount in South Georgia. Still, I was able to get out
on moving water four times and catch ten bass that weighed over two pounds.
Under normal conditions, these results are fairly average, but I'm pretty proud
that I was able to catch some quality fish under such miserable conditions. More
amazingly, I never even got skunked. I don't pretend to be an expert bass
fisherman, but I don't think my success was any accident. Hopefully, you can
take some of these ideas and use them the next time Mother Nature tries to mess
up one of your fishing trips.
KEY #1: BE FLEXIBLE
I had planned to fish for two days in South
Georgia, where the bass tend to get pretty big. The rivers that I had intended
to fish were at flood stage, so I decided to change my itinerary. Instead of
heading south, I decided to do exactly the opposite.
KEY #2: HEAD NORTH
This 2-10 largemouth came from a swift but clear stream in
the Georgia mountains
The state of Georgia is divided into three
physiographic regions: the mountains, Piedmont, and coastal plain. As any
plumber will tell you, water tends to run downhill, and the steeper the hill,
the faster that water will run. Armed with this knowledge, I headed to the
mountains the day after the majority of the rain hit. I was able to tangle with
some small but feisty redeye bass in water that was rising, but that still had
two feet of visibility. On this day, I waded (very carefully, as I was alone)
and was able to key in on a couple relatively slow, woody pockets that produced
all my fish. A couple days later I caught ten bass, including some nice
largemouth, spots, and redeyes from a similar stream in the mountains. In both
cases, I was able to find clear water even though the water was a bit higher and
faster than I would like. This made the fishing plenty challenging, since
slowing down my kayak enough to make a cast was tough and many of the eddies
that normally provide a good vantage point for casting were washed out. My drag
chain came in really handy, as it slowed me down just enough to fish
effectively.
KEY #3: DAM IT
Many of Georgia's rivers and stream are
dotted with dams that provide were built to power mills or small hydroelectric
projects. These are a nuisance most of the time, since to float past them, one
has to find a way to carry your boat around them. These dams come in really
handy, however, during periods of high water because they back up the water to
form small sections of the river where the current is very slow, even when the
rest of the river is flowing high, fast, and muddy. These mill ponds will still
be as muddy as the rest of the river, but if you can find an area like this, you
will have eliminated one of the key factors that makes fishing after heavy rains
so difficult: fast water. I was able to get out on this type of area on two
separate occasions over my spring break. The fishing was really tough, as it
always is when fishing in coffee. Still, I was able to catch four decent bass,
one of which approached three pounds.
THESIS STATEMENT: WET WEATHER CAUSES TWO
BIG PROBLEMS FOR RIVER FISHERMEN. TRY TO ELIMINATE ONE OF THEM
The two problems are 1) muddy water and 2)
fast water. By heading to the mountains, I was able to eliminate the hassle of
muddy water. I fished the way I normally would, other than adding a little more
weight to soft plastics and jigs in order to keep them on the bottom in faster
current. I caught most of my fish in North Georgia on a small chartreuse
spinnerbait worked a little on the slow side. By fishing sections of rivers
slowed up by small dams, I was able to eliminate the hassle of swift water. The
key on these days was to fish something slow, noisy, and black. Most people fish
bright colors in muddy water, but black is actually the color that is most
visible coming through the mud. Add something that rattles or sends out a lot of
vibration, fish it really slowly and close to the bottom. My most productive
lures in these situations were a black jig-n-pig with rattles and a black tandem
spinnerbait with Colorado blades. The fishing was tough in both instances, but
by eliminating one of the two prevailing water problems, I was able to give
myself a fighting chance.
KEY #4: THINK SMALL
I'm not talking about lures here, I'm talking
about stream size. Some of my better days over spring break were spent on big
rivers, but I was in the upper reaches of these flows, where a good, long cast
from one bank could reach the other. I also had a decent day on a rather small
creek. These small-water areas drain a smaller area, and thus get clearer and
slower long before the bigger water that can be found downstream. I prefer big
water during midsummer when the water in the smaller places is too shallow to
provide good fishing. During spring and high water, smaller flows can really
save the day.
KEY #5: DON'T WAIT AROUND FOR YOUR
FAVORITE RIVER TO GET "JUST RIGHT"
These two largemouth bass were my biggest of the year to
date. The one at left went 4-2 and the one at right went 3-8.
Go when it's "almost right". One of
my favorite rivers turns to mud when you spit in it. This river is full of nice
spotted, redeye, and largemouth bass, but if I waited for it to return to it's
normal greenish color I wouldn't be able to fish there until June. This river is
"right" at about eight feet on the gauge that I use, and it had
reached sixteen feet following the heaviest rain. It was down to eleven feet the
day that I fished it, and I wasn't expecting much. The river was high and muddy,
but not nearly as high and muddy as it was three days earlier. Again, the
fishing wasn't easy. I had to pull my kayak up on rocks and logjams in order to
work an area, and most of the time it was fruitless. The bass wanted to eat
something dark, slow, and on the bottom. In six hours of fishing I managed eight
bass, and six of them weighed over two pounds with the largest weighing slightly
over four. I have never fished this particular stream when conditions have been
this bad before, but I have had many days where I caught fewer and smaller fish.
I guess to the bass things had been so bad for the previous week that this muddy
torrent they were in seemed rather nice. Kinda like a February day in Alaska
that reaches the 20's: miserable for anybody that doesn't live there.
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