Well, my summer of hard luck bass fishing continues...
Weather: Warm and muggy with little breeze, air temp mid 80s, partly cloudy transitioning to mostly sunny in late afternoon. Water temp was 80 degrees, fairly clear with heavy grass beds; 3.6' at the Newport gauge.
Hit the upper "J" from about 1:30pm until about 7:30pm. The upper river has more bass than the lower river (where I usually focus my efforts) and I expected to do well. With the high sun, I poled/paddled my canoe standing up and saw bass everywhere; mostly smaller fish but some mid teens here and there. Bass were even common in ankle deep riffles, although these were mostly small fish. Lots or YOY fish too but I was really impressed with the large number of fish in the 5-8" range, they were very numerous. Lots of RB sunfish too. Gizzrad shad were also prevalent along with the typical quillbacks. I saw no carp, catties, or walleyes. Looked for muskies in some slow weedy areas along shore with lots of woody debris but saw no toothies either. I was also pleased to see huge numbers of tadpoles, thousands of them along shoreline lizard grass beds.
I couldn't catch a bass.
It's common for river bass to just turn off suddenly, typically after a cold front passes through, or when a cloudy day suddenly turns sunny...but today they never bit at all. Streamers, nymphs, poppers; nothing worked. Even my trusty stonecat fly was ignored. By evening, with arms tired from casting, I hoped things would pick up, but no luck. Plenty of fish swirled on my poppers but simply wouldn't eat. I can't remember the last time I was completely skunked on a river bass fishing trip, but it's been awhile. Anyway, will just have to get out again to try and break out of this slump.
The birding was great however: saw bald eagles, green herons, great blue herons, kingfishers, wood ducks, Canada geese, osprey, sharp shinned hawks, and egrets.
Weather: Warm and muggy with little breeze, air temp mid 80s, partly cloudy transitioning to mostly sunny in late afternoon. Water temp was 80 degrees, fairly clear with heavy grass beds; 3.6' at the Newport gauge.
Hit the upper "J" from about 1:30pm until about 7:30pm. The upper river has more bass than the lower river (where I usually focus my efforts) and I expected to do well. With the high sun, I poled/paddled my canoe standing up and saw bass everywhere; mostly smaller fish but some mid teens here and there. Bass were even common in ankle deep riffles, although these were mostly small fish. Lots or YOY fish too but I was really impressed with the large number of fish in the 5-8" range, they were very numerous. Lots of RB sunfish too. Gizzrad shad were also prevalent along with the typical quillbacks. I saw no carp, catties, or walleyes. Looked for muskies in some slow weedy areas along shore with lots of woody debris but saw no toothies either. I was also pleased to see huge numbers of tadpoles, thousands of them along shoreline lizard grass beds.
I couldn't catch a bass.
It's common for river bass to just turn off suddenly, typically after a cold front passes through, or when a cloudy day suddenly turns sunny...but today they never bit at all. Streamers, nymphs, poppers; nothing worked. Even my trusty stonecat fly was ignored. By evening, with arms tired from casting, I hoped things would pick up, but no luck. Plenty of fish swirled on my poppers but simply wouldn't eat. I can't remember the last time I was completely skunked on a river bass fishing trip, but it's been awhile. Anyway, will just have to get out again to try and break out of this slump.
The birding was great however: saw bald eagles, green herons, great blue herons, kingfishers, wood ducks, Canada geese, osprey, sharp shinned hawks, and egrets.
