Smallie Nirvana

[jbird]

Ive been trying to get out twice a week while the conditions are ideal. We occasionaly have severe storms with flash flooding that will blow out a river in the blink of an eye. This is from yesterday. A day where I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. I have no idea how many fish bit my fly, but it was a lot and the average size was quite nice! This first video clip was my last 15 minutes of the day, I watched as the river rose and dirtied from storms. But those crazy fish just kept on biting!

I had my new gopro and my windows phone for video. I have dozens of similar clips from yesterday. This is just a sample.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqQBc26t-RA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmqIdfJPtDw

[mar]

Very nice series of vids Jay! Gotta love the blow-up shots.
I might have to get my topwater smallie fix this weekend.

[Darian]

That sure looks like a lot of fun!! What a great spot to have all to yourself. Loved the video and the music. Thanks for sharing. :cool:

[kokaneejr]

Fantastic Jay. Thanks I am heading to the John Day in a couple of weeks so I will hope for some action.

[Blueracer]

Jay have caught 'em during a hatch yet? That's another sweet thing is if you can find 'em during a hatch rising it's a sweet time.

[Mike McKenzie]

Ive been trying to get out twice a week while the conditions are ideal. We occasionaly have severe storms with flash flooding that will blow out a river in the blink of an eye. This is from yesterday. A day where I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. I have no idea how many fish bit my fly, but it was a lot and the average size was quite nice! This first video clip was my last 15 minutes of the day, I watched as the river rose and dirtied from storms. But those crazy fish just kept on biting!

I had my new gopro and my windows phone for video. I have dozens of similar clips from yesterday. This is just a sample.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqQBc26t-RA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmqIdfJPtDw

Dang Jay,

I finally got around to watchin' your smallmouth Videos and they make me....
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v212/stripermike/Up%20A%20Tree/026e6ad4-6a48-49e6-944f-5e7b96fd5ccb_zps2ad55879.jpg with envy. Brings back memories of top water smallmouth fishin' in Shasta Lake back before Cal DFG ruined it by plantin' Spotted bass in the lake (1985 or so). Fishing on top with Fred Aborgast's fly rod Hula poppers or spun deerhair sliders, (as long as they had yellow in 'em) from about 4:00 PM till it was too dark to cast, we would lose count of the numbers of smallies we would catch to say nothin' of the ones we would miss:mad:!

Probably averaged a fish or a blowup every two casts. Never got anything over 3lbs or so but they more than made up in numbers and catchin smallies up to 3lbs is more than enough to wear ya' out! We fished the lake for a week every year from 1983 till 2 years ago (Houseboating) We generally booked our trips sometime in the last two weeks of April.

Smallmouth fishin' was about as good as it could get back then but as the Spots gradually took over the lake it went straight into the toilet. As far as I know they still haven't made a comeback to where they were then. Sad!

DFG's logic was that the Spotted Bass were less susceptible to reservoir draw downs than were the large and smallmouth basses.(They spawn deeper) I guess they were thinkin' of the masses of ordinary fishin' folks and not the real diehards! Too bad ! For a while it seemed that Trinity lake would replace the Shasta smallmouth fishery (it did as far as size goes) I don't think has it ever came close to the numbers though!!

Mike

[jbird]

Never got anything over 3lbs or so but they more than made up in numbers and catchin smallies up to 3lbs is more than enough to wear ya' out

That sounds a lot like my spot here. I literally was getting serious cramping in the crook of my arm from fighting all those bass. I started just putin the wood to em to reduce the time my arm was in pain. LOL And that doesnt even touch on how bad my "bass thumb" got! Toward the end, I would give the fish one try at thumbing, if I missed him, I would cradle it aroud the belly. Smallies, for some reason, cooperate nicely when you lift them that way.

I'm going back tomorrow. In the videos, the river was running at 30 cfs. The very next day it went straight up to 300 cfs. It is now back to 50 and should be near 40 or less tomorrow. :) :)

[TyV]

Very nice Jay!