Pacemaker Fishing Forum

I got out early solo.  River was up over 2.5 feet and falling.  It was cool and foggy.



I tried a ledge close by but no takers, so headed upriver.  Despite the better level, the grass was still close enough to the surface to clog the motor.  Lots was topped out mid-river.  I have to manually lift the motor to clear it each time and the I was leaving it trimmed to try and plow through what I could.  I finally made it through after having to go through the lifting/lowering process more than I had hoped.

Made it upriver and started fishing.  The water was mostly green with brown stain mixing in.  I did not get a bite for a while.  I was happy to see some either baitfish or young of year smallie pods on the surface in more areas.  After getting near one of these pods, I casted a Rebel Humpy shallow diver with a feathered rear treble and ran it through the fish.  after a couple casts, I hooked my first smallie of the day,





That bite did not hold up, so I started through my rotation and settling on dragging a speed craw.  I caught 3 smallies between 11-13 inches.  That got torn up, so I switched to a baby brush hog I had on a 3/16 wobble head.  I had high hope for that, but this smallie ripped it off on the first bite.



I eventually went back to a craw.  I had a good fish hooked and fought it for a minute and before I could get the net it got off.

I decided to eat my sandwich which was a Portobello mushroom Caprese.  Very nice and something different.  I anchored close to shore near a rock.  After I finished the sandwich, I casted the craw upstream and got a hit.  Next cast, I hooked a little smallie.  After that, I casted toward the main river, in between some sporadic grass.  Just as I started to bounce it slowly back downstream I got a good hit.  I set the hook and got my first nice smallie of the day.  It had a sore on one side of it's mouth from being caught before





I was stoked.  I tried casting to the same to areas and landed another little smallie in front of me and then I made the cast toward the mid-river side and caught this.







It was super healthy and felt about 2 pounds or so.  That made 4 smallies on the speed craw anchored in my lunch spot.  The 2 bigger ones were caught minutes apart.  I made some more casts, but the wind had picked up and it was blowing a lot of dead leaves into the water on that side, so I floated out.

I drifted for a bit but no bites, so I made a run to hit the faster water mid river.  I caught one more smallie on the craw.



I got one more bite and it broke me off.  I decided to call it as the wind was picking up and I knew I had to fight the grass.  It was more of the same except when I got across from the ramp, the mid-river grass in the shallow area was so thick and the wind was blowing hard enough to get me stuck and push me backward.  I struggled foe about 10 minutes trying to get past it.

All in all a nice day with 8 smallies landed and 2 nice ones.  Just a pain with the grass and it wore me out.  I was planning to maybe go with my grandson, Emerson Friday.  I think I may have to reschedule.