# A bit of fishing



## oldstinkyguy

Trip #1

Yeah it's 35 degrees and all my saugfish spots are flooded. But sometimes when you have a new rod and reel to try out you make do. So I hit a pond at the local wildlife area and fished a tiny beadhead nymph as slow as I could manage. They weren't so much strikes as just a heavy feeling on the line. Pretty slow cold fishing but hey I'm catching fish on January 2nd in Ohio so I can't complain too much. And then I found it. An obvious for sure, gotta be, bigfoot tooth. And some mushy impressions in the grass that were I'm sure bigfoot tracks. So if you want a bonafide bigfoot tooth I could probably be talked into selling it....


----------



## 9Left

sweet tooth! ( no pun intended)


----------



## garhtr

Bigfoot needs to see a dentist, I've been finding his teeth scattered around a local wildlife area also.
Be careful out there --







Good luck and Good fishing !


----------



## Saugeye Tom

garhtr said:


> Bigfoot needs to see a dentist, I've been finding his teeth scattered around a local wildlife area also.
> Be careful out there --
> View attachment 199980
> Good luck and Good fishing !


Are they for sale? I need them to add to the Bigfoot skull I found


garhtr said:


> Bigfoot needs to see a dentist, I've been finding his teeth scattered around a local wildlife area also.
> Be careful out there --
> View attachment 199980
> Good luck and Good fishing !


Are they for sale....I need them for the Bigfoot skull I found


----------



## garhtr

Saugeye Tom said:


> Are they for sale? I need them to add to the Bigfoot skull I found
> View attachment 199984


I Can't sell them, I'm trying to refurbished a genuine bigfoot skull I found on the LMR


----------



## Aaron2012

garhtr said:


> Bigfoot needs to see a dentist, I've been finding his teeth scattered around a local wildlife area also.
> Be careful out there --
> View attachment 199980
> Good luck and Good fishing !


----------



## percidaeben

Haha!! Good stuff guys! There can be no winter without a BigFoot thread.


----------



## oldstinkyguy

8 degree air temp on a small black nymph where a bit of warm water dumps into the river.


----------



## Salmonid

Nice job. This is the time of year i hit a place or two for carp on the fly. Same type of water. Lol.


----------



## polebender

Bet those were fun on a fly rod! Nice reward for braving the elements! Congrats!


----------



## savethetrophies

Awesome


----------



## garhtr

Nice, You gotta be hard core to brave 8 degree temps.


----------



## BuzzBait Brad

Nice find on the tooth. And catching fish in January is awesome.


----------



## oldstinkyguy

Not a ton of excitement the last week or so. A couple small saugeye and a very small channel. The most exciting fish was probably this buffalo that ate my saugeye jig. Most of the battle came after the thing was whipped and bankside. Their was a bit of a dropoff and I couldn't beach the thing so I was forced to grab the thing and get very wet hands with the temps down in the teens. I'm fumbling around trying to unhook it and get the camera out with burning hands and after I snap this very bad photo the cameras batteries give it up to the cold too and the camera shuts down. I hate fishing with gloves if there is any way around it but maybe I'm thinking of putting some latex ones in my parka just to keep my hands dry in situations like this. I thought my fingers were going to fall off....


----------



## garhtr

Nice Buffalo ! 
They are One of my favorite summer time targets. It is amazing how aggressive they are on certain days, willing to attack a grub or even crank baits and other days are so very selective, ignoring small nymphs and everything else you put in front of their face, sometimes in can be extremely frustrating.
Good luck and Good Fishing.


----------



## oldstinkyguy

A little carp wierdness...
Had a pretty channel whack a pearl gold grub right at daylight and a bit later a six inch smallmouth. Then I heard a cry and looked up to see an eagle straight overhead as it winged its way upriver. About an hour later I found a nice eddy right below a small bar. I threw a three inch grub into the upper end and something hammered it and began peeling drag. It turned out to be a nice carp with the grub out of sight down it's throat. After landing it I walked twenty yards downstream and pitched the grub into the other end of the eddy. Whack, on the first cast another carp ate the grub! Now for the wierdness about a hundred yards downriver a pipe dumps warmwater into the river and the place was crawling with carp. You can see some in the last photo.Well these guys would shy away and spook from the same grub that the other carps chased down and ate. These guys actually seemed frightened as the lure neared them.


----------



## oldstinkyguy

Hit a pond and caught a few largemouth on a black wooly bugger stripped back as slow as I could make myself do it.


----------



## oldstinkyguy

Whew... the wind and rain were awful this evening. But sometimes you still just have to go. After all it is the first day for the new fishing license, seems like a good enough reason to me. All the gills were caught on brown beadhead...


----------



## Saugeyefisher

Those are nice gills! Good job!


----------



## db1534

Nice!!


----------



## oldstinkyguy

I've been doing a bit of saugeye fishing the last few evenings. Mostly below lowhead dams. One trip where I caught one. One trip where I caught two but got schooled by a guy who stood where he could cast up against the dam and caught four or five. I guess I could have crowded in on him and more than I did but I know how I'd have felt so I left him alone. And then tonight where it all came together. A bit of rain, no one on the river and it slowly rising. All good things. About dark they were hitting pretty good on a 1/4 ounce jighead and my go to clear with silver glitter. I think it was at the Dayton show I heard some guy call it icicle. I think that's a pretty good name tho I've taken to calling it "bait" lately. It looks like things are starting. Tonight's fish all hit with a good solid thump too instead of that oh the line got heavy feeling you sometimes get in cold water. I'm liking it.


----------



## greghal

Those are nice eyes, great job


----------



## Saugeyefisher

Great job osg! Some solid eyesthere


----------



## oldstinkyguy

a few crappie on the fly rod. Funny day, they kept nipping at my three inch grub while trying for bass so I switched to the long rod. At least I could hook them but they didn't seem to like the flies as well as the action of the curly tail. Should have had some tiny grubs along.


----------



## oldstinkyguy

With everything flooded I hit a little stream I know that usually is the first to run down. Even it was still up and muddy but I managed a nice cat on a curly shad.


----------



## 9Left

Great pics OSG , keep 'em coming!


----------



## oldstinkyguy

I don't often fish for green bass but when I do


----------



## oldstinkyguy

Was at a pond catching some big gills on the flyrod when this hit.


----------



## mattman1341

Awesome fish.


----------



## deltaoscar

oldstinkyguy said:


> Was at a pond catching some big gills on the flyrod when this hit.


Very nice, that's a great looking this.


----------



## nuttycrappie

awesome fish there OSG


----------



## oldstinkyguy

Finally the rivers in shape and starting to catch a few smallies. So far the ones I've found have still been in slower water close to faster water. I've been doing okay on a weird lil rig I put together, first you slide a small blade attached to a swivel on your line then a bead and then tie on a grub. The little willow leaf doesn't have the lift of something like a beetle spin and instead lets you fish it slow and just off the bottom like a grub but with more flash, especially on the fall. I imagine a roadrunner type head would accomplish pretty much the same thing tho in my head I picture this working better on the fall just because the blade would rise above the grub and not be flapping into it. Or who knows it's probably about the same but I like it.


----------



## Tom 513

Great fish as usual Steve, I wanted to give You kudos on Your book, I finally finished it on a recent fly fishing trip in Ky, it kept me company around the campfire.


----------



## oldstinkyguy

It seems all that exploring I've been doing this winter is starting to pay off. About a month ago I found a little rocky outcropping that stuck out further than all the other riprap along a swift bend pool in the river. The little mini point creates a current break or seam so strong that little mini whirlpools form all along the line where fast and slow water meet. Today I flipped my little willow leaf blade on a swivel and clear with glitter grub combo I've grown so fond of about twenty feet upstream. It swept downstream and hen stopped.I lifted the rod and it was off to the races. It was easily the best smallie of the short season so far at 19". I caught several more nice smallies in similar places, either stuck close to a rock or small eddy adjacent to fast water. In spots marsh marigold made a butter yellow carpet along the riverbank. Spring is finally here and life is good...


----------



## greghal

Dang nice fish Steve. I have been liking that grub recently also.


----------



## BaitWaster

Beautiful fish OSG!


----------



## savethetrophies

Wow! the red eyes on that first bass are awesome!! Great looking fish as always...


----------



## Saugeye Tom

Nice


----------



## oldstinkyguy

A little nippy today but I had about an hour free and stopped by the river. About halfway thru a slow retrieve my grub just stopped cold. I thought it was hung for a second till the snag began to slowly bore it's way across the eddy. A 35" Fish Ohio shovelhead. A very nice surprise indeed.


----------



## GarrettMyers

Great cat and smallmouth Steve. I knew you were going to be posting some trophies with this nice spring we're having. I'm thinking you might be figuring out this whole fishing thing


----------



## savethetrophies

monster flat. Congrats on a great catch !


----------



## chris1162

Nice catches. Good to see flatties comin up in peoples reports now too.


----------



## fishin.accomplished

oldstinkyguy said:


> It seems all that exploring I've been doing this winter is starting to pay off. About a month ago I found a little rocky outcropping that stuck out further than all the other riprap along a swift bend pool in the river. The little mini point creates a current break or seam so strong that little mini whirlpools form all along the line where fast and slow water meet. Today I flipped my little willow leaf blade on a swivel and clear with glitter grub combo I've grown so fond of about twenty feet upstream. It swept downstream and hen stopped.I lifted the rod and it was off to the races. It was easily the best smallie of the short season so far at 19". I caught several more nice smallies in similar places, either stuck close to a rock or small eddy adjacent to fast water. In spots marsh marigold made a butter yellow carpet along the riverbank. Spring is finally here and life is good...
> 
> 
> I love that marsh marigold. Was talking about it the other day. I use the flowers as a time reference for where and what I should be fishing


----------



## oldstinkyguy

Caught six bass today on a clear with silver glitter curly shad out of a gravel pit. Then hit the river and caught a couple small stripey fish on a streamer. The river was rising pretty fast and getting muddier by the second.














T


----------



## thedudeabides

Great catches as always. I took your book to work today just to read on my break because I wanted to be out on the water. Made me feel I was out on the little Miami.


----------



## savethetrophies

awesome fish ! largemouth is a beast..


----------



## oldstinkyguy

It was just plain out n out cold today. When I left the river at dark the thermometer in my truck said it was 42. And a pretty good breeze was blowing up the river. But it was worth it. I found the smallmouth stacked right at the edge of a deep wintering hole, driven back in by the cold but still active. And for once I whacked em. I was using Vic's new swim grub, which after today is my new favorite bait. I added a photo of it next to a regular three inch grub so you can see the difference. A nice compact hunk of meat for a smallies dinner. I also included a close up of a nice smallie covered in those pitch black spots you sometimes see on them in cold weather. What a swell day for average size. The fish just nailed the bait with a good solid thump as I swam it back just off the bottom, life doesn't get much better than this for an old river rat.


----------



## fishin.accomplished

Great pics Steve!
The time of year for big brown is upon us. Things are shaping up great all over as far as I can tell.
Gonna start seeing big number days soon.
Have fun, and as always, great post.


----------



## oldstinkyguy

Still biting a bit today before the next couple days big chill. A couple smallies and a big channel thrown in for good measure on the swim grub


----------



## savethetrophies

unbelievable osg.. this is awesome!


----------



## Jointed Minnow

Those black spots are concerning and may warrant reporting. If you do some research on the Susquehanna River, you can see the type of problem they are having with a similar problem... After years of this becoming more frequent I believe it was determined to be a rare form of cancer in the fish. 

I'm no expert just read reports for the Susquehanna and know the "black spots" are a big issue there.


----------



## oldstinkyguy

Woke up to a big surprise. A snow squall had passed during the night and when I looked outside the world was covered in snow. On April 9th. Sigh...The truck dash read 32 degrees as I headed out to where a bit of warm water dumped into a tributary a mile or so up from the Ohio river. What a moron, the wind was whipping and snow flying as as dawn broke. At least the fish gods decided to reward me for being brave enough (or stupid enough) to fish in such weather. Feeling the fish might be more active in the warm water dumping into the river than you might expect I tied on my favorite lure combination for these kind of places. A pop-r with about two feet of line tied off the rear treble and a small jig tied to that. My theory being the pop-r attracts the fish and they then hit the little jig. Today even a few hybrids nailed the pop-r but mostly the jig. The white bass and small hybrids were actually hitting pretty good and twice I even caught them on back to back casts. I also threw a grub some and caught a crappie, a channel, a couple white bass and a tiny smallie on that. I think the fish as well as me are anxious for spring to actually get here.


----------



## oldstinkyguy

Jointed Minnow said:


> Those black spots are concerning and may warrant reporting. If you do some research on the Susquehanna River, you can see the type of problem they are having with a similar problem... After years of this becoming more frequent I believe it was determined to be a rare form of cancer in the fish.
> 
> I'm no expert just read reports for the Susquehanna and know the "black spots" are a big issue there.


I found this press release from the Pennsylvania DNR:

HARRISBURG, Pa. – Following recent reports from anglers that some smallmouth bass caught in the Susquehanna River have had irregular black blotches, the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission (PFBC) today confirmed that similar spots have been previously observed on fish from other waters in the state and that the spots do not appear to harm the fish. The PFBC added that because the spots are limited to skin discoloration, the fish are safe to consume under the state’s general fish consumption guidelines.
“The condition is commonly known as ‘blotchy bass’ or ‘black spot’ and has been documented occasionally in various Pennsylvania waters since as early as 1980,” said Andy Shiels, PFBC deputy director of operations. “In fact, in 1986, a nationwide survey found that the condition was present in 11 other states, including N.Y., Delaware and Maryland.”

The PFBC started hearing from anglers late last year concerning the black spots, which are most often found on the head, lips, tail or fins. Melanin is a black pigment in the skin cells of fish and this condition is often referred to by fisheries scientists as melanosis.

“It’s not precisely known what causes the condition, but the bass that our biologists examined in previous years were generally healthy and in good condition,” said Shiels. “While the appearance of these spots may be alarming, there is no harm to human health from consuming these fish.”

He added that the condition has not been linked to specific pollution events, nor is there any evidence to suggest that blotchy bass condition is related to the young-of-year smallmouth disease issues in the Susquehanna River and some of its tributaries that the PFBC and other agencies have been studying since 2005.

PFBC biologists have documented the blotchy bass condition previously in Pennsylvania in the Susquehanna River (2011, 2006); Cowanesque Lake, Tioga County (2003); the Allegheny River (1999); and in the 1980s in Conneaut Lake (Crawford County), Presque Isle Bay (Erie County), Raystown Lake and several other waters. It also was observed in New York’s Hudson River during the 1980s, which resulted in a N.Y. fisheries biologist surveying other states about the condition. The survey showed that the condition was present in largemouth and smallmouth bass in 12 states in the East, South and along the Gulf Coast.

PFBC biologists who have previously observed this condition indicate that it often occurs during the cold-water period of fall, winter and early spring, and it appears to affect only fish larger than 12 inches. It typically occurs in a localized area and not uniformly in a lake or throughout a river system. Some bass have had one or two spots while others have had a dozen or more.

Because of the previous disease issue with juvenile smallmouth bass resulting in multiple poor year classes, the PFBC has placed catch and release regulations on all smallmouth and largemouth bass on portions of the Susquehanna and Juniata rivers and on their tributaries to a point one-half mile upstream, with a closed season from May 1 through June 15. The regulations apply to approximately 32 miles of the Juniata River, from the State Route 75 Bridge at Port Royal in Juniata County downstream to the mouth of the river at Duncannon, Perry County. On the Susquehanna, the regulations cover 98 miles, from the inflatable dam near Sunbury in Northumberland County downstream to the Holtwood Dam in York County


----------



## fishin.accomplished

Huh...i was led to believe the black spots were caused by tiny worm like parasites that were deposited in the river by bird droppings.
I'm sure I read about that somewhere. Will research and get back....


----------



## fishin.accomplished

Oh and great report again Steve. I was considering a small warm water discharge myself, but was too lazy for the drive.


----------



## BaitWaster

Awesome report OSG! Love the mixed bag. Hope to get a multi species outing like this soon!


----------



## fishin.accomplished

fishin.accomplished said:


> Huh...i was led to believe the black spots were caused by tiny worm like parasites that were deposited in the river by bird droppings.
> I'm sure I read about that somewhere. Will research and get back....


Neascus digenetic trematode.

Not sure how to insert a link. I fish better than I internet, but you can find info,pictures,etc... on Wikipedia.


----------



## SMBHooker

fishin.accomplished said:


> Neascus digenetic trematode.



Haha, sounds like a way to swear at someone without cursing. lol 

"You good for nothing Neascus Digenetic Trematode!"


----------



## SMBHooker

OSG, thx for this thread. Good reading and beautiful catches.


----------



## nuttycrappie

thank you OSG for the report and also nice mix of fish.


----------



## oldstinkyguy

Went to where I've been catching smallies the last week or so. Nothing doing, the last few cold nights had shut them down. All I could manage was a small shovelhead on a grub. Not ready to quit fishing yet, I made the drive to a lowhead and caught this guy on a clear with silver swim grub.


----------



## savethetrophies

oldstinkyguy said:


> Went to where I've been catching smallies the last week or so. Nothing doing, the last few cold nights had shut them down. All I could manage was a small shovelhead on a grub. Not ready to quit fishing yet, I made the drive to a lowhead and caught this guy on a clear with silver swim grub.
> View attachment 206773
> View attachment 206774
> View attachment 206775


wow osg... beautiful golden saug.. if I may ask, isn't it quite unusual for a flathead to bite in 47 degree water?


----------



## oldstinkyguy

Actually I think this was the third or fourth one already this year. I think it's because I primarily use a jig like a grub or swimbait that I catch them. Here's a cool article on winter flatheads.
http://www.in-fisherman.com/catfish/winter-flathead/


----------



## oldstinkyguy

My thoughts on jig fishing...
So I have to confess in the streams I fish the most I'm going to have a jig tied on any time I go after smallmouth. And most of the time, for me, the burden of proof is on it not working before I go to other things. I have to admit, I'm a big smallmouth junkie, I'd rather catch one 19" fish than a dozen 10 to 14 inchers. And I feel a jig gives me the best chance in most situations of doing that. Lets look at some facts.

The biggest smallmouth bass ever caught was caught in 1954 in Dale Hollow by David Hayes on a bomber trolled behind his boat. Not a realistic approach while wading in a smallie stream. The second biggest was a 10lb 14 ounce monster caught on a hair jig, then the next biggest is a 10.5 lb smb caught on a smoke metalflake grub. Every list of freakishly big smallmouth bass I could find was in fact dominated by some kind of jig. And then there's Billy Westmorland. I can find records of less than ten smallmouth bass ever being caught that weighed more than ten pounds and the late Billy Westmorland caught two of them! And it gets even more amazing. In his book, Them Ole Brown Fish, he tells of catching five nine pounders and seventy five eight pounders! Billy caught most of these giant fish on three lures. A heavy tailspinner, hair jigs and grubs. Again like the deep diving bomber a tailspinner doesn't work too well for a wading fisherman, but hair jigs and grubs sure do.

When I was a kid Billy endorsed silver buddy tailspinners and my brother Vic Coomer's grubs. I still have a few of the old packages with Billy's photo on them tucked away for safekeeping. It was thru talking to Billy at fishing shows back then that I got hooked on fishing jigs for smallmouth bass. While writing this I went out to the truck and dug out my ratty old backpack I carry while wading and took a photo of some of the variety of jigs inside. Here's a few and my thoughts on each off the top of my head;



A...The old marabou jig. I'm old enough to remember when there just weren't many or in some cases any sauger or saugeye in the small rivers and streams I like to fish. Which meant if you wanted to fish in the cold you had to target smallmouth bass. And catching smallmouth in the cold was done one of two ways, with live bait or with a little marabou jig. The subtle non action of a light marabou jig can sometimes tempt a cold water smallie to move a few inches and take one when just about nothing else will.

B and E...craft fur jigs. Craft fur jigs do many things well. They keep their shape a bit better than marabou but still have that subtle movement that catches fish. They have become almost the standard for hair jigs and do everything well. The perfect jig to tip with a small minnow also.

C... Fox and coyote jigs. A few years ago I called in and shot a grey fox bowhunting. The fine beautiful fur was a revelation and I used it for all kinds of flytying. I was so impressed I ordered some fox and coyote tails from a place in Montana and my hair jigs were changed forever. The long fur of these northern canids makes what is in my mind the perfect hair jig. It moves more than any other kind of hair I've seen in the water both on the retrieve and at rest but still keeps its shape and doesn't flatten. If your going to try hair jigs you owe it to yourself to give them a try. I thought craft fur was the be all end all of hair jigs but these have changed my mind.

D.. Bucktail makes a good looking jig but frankly I hardly throw one anymore. My bucktails are now reserved more for the flytying bench than tying jigs with. Bucktails to me just cannot compete with craft fur or fox jigs. I still own a zillion of the things and tip them with live bait or soft plastics to keep them effective.

F1 and F2...Shad body swimbaits with a paddletail. Wonderful baits that come in a huge variety of sizes and colors. Essential to matching many flat profile baitfish like shiners or shad. A must have smallie bait.

G...the modern paddletail swimbait. A great all around lure that I think just looks alive in the water more than it imitates any specific baitfish.

H and I...curly tail grubs. Named by Field and Stream as the greatest lure of all time and by In Fisherman as the greatest smallmouth lure of all time, I'd have to agree. My default and go to bait. Give me some clear with glitter or smoke metalflake grubs and a variety of sizes of jigheads and I'm comfortable with just that on any smallmouth river anywhere, something I'd say about no other lure.

J1, J2, and J3...Different sizes of the curly shad. A hybrid of the curldy tail grub and the shad bodied paddletail this bait does just about everything well, from finesse presentations in the smaller sizes to large and in charge presentations for active fish or at night.



You can just throw a jig like a curly shad or swimbait out and reel it back in and catch fish. Sometimes lots of fish, sometimes big fish. Likewise with bouncing a hair jig or grub along the bottom. But there's another technique that I hardly ever hear mentioned that will net you some trophy smallmouth if you take the time to learn it.

In fly fishing just about the most effective technique you can employ is to nymph fish with a "dead drift". That is a drift where you try to let the nymph drift along freely with the current. Not sinking like a rock but not being pulled along by the line either. But instead floating along like it was unattached to anything at all. But in conventional fishing there are very few ways to do this effectively.

This is what I strive for when fishing a jig in deep runs. That is, a free and natural drift down the run. I stand not upstream nor downstream but roughly across the stream from where I expect a fish to strike. I then make a short cast across and upstream. I then flip closed the bail and do not reel, or at least reel as little as possible. Instead of being retrieved the jig should sweep down and across from me on a tight line. Well not really a tight line. Instead try for a line with no slack but not tight. If the lines tight it will pull on the jig and it won't drift naturally. But if the lines too slack you will not be able to detect the strike. Reel just enough to maintain a taut but not tight connection to our jig.

Now a jig's by definition a hook with a big hunk of lead attached so it's going to sink not drift right?

Well, we have to stop for a second and at least subconsciously match the size of our jig head to the force of the current we are fishing. Too light and the jig will zip along too fast over the fishes heads. Too heavy and your jig will just hang up on the bottom. In most medium sized rivers something in the 1/8 to 1/4 ounce range will let you fish the faster deeper runs that often hold the very best fish.

But I will often search out the deepest fastest water in miles of river. Here I might even go to a 3/8 to 1/2 ounce jig head. It's amazing how often these spots hold trophy fish. And how little these areas are ever fished. After all, a huge smallmouth is still only twenty inches long. It doesn't take a very big spot to shelter it from the current, a calm spot barely bigger than a shoebox in all the turbulence is all we are trying to find. A single big rock or a pile of smaller ones is really all we need. A place where a big fish can lay and then murder any unsuspecting prey floating along in the current. Or even better our jig.

Now I know it's hard to fish a jig like a curly tailed grub wrong. You can just chuck it out and reel it back in and catch fish. Or better yet slow your pace and swim it back just off the bottom. But a grub fished like that is almost a completely different lure than our dead drifted one. Our grub is drifting along with the current. The tails working but because of the current, not our reeling it in. Just drifting along just like a helpless juicy delicious minnow being swept down the run. For me this is much more effective than bouncing a heavier lure along the bottom of the run. I think the look is just more natural. Not only does the size of the jig head effect your drift but you can also change the quality of your drift by the soft plastic you use. Sometimes quite dramatically.

There is one other thing I love about jigs that must be mentioned. They absolutely catch everything in the river from bass to whitebass to channelcats to carp to saugeye to crappie to hybrid stripers. Everything in the river eats them and its not at all unusual to catch five or six different species on a jig in a single trip. And last but not least, shovelheads are suckers for a well presented jig. In fact I've taken to prowling the river at night in summer throwing a big curly shad or grub just for a big flathead. Not much is more exciting than having a 20lb cat hammer your jig in a foot of water at 1am but I guess that's a story for another post.

In my opinion you should throw some sort of jig at least part of time every single time you wade a stream for smallmouth bass.


----------



## BTTRNT8888

Excellent OSG. What better way to teach a young boy or girl than a simple technique/presentation like a simple jig. I have an over abundance of lures; cranks, spinners, plastics and topwaters but a jig is always my go-to when the bite is tough. Rarely fails. Thanks!


----------



## 9Left

Nice write up OSG, I'm kinda surprised you didn't mention your black and silver floating rapala bait in there...


----------



## savethetrophies

very nice osg, thanks for sharing that piece..


----------



## Aaron2012

For the soft plastics do you stick with a round ball jig head or change it up to a football or darter style depending on the water depth and current?


----------



## oldstinkyguy

i use a ball head 90% of the time but vary the weight to match the current speed and depth of the water


----------



## oldstinkyguy

I havent posted in at least a week. The weather has been so nice I've just been fishing too daggone much to post. Pretty much made the circuit fishing the LMR, EF. WWR and GMR looking for white bass. WB fishing has been slow for me. I think Chris and I caught four one night on the WWR along with some lmb and the gar and one night on the LMR i caught maybe ten. The smallie fishing has been much better not big numbers just quality fish. Anyways here's a dump of the camera, the real close up smallies are the same as a couple of the wide shots if i remember right...































































[


----------



## oldstinkyguy

Also Kally has been helping me paint the old john boat getting ready for some summertime floats with papaw. A pretty cool camo job on a forty year old boat if you ask me...


----------



## nuttycrappie

Great looking pic of your catch OSG question to you do you release the gar back to the water or bank them .i was just wondering a lot of people I've talk to dump them on the bank as a trash fish. Personally ive never caught one and i would like t o hook into one like in your photo i understand they fight like crazy.


----------



## garhtr

nuttycrappie said:


> Great looking pic of your catch OSG question to you do you release the gar back to the water or bank them .i was just wondering a lot of *people I've talk to dump them on the bank as a trash fish. *Personally ive never caught one and i would like t o hook into one like in your photo i understand they fight like crazy.


"Trash Fish" ----- There is no such thing !
Good luck and Good Fishing


----------



## fishin.accomplished

garhtr said:


> "Trash Fish" ----- There is no such thing !
> Good luck and Good Fishing


Seconded...


----------



## fishin.accomplished

Great pics Steve. That gar is awesome! On my "to-do" list.
Boat looks great. Have fun....


----------



## Saugeye Tom

nuttycrappie said:


> Great looking pic of your catch OSG question to you do you release the gar back to the water or bank them .i was just wondering a lot of people I've talk to dump them on the bank as a trash fish. Personally ive never caught one and i would like t o hook into one like in your photo i understand they fight like crazy.


Kill big head AND Asian carp.only


----------



## Cat Mangler

Saugeye Tom said:


> Kill big head AND Asian carp.only


And Saugeye!


----------



## oldstinkyguy

So we showed up for the white bass run. The story was the white bass ran up out of the lake to spawn up this little creek. The creek was small mostly about waist deep and an easy cast across. Well when we pulled up there was no doubt we were in the right place, it looked like we had drove all the way to the Maumee instead of here in SW Ohio where we actually were. There were cars pulled off everywhere and it was just general mayhem. Just one problem it was the classic case of you should have been here yesterday. A guy when we were rigging up showed us pics on his cell phone of a stringer culled from the two hundred they had caught a few days before. But he had only caught 6 today. Of course. So we began to fish upstream with everyone catching a fish just every now and then though Chris caught seven out of one treetop. Chris, Dan and I came to this pretty little pool a mile or so upstream. I'm on top of this little cliff watching some suckers spawn and Dan catches a quillback out of the hole. I walk up to the next and Chris and I watch as two muskie come swimming right up in the crystal clear water. I cast my grub and when it gets to them it disappears and I set the hook. Into thin air as the muskies leave in a huge swirl of water like someone throwing a brick in the water. Dan is on the other bank on top of the little cliff you see in the photo right next to the tree in the center of the pic. He has an ultralite and six pound test and tiny white bass jig. Which he casts at a muskie as it swims by. Which eats it. He says I got one. I hooked one. The little rod bends into the cork. And Dans on top of the cliff hooked to a muskie on six pound test. Now what do I do he says. Kind of hugging the tree looking down the cliff trying to figure out what to do. There was nothing he could do. The muskie comes off. And swims calmly around the pool. Dan says I'm not sure it even knew it was even on. We stand around a bit watching the clear little creek and somebody says there they are again. And then There's another one! Three muskie in a creek that looks too small for sunfish. Some more fruitless casting and we kind of lose them I wander a few feet downstream and there one is kind of hanging out next to a sycamore. I cast on of Vic's five inch swim grubs in clear with silver past it and bring it close. I see the muskies mouth open and flex and set the hook. The fish surges across the pool. Then leaps. I'm lucky the fish i hooked on the outside of its snout. Lucky because I've got 8lb line and spinning tackle. I was after white bass after all. Lots of craziness followed with me saying oh he's tired now and Dan and Chris making fun of me as the fish took off again. Dan saved my bacon when the muskie ran under a limb. He waded out and pulled up the limb and freed the fish. I'd think it was ready to land only to have it take off again. It ended up being a bit of goat rodeo but finally the fish was landed. Both of us were wore out and it took a bit of cpr but the fish stayed upright with gills working good the whole time. I can see how with their dogged fight to the end how catching a muskie on too light of tackle in the warm water of summer could actually stress one to death. Catching a muskie out of a river or stream has always been a bucket list thing and catching this one out of a tiny creek was simply awesome. I'd actually went earlier today trying to catch a muskie and told a couple guys I ran into that if I didn't catch one long enough I'd evntually luck out and get one, I just wasn't expecting it to be later that same day.


----------



## deltaoscar

That's freakin' awesome, congrats on a great catch Steve.


----------



## SMBHooker

A giant creek muskie... CREEK muskie while everyone else is catching lil white bass. Gezzzzz - the OSG legend grows ever more legendary! 

Super cool, and congrats on landing that beast. What a fish!

Amazing they didn't spook. Ya gotta think they saw ya from up that high on the bank.


----------



## ML1187

Wow OSG what a great thing to cross off the list. I bet that will be the fish of the year for you.


----------



## Saugeye Tom

SMBHooker said:


> A giant creek muskie... CREEK muskie while everyone else is catching lil white bass. Gezzzzz - the OSG legend grows ever more legendary!
> 
> Super cool, and congrats on landing that beast. What a fish!
> 
> Amazing they didn't spook. Ya gotta think they saw ya from up that high on the bank.


Unbelievable you are in tune in tune with the fish gods


----------



## savethetrophies

These incredible stories never end... What a fish OSG.. You have quite the touch with that c-vic shad


----------



## oldstinkyguy

ML1187 said:


> Wow OSG what a great thing to cross off the list. I bet that will be the fish of the year for you.


I hope not, I have some pretty crazy adventures planned this year. Not going to be a slacker this year like the last couple....


----------



## oldstinkyguy

SMBHooker said:


> A giant creek muskie... CREEK muskie while everyone else is catching lil white bass. Gezzzzz - the OSG legend grows ever more legendary!
> .


Most of this fish was just dumb luck and being in the right place at the right time


----------



## mattman1341

You're off to a great start this year. Keep it up. Just happened to come across some vic coomers over the weekend and had to buy them after all these reports. Hopefully they bring me some luck.


----------



## SMBHooker

OSG, we're ya in an LMR or Ohio creek trip? I think either still has the potential for muskie as they are native. It fascinates me some of our native game that we no longer have like the Elk or the muskie in the Ohio River who is only a ghost of what they once we're. 

Check this out, it's an old Wild Ohio issue but it still has some awesome history about our area especially the Southern portions you fish often. I know you'll appreciate it. The front cover itself is pretty neat. 

http://wildlife.ohiodnr.gov/portals/wildlife/pdfs/wild ohio magazine archive/womagspring2003.pdf


----------



## oldstinkyguy

SMBHooker said:


> OSG, we're ya in an LMR or Ohio creek trip? I think either still has the potential for muskie as they are native. It fascinates me some of our native game that we no longer have like the Elk or the muskie in the Ohio River who is only a ghost of what they once we're.
> 
> Check this out, it's an old Wild Ohio issue but it still has some awesome history about our area especially the Southern portions you fish often. I know you'll appreciate it. The front cover itself is pretty neat.
> 
> http://wildlife.ohiodnr.gov/portals/wildlife/pdfs/wild ohio magazine archive/womagspring2003.pdf


Thanks that's some cool info. It's kind of weird too because I work with a guy that is a steamboat buff and just today we were talking about the early dams on the Ohio and how the boats got around things like the falls of the Ohio and then a couple hours later you post this


----------



## BaitWaster

Simply amazing OSG!


----------



## Fisherman 3234

SMBHooker said:


> OSG, we're ya in an LMR or Ohio creek trip? I think either still has the potential for muskie as they are native. It fascinates me some of our native game that we no longer have like the Elk or the muskie in the Ohio River who is only a ghost of what they once we're.
> 
> Check this out, it's an old Wild Ohio issue but it still has some awesome history about our area especially the Southern portions you fish often. I know you'll appreciate it. The front cover itself is pretty neat.
> 
> http://wildlife.ohiodnr.gov/portals/wildlife/pdfs/wild ohio magazine archive/womagspring2003.pdf


Every now and then there is a good sized Muskie caught below one of the lock and dams on the Ohio/West Virginia portion of the Ohio River... the LMR, Scioto, Muskingum, and Little Muskingum Rivers all have Muskie present, some more then others... It is truly amazing to see some of the animals making a comeback here in the great Buckeye state!!! In fact the Odnr and other entities are planning on seeing the effectiveness of stocking Lake Sturgeon in Maumee River very soon. Hopefully they will once again thrive and spawn successfully like they once had! We are in a very exciting time right now, no doubt about it!!! SMB, awesome link!!!


----------



## oldstinkyguy

Looking at the forecast for the next few days I'm thinking that today might be the last chance to fish the river for a few days. I'm also thinking there's a good chance to suffer a bit tonight but also a good chance of running into some good fish. Turns out I was right on both counts, I ran into some nice fish and I suffered. But not too badly, with both waders on and just my nose sticking out of the hodgman wading jacket I kept pretty dry. The only bad part was looking around constantly to make sure I wasn't the highest thing around to draw lightning. All the fish came on clear with silver grub but I did have something just about yank the rod out of my hand fishing a suspending rouge. But who knows I could have yanked it into a big carp or maybe a shovelhead swatted it. I just know I yanked it twice, paused, yanked and then the drag was screaming for four or five seconds and it came off. Hopefully the river just comes up a little bit over the next couple days.


----------



## The Fishing Addict

Those are some footballs!


----------



## gibson330usa

Wow, you've had an amazing year already, thanks for sharing all this great info. It looks like the rivers will be blown up for a bit after last night and tonights rain.


----------



## oldstinkyguy

So I'd been working on this for a couple years. Getting the key to the big padlock to that big steel gate at the end of this gravel lane that is. It felt good to lock the gate behind me, pull the truck down to the river and unload the yak. According to the weather channel it wasn't supposed to rain till mid morning tomorrow. I sure hoped so. I had the yak loaded down like Sanford and Sons old truck with a tarp, food, drink, fire starting stuff and a fly rod, a spinning rod and a heavy catfish rod. An hour later I was a mile downstream sitting up camp on a little island. Mostly just setting up the tarp in case it does rain and dragging up a big pile of driftwood for a fire. Finally time to fish. I tied a three inch grub on the spinning rod and a crystal flash and white bucktail streamer on the fly rod and never changed. The fish were on. I caught a fish ohio saugeye, maybe 15 smb up to a tad under 19" and four nice channels on cut bait. I saw a beaver, a cormorant, a big fox squirrel that let me float directly underneath it as it ate maple seeds off a limb hanging out over the water and zero people. And to add icing to the cake it didn't start raining until I was loading the yak the next day. A pretty swell first overnighter for the year. The smallie in that last pic has marks from surviving a very close call with a very big flathead


----------



## BaitWaster

My favorite reports from OSG and the others involve these overnight trips. Glad the weather cooperated for you and the bite as well. Can't wait to get out and do one of these trips


----------



## ML1187

BaitWaster said:


> My favorite reports from OSG and the others involve these overnight trips. Glad the weather cooperated for you and the bite as well. Can't wait to get out and do one of these trips


Mine too ! OSG and his camping thread from a Few years ago gave me the bug to get out there. Funnest thing to do this side of the Mississipi


----------



## SMBHooker

oldstinkyguy said:


> I tied on
> a crystal flash and white bucktail streamer on the fly rod and never changed. I caught 15 smb up to a tad under 19" and four nice channels on cut bait.


19"er on a fly rod??? You got my attention. Care to tell a little about your fly set up and your technique for working the fly? 

I am committed to getting my fly rod out this year in a real study of it. Can't wait really. I just ordered a few items from Mad River Outfitters. I'd be in heaven with a smallmouth that big on my 6 wt.


----------



## oldstinkyguy

SMBHooker said:


> 19"er on a fly rod??? You got my attention. Care to tell a little about your fly set up and your technique for working the fly?
> 
> I am committed to getting my fly rod out this year in a real study of it. Can't wait really. I just ordered a few items from Mad River Outfitters. I'd be in heaven with a smallmouth that big on my 6 wt.


I've picked up the crazy habit of chasing carp with the flyrod so anymore I usually carry an 8wt Fenwick Aetos paired with a Pflueger Patriarch spooled with a triangle taper fly line. I use about an 8 or 9 foot hand tied leader. To make one you go to Walmart/Kmart/Biglots and buy those little spools of the dirt cheap mono. The stiff stuff that's unusable on regular tackle. I buy every size I can find from 30 thru 10lb test. I take about an 18" piece of 30 to which I bloodknot about 14" of 25lb, then step down in foot long increments of 20lb, 18lb 15lb 12lb then 10lb. Then to the end of this I blood knot a foot of trilene XL and a foot of 8lb trileneXL. The idea is the stiff cheap mono turns over the bulky bass flies and then the soft line at the end gives a good presentation. Or you can just buy a tapered leader that end's in about 1x. I like to tie my own, I just feel like with everything else the more you can do yourself the funner the whole process is. If you do a lot of largemouth fishing in ponds, I'd say go with the tapered store bought leader tho, it gets less mossy green slime buildup. I remember arguing with Dustin on here a few years ago when I said a 6wt was just more fun to cast so thats what I chased smallmouth with. I've since hooked a few big carp on the 6wt which made me realize the 8wt was a better choice on 10lb plus fish. Besides my new Aetos 8wt probably weighs less than my 20 year old St Croix and Orvis 6wts and is a blast to cast. For smallmouth fishing I'd suggest something in the 6wt to 8wt range.That being said I own five 4wt flyrods. Nothing on earth is finer than wet wading in summer a tiny little creek chasing long eared sunfish, chubs and 8" long smllmouth bass. I think If your going to invest in a first fly rod it comes down to what else your going to do with it. If your going to take it and fish big rivers for trout buy a 6wt, If your going to bluegill fish or trout fish the littler mountain streams in places like the smokies buy a four wt. If your going to chase steelhead, stripers or throw big deerhair bugs at largemouth bass buy an 8wt. If your only going to smallmouth rivers buy a 7wt. Your 6wt should be great for a little bit of everything and is a wonderful weight to enjoy casting. I gotta confess I own almost as many fly rods as spinning rods. This year I added a 9' 8wt Fenwick world class fly rod that is a 6 piece that should strap nicely to the yak and it's twin in a 4wt to strap to a backpack. In other words just like conventional tackle once you have one set up your going to want more....


----------



## greghal

Awesome Steve.


----------



## oldstinkyguy

greghal said:


> Awesome Steve.


Hows the turkey hunting been?


----------



## oldstinkyguy

The last few days in pictures....


----------



## oldstinkyguy




----------



## garhtr

Nice photos and that looks like a big bluegill. I'm ready for a little pond action myself , hopefully top-water 
GOOD luck and Good Fishing !


----------



## ML1187

I can't tell ya how many times I've wanted to take a short cat nap after some hard fishing. My friends all say they will do mean things to me if I do, so I don't.


----------



## Flannel_Carp

ML1187 said:


> I can't tell ya how many times I've wanted to take a short cat nap after some hard fishing. My friends all say they will do mean things to me if I do, so I don't.


On all of our trips I secretly bring a tupperware container with a spider in it to put under your hat if you make us stop for cat nap!


----------



## oldstinkyguy

So I'm walking thru work and Gerry calls me over. He glances furtively around and then says softly, "I bought you something".

Uh, Whut?

"I bought you something" Only a tiny bit louder. Still glancing around suspiciously.

Uh, Okay

"It's the twitching lure..."

Uh, Whut?

"The twitching lure..."

He then proceeds to tell me it's a revolutionary lure that experts say catches too many fish. Sure enough, he shows me their website. It says...

_"Rechargeable Twitching Lures are the first rechargeable, electronic lures with the genetic secret to catching fish: Vibra-Strike Technology. Your Rechargeable Twitching Lure flashes and twitches to mimic the movements of a wounded bait fish. This triggers the DNA-programming in fish that has signaled them to strike since prehistoric times. Fish can’t resist the twitching action because it triggers their DNA. They bite whether they’re hungry or not"_

With Twitch, you can throw all your old lures away. It’s just that easy!

SWITCH TO THE TWITCH, AND START CATCHING MORE FISH!


*Rechargeable Twitching Lure Features*


_*
Vibra-Strike Technology Triggers Genetic DNA Programmed Instinct to Strike

Charges in Minutes

Lights Up in the Dark

Twitches, Flashes &amp; Buzzes in Water to Mimic Wounded Bait Fish

Hand-Painted Top-Quality Lure

Sharpest Mustad® Hooks

Works for Day or Night Fishing, Lake, Stream and Surf
*_
And on and on. And it's on the internet so it's got to be true. They can't put anything on the internet that's not true I think.



So now I just don't know quite what to do. Tomorrow I'm leaving for several days of serious fishing down in the mountains of Tennessee with four or five hardcore fishermen. It hardly seems fair if I catch a fish every cast. But I only have two twitching lures, not enough to share. (Gerry said they were buy one for $19.99 and get the second one free, only $6.99 shipping and handling per lure) And the ad also said you could catch a fish literally every cast. Do I really want to catch a huge striper every cast? Would that even be fun? Could my back take the strain? And the river is full of huge muskellunge. Would it even be safe to be around the water with these huge toothy fish driven into a frenzy by the twitching lures Vibra strike technology? After all, the particular models Gerry purchased are called the executioner. I took them home and hooked up the usb charger and the first is charging even as I write this. But the moral, ethical, and conservation dilemmas. I mean even if I can control myself what happens if Rob Orr or Dan Andrews or one of the other guys of questionable character along on this trip sees the deadly effectiveness of the twitching lure?? After all it triggers the DNA programming in fish that have caused them to strike since prehistoric times. Damn you Gerry and your incredible rechargeable twitching flashing lure with vibra trike technology. What to do, what to do.



When I get back from the mountains I'll let you know what happened.


----------



## Saugeye Tom

oldstinkyguy said:


> So I'm walking thru work and Gerry calls me over. He glances furtively around and then says softly, "I bought you something".
> 
> Uh, Whut?
> 
> "I bought you something" Only a tiny bit louder. Still glancing around suspiciously.
> 
> Uh, Okay
> 
> "It's the twitching lure..."
> 
> Uh, Whut?
> 
> "The twitching lure..."
> 
> He then proceeds to tell me it's a revolutionary lure that experts say catches too many fish. Sure enough, he shows me their website. It says...
> 
> _"Rechargeable Twitching Lures are the first rechargeable, electronic lures with the genetic secret to catching fish: Vibra-Strike Technology. Your Rechargeable Twitching Lure flashes and twitches to mimic the movements of a wounded bait fish. This triggers the DNA-programming in fish that has signaled them to strike since prehistoric times. Fish can’t resist the twitching action because it triggers their DNA. They bite whether they’re hungry or not"_
> 
> With Twitch, you can throw all your old lures away. It’s just that easy!
> 
> SWITCH TO THE TWITCH, AND START CATCHING MORE FISH!
> 
> 
> *Rechargeable Twitching Lure Features*
> 
> 
> _*
> Vibra-Strike Technology Triggers Genetic DNA Programmed Instinct to Strike
> 
> Charges in Minutes
> 
> Lights Up in the Dark
> 
> Twitches, Flashes &amp; Buzzes in Water to Mimic Wounded Bait Fish
> 
> Hand-Painted Top-Quality Lure
> 
> Sharpest Mustad® Hooks
> 
> Works for Day or Night Fishing, Lake, Stream and Surf
> *_
> And on and on. And it's on the internet so it's got to be true. They can't put anything on the internet that's not true I think.
> 
> 
> 
> So now I just don't know quite what to do. Tomorrow I'm leaving for several days of serious fishing down in the mountains of Tennessee with four or five hardcore fishermen. It hardly seems fair if I catch a fish every cast. But I only have two twitching lures, not enough to share. (Gerry said they were buy one for $19.99 and get the second one free, only $6.99 shipping and handling per lure) And the ad also said you could catch a fish literally every cast. Do I really want to catch a huge striper every cast? Would that even be fun? Could my back take the strain? And the river is full of huge muskellunge. Would it even be safe to be around the water with these huge toothy fish driven into a frenzy by the twitching lures Vibra strike technology? After all, the particular models Gerry purchased are called the executioner. I took them home and hooked up the usb charger and the first is charging even as I write this. But the moral, ethical, and conservation dilemmas. I mean even if I can control myself what happens if Rob Orr or Dan Andrews or one of the other guys of questionable character along on this trip sees the deadly effectiveness of the twitching lure?? After all it triggers the DNA programming in fish that have caused them to strike since prehistoric times. Damn you Gerry and your incredible rechargeable twitching flashing lure with vibra trike technology. What to do, what to do.
> 
> 
> 
> When I get back from the mountains I'll let you know what happened.


Lmao...don't do it osg..I'll loose faith in you


----------



## Saugeye Tom

oldstinkyguy said:


> So I'm walking thru work and Gerry calls me over. He glances furtively around and then says softly, "I bought you something".
> 
> Uh, Whut?
> 
> "I bought you something" Only a tiny bit louder. Still glancing around suspiciously.
> 
> Uh, Okay
> 
> "It's the twitching lure..."
> 
> Uh, Whut?
> 
> "The twitching lure..."
> 
> He then proceeds to tell me it's a revolutionary lure that experts say catches too many fish. Sure enough, he shows me their website. It says...
> 
> _"Rechargeable Twitching Lures are the first rechargeable, electronic lures with the genetic secret to catching fish: Vibra-Strike Technology. Your Rechargeable Twitching Lure flashes and twitches to mimic the movements of a wounded bait fish. This triggers the DNA-programming in fish that has signaled them to strike since prehistoric times. Fish can’t resist the twitching action because it triggers their DNA. They bite whether they’re hungry or not"_
> 
> With Twitch, you can throw all your old lures away. It’s just that easy!
> 
> SWITCH TO THE TWITCH, AND START CATCHING MORE FISH!
> 
> 
> *Rechargeable Twitching Lure Features*
> 
> 
> _*
> Vibra-Strike Technology Triggers Genetic DNA Programmed Instinct to Strike
> 
> Charges in Minutes
> 
> Lights Up in the Dark
> 
> Twitches, Flashes &amp; Buzzes in Water to Mimic Wounded Bait Fish
> 
> Hand-Painted Top-Quality Lure
> 
> Sharpest Mustad® Hooks
> 
> Works for Day or Night Fishing, Lake, Stream and Surf
> *_
> And on and on. And it's on the internet so it's got to be true. They can't put anything on the internet that's not true I think.
> 
> 
> 
> So now I just don't know quite what to do. Tomorrow I'm leaving for several days of serious fishing down in the mountains of Tennessee with four or five hardcore fishermen. It hardly seems fair if I catch a fish every cast. But I only have two twitching lures, not enough to share. (Gerry said they were buy one for $19.99 and get the second one free, only $6.99 shipping and handling per lure) And the ad also said you could catch a fish literally every cast. Do I really want to catch a huge striper every cast? Would that even be fun? Could my back take the strain? And the river is full of huge muskellunge. Would it even be safe to be around the water with these huge toothy fish driven into a frenzy by the twitching lures Vibra strike technology? After all, the particular models Gerry purchased are called the executioner. I took them home and hooked up the usb charger and the first is charging even as I write this. But the moral, ethical, and conservation dilemmas. I mean even if I can control myself what happens if Rob Orr or Dan Andrews or one of the other guys of questionable character along on this trip sees the deadly effectiveness of the twitching lure?? After all it triggers the DNA programming in fish that have caused them to strike since prehistoric times. Damn you Gerry and your incredible rechargeable twitching flashing lure with vibra trike technology. What to do, what to do.
> 
> 
> 
> When I get back from the mountains I'll let you know what happened.


I'd it works ml1187 smb and flannel carp will sell ya their twitching lures cheap...e strong too.....


----------



## ML1187

I humbly request a detailed report along with pics and video of said lure. Thank you.


----------



## deltaoscar

oldstinkyguy said:


> With Twitch, you can throw all your old lures away. It’s just that easy!


I'm sold.

Gerry sounds like a great guy, BTW.


----------



## gibson330usa

I saved myself some money, I just throw a regular lure and start twitching myself while the lure is in the water.


----------



## EStrong

Saugeye Tom said:


> I'd it works ml1187 smb and flannel carp will sell ya their twitching lures cheap...e strong too.....


Hey wait a minute! How the hell did I get dragged into this "twitching" lure crap Tom? Forget the horse's head, I'll be dumping 300 pounds worth of Alligator Snapper in your bed... 

Steven, I apologize for "dirtying up" your thread. At least I have enough manners to say so unlike an unnamed hack (Tom) better known as the "Floatie Fairy". Hope you did well in Tennessee!


----------



## oldstinkyguy

Fishing the Clinch...
I knew it was going to be one of those trips right away. You now one of those trips that seems to take on a life or at least trajectory all its own. You end up being swept along to wherever it leads you. This all became obvious waiting in line in the Pilot somewhere around Jellico. A few places ahead in line was the most beautiful girl anyone in the place had ever seen. If she wasn't the prettiest girl in Rockcastle County or Whitley or wherever she was from she was certainly prettier than any one in Ohio. And she was obviously not happy. Not happy with the tall boy in the Massey Ferguson hat right behind her. He was trying as quietly and apologetically as he could to smooth things over. And she was having none of it. Finally after paying she turned and said loud enough for everyone in the place to hear, "Billy you can just get in that little Ranger of yours and drive it straight to hell." And she walked out. Billy just kind of stood there helpless and turned to the big hairy guy in the bib overalls behind him who he obviously didn't know and said, "I love her". The giant hillbilly who looked a like an extra from Deliverance said, "Son... I don't blame you a bit"
I guess it's from stopping in strange out of the way locales at all times of the day and night on fishing trips like this but I seem to witness random weirdness like this regularly. In a small town in eastern Ohio last winter chasing hybrid stripers I found myself at the deli counter of one those beer, bait, gas and grocery stores. Behind the counter was a pretty girl making me a ham sandwich and another girl only slightly less beautiful than the prettiest girl in Tennessee. The girl looked up from my sandwich and said, "she thinks she's going to be a star". To which the other replied "well I am, Don't you think I could be a star." Dumb struck and unable to think of something witty I resorted to the truth, "I don't see how you couldn't". I got a sandwich and a"DAMMIT, do not encourage her, DO NOT encourage her" I stopped back in a few months later to find a fat lethargic girl behind the deli counter who seemed uninterested in the world at large much less making me a sandwich. I was afraid to ask in case my star was knocked up living in a trailer instead of gone to LA on a greyhound chasing her dreams.
It was supposed to be a trip for striped bass, or rockfish as everyone down there calls them. After a few days of going in baitshops or talking to other fishermen I found myself wanting to call them that as well. Supposed to be a rockfish trip except for one tiny detail, no one told the rockfish. In four days of fishing 15 to 20 hours a day I saw roughly 10 or 12 caught. All by guides in boats off of a concrete wall that I couldn't reach with my longest cast. Dave was better prepared, he came equipped with a long surf rod that almost but not quite got him out there. He ended up catching three in the four days, one of which was a dandy. Rob caught a nice one on a swimbait after about five casts in a spot I'd just got done casting from for hours. It was strange but but both Rob's fish and Dave's three all came at times when I had wandered off to take a leak or was fishing elsewhere. It was like the fishing god's didn't want me to even see a striper. Not that I didn't catch a lot of fish. Everyone caught a lot of fish. Below the dam were huge baitballs of shad. The biggest ones I've ever seen. Swirling and flowing around like tornados along the bank. Huge white bass and small hybrids would herd the minnows against the face of the dam and the surface would erupt in waves of frightened baitfish. The carnage was unbelievable like something you would see on the Nature Channel. Images of arctic skies filled with millions of birds or huge herds of wildebeest crossing a river filled with crocodiles come to mind. It was easily the most baitfish I've ever seen in forty years of river fishing by a factor of like ten. After throwing a big swimbait till your arm was about to fall off or staring at your rod tip waiting for that bite on your skipjack that never comes all you had to do was tie on a grub and jighead and catch all the white bass you ever wanted to catch to lift your spirits again. These didn't even look like our white bass, so gorged and fattened up on shad were they, they had lost their usual flatness and were round like footballs. You couldn't help but hold them out at arm's length and admire them, exclaiming over and over again, "that's the biggest white bass I've ever seen. And then five minutes later do the same thing. Mixed in were the occasional small hybrid and some big freshwater drum. And even though I couldn't catch a rockfish if I was in a bathtub with one the fish gods thought they would make up for it with blue cats. I think I ended up with more blue cats than everyone else combined. All of which I would have gladly traded for one lousy striper. Not that there is anything wrong with catfish but this lack of stripers was and is personal. As MacArthur said I shall return.
All the bait was not unnoticed by the local bird population which lead to another experience that in and of itself was worth the whole trip. Right in front of us an osprey swooped down and snatched a fish off the surface. Not a power dive into the water but just snatching the thing with it's claws in midflight. Like forty feet in front of us. It circled a bit trying to gain altitude when out of nowhere in comes an eagle. The osprey banks and twists and turn to avoid the eagle. And round and round they go in an aerial dogfight right in front of and over us. Again something straight off of the Nature Channel. speaking of wildlife my favorite sitting rock was also home to a beautiful skink. And one evening I drove over to Fort Loudon to catch some skipjacks for bait and there were like fifteen osprey there fishing. These were catching fish in steep power dives, wonderful to watch. What wonderful country east Tennessee is. If I win the powerball tomorrow and could live anywhere there's no doubt that east Tennessee would be the first place I'd buy a house


----------



## oldstinkyguy




----------



## SMBHooker

I am always surprised at the variety of fish u target OSG and they always seem to be BIG.


----------



## zaraspook

Quite sure if OSG tested his DNA, results would show fish chromosomes mixed in with the human pairs!


----------



## garhtr

Sounds like a great trip. Stripers are over rated, I'd take those big white bass, trophy drum and monster cats over all the stripers in Kentucky any day. Nice !
Good luck and Good Fishing


----------



## ML1187

Looks like a lot of fun OSG. Wonder what Billy did. Poor guy.


----------



## thedudeabides

Great story and great trip!


----------



## oldstinkyguy

When the thought first crossed my mind that I might someday wish to write a book on the LMR I knew there was some of it I hadn't seen yet. My first thought was to try and fish the whole thing but the more I thought about it the less appealing that idea became. In every river, everywhere, there are just some stretches that are obviously not going to be good fishing. For example the LMR has some huge long shallow silt filled pools that seem to just go on forever that a smallmouth just wouldn't be caught dead in. So I modified my plan to just try and SEE as much of the river as I can. Either by walking, yakking, wading or yes fishing. I have to admit there are till some places I've not made it to. 110 miles is a lot of river. But I can say I've seen most of it. And along the way found some neat out of the way places that don't show up on things like google. Like Herman Melville said in Moby Dick, " It is not down on any map, true places never are". This trip report is about one of those places.I was wading years ago this section way up the LMR, past where you should expect a big fish really. I'm wading along thru knee deep water and came real close to going in over my head. In one step. A closer examination showed me an old wall underwater buried in the sand and gravel. A piece of an old mill dam? A wing dam? Some part of an old factory long forgotten? Lots of time and research have still not given me the answer. But I do know that old piece of something digs out a deep hole where there shouldn't be one. The best and deepest hole for miles. It occurred to me that I hadn't been back in several years so I made plans to make a beeline there after work. Here where the river has more gravel than stone I'm fond of a small plastic worm. I fish it on a modified neko rig using a screw and a couple tiny washers for weight. Vic makes a 4" ringworm that is smoke metalflake. Which as everyone knows is just about my favorite color in any kind of soft plastic. After I caught her I realized in my haste to blast out after work I hadn't packed a tape measure. I carefully cut off a piece of mono the exact length of the fish to measure at home. Because of this and because I hate the endless arguments over how big a fish is, I'm not posting a length but I will say the picture does not do the fish justice. Shes the best fish I've caught so far this year.


----------



## Saugeye Tom

Pm sent


----------



## Flannel_Carp

That's a fat ole girl that's for sure!


----------



## 9Left

That's a piggy OSG, nice fish!


----------



## MDBuckeye

OSG, you have a wonderful gift! Of story telling, of fishing, being a great photographer and of life in general and I don't even really know you! I appreciate the great detail you give as well as the incredible pictures.

Great smallie in that last picture. I would guess over 20" but you never did say.


----------



## SMBHooker

Only OSG can catch a 20"+ smallmouth with a screw and a metal washer!!! Beautiful smallmouth Steve.


----------



## oldstinkyguy

Two days before I was 75 miles up another stream. A stream lined with the pristine, garnished with beautiful forest and not another human in sight. Today is a different world altogether. The refuse and detritus of modern society lay everywhere. But somehow, like always, nature finds a way. Stunted twisted sycamores hang out over the stream. Clumps of willow sprout thru concrete rubble. A robin's nest in a shrub under a rail trestle. Milkweed and thistle thrive thru sheer tenacity in a soil composed of gravel, pieces of old brick, rebar and chunks of concrete and broken glass.
Likewise the water, rendered opaque by the evening sun, hides wildness all its own. Down there among the old pipe and twisted steel swim fish as wild at heart as Alaskan rainbows. Fish with a spirit completely undiluted by their inner city life.
I tie on a jig head, twice thru the eye then seven wraps back around itself then the tag end pushed back thru. Lick the knot and snug it down. The Trilene knot, a terribly unglamorous and commercial name for such a solid dependable thing. How many Trilene knots have I tied, a hundred thousand maybe. Enough that I can tie the thing in the dark. On the jighead goes a three inch grub, purple with bright blue metalflake. Electric Blue I think Vic calls it.
I pause, take a deep breath and a good look around. Mystery and shadow hide the underneath
of a raised track on the other bank. Is that a homeless guy sleeping off a bottle of Boone's Farm? Or a couple of old trash bags? A dead body? From here it's unclear and probably left that way. Up on the tracks two guys pass. A heavy set fellow in a too tight football jersey and one of those horrible excuses for a ball cap. The ones with the raised glittering letters and a bill as flat as the day it came out of the box from China. The other a nervous tattooed skinny guy in a wife beater with an equally offensive flat billed cap. 
After they wandered on I flipped the grub upstream in an eddy formed in the lee of a huge concrete structure whose long ago purpose is lost to time.
I flipped the bail closed and grabbed the line with my free hand letting the lure sink on a tight line.
Thump, I set and was fast to a pugnacious white bass. A fish on the first cast. Bananas and a bad omen.
But not today. No giants but a few small smallmouth and white bass. The best fish ended up being a three or four shovelhead that nailed the grub and was a big smallmouth right up until it rolled up black and magically transformed into a catfish.


----------



## gibson330usa

Another great report and fantastic pictures.


----------



## garhtr

Nature's way is truly amazing ! I often dream of stepping into a virgin stream but The Great Smoky Mnts and Ohio's smaller creeks are probably the closest I'll ever get ------ but I still dream.
Great story, Great photos, as they normally are.
Good luck and Good Fishing !


----------



## SMBHooker

Ah, finally a man that understands the power of the trilene knot. 

I often think on the wild nature of the smallmouth I chase and how their presence is as native and wild as it were before we settled the great states of America, well said OSG.

I am just glad when I go out I never run into potential dead bodies and what I agree is the ball cap offensive, just yuk!


----------



## oldstinkyguy

I was throwing one of Vic's new 5" swim grubs. Swimming it across a deep fast little cut when the fish hit. Oh It's a pretty good channel I thought. Or maybe I've foul hooked a carp. Then that gold side rolled up. There's no mistaking that color. Please don't let it get off....
I could tell by looking at the fish in the water that it was a personal best saugeye. Maybe not by weight I've caught a couple late winter fish that were a bit over 26" that were full of eggs that were fat enough to weigh as much but it was obvious this thing was long. Finally after a bit too much babying the fish I landed it. Sure enough it was a bit under 28" but postspawn skinny. I would love to find her again come next January.


----------



## 9Left

Jeeeeez!!!!! Nice saugfish OSG!!!!!


----------



## Saugeye Tom

10 lbr with eggs!!! Nice fish steve


----------



## ML1187

What a Saugeye. Wow.


----------



## BuzzBait Brad

Nice saugeye! I'm personal best is at 24.5"


----------



## oldstinkyguy

oldstinkyguy said:


> So I'm walking thru work and Gerry calls me over. He glances furtively around and then says softly, "I bought you something".
> 
> Uh, Whut?
> 
> "I bought you something" Only a tiny bit louder. Still glancing around suspiciously.
> 
> Uh, Okay
> 
> "It's the twitching lure..."
> 
> Uh, Whut?
> 
> "The twitching lure..."
> 
> He then proceeds to tell me it's a revolutionary lure that experts say catches too many fish. Sure enough, he shows me their website. It says...
> 
> _"Rechargeable Twitching Lures are the first rechargeable, electronic lures with the genetic secret to catching fish: Vibra-Strike Technology. Your Rechargeable Twitching Lure flashes and twitches to mimic the movements of a wounded bait fish. This triggers the DNA-programming in fish that has signaled them to strike since prehistoric times. Fish can’t resist the twitching action because it triggers their DNA. They bite whether they’re hungry or not"_
> 
> With Twitch, you can throw all your old lures away. It’s just that easy!
> 
> SWITCH TO THE TWITCH, AND START CATCHING MORE FISH!
> 
> 
> *Rechargeable Twitching Lure Features*
> 
> 
> _*
> Vibra-Strike Technology Triggers Genetic DNA Programmed Instinct to Strike
> 
> Charges in Minutes
> 
> Lights Up in the Dark
> 
> Twitches, Flashes &amp; Buzzes in Water to Mimic Wounded Bait Fish
> 
> Hand-Painted Top-Quality Lure
> 
> Sharpest Mustad® Hooks
> 
> Works for Day or Night Fishing, Lake, Stream and Surf
> *_
> And on and on. And it's on the internet so it's got to be true. They can't put anything on the internet that's not true I think.
> 
> 
> 
> So now I just don't know quite what to do. Tomorrow I'm leaving for several days of serious fishing down in the mountains of Tennessee with four or five hardcore fishermen. It hardly seems fair if I catch a fish every cast. But I only have two twitching lures, not enough to share. (Gerry said they were buy one for $19.99 and get the second one free, only $6.99 shipping and handling per lure) And the ad also said you could catch a fish literally every cast. Do I really want to catch a huge striper every cast? Would that even be fun? Could my back take the strain? And the river is full of huge muskellunge. Would it even be safe to be around the water with these huge toothy fish driven into a frenzy by the twitching lures Vibra strike technology? After all, the particular models Gerry purchased are called the executioner. I took them home and hooked up the usb charger and the first is charging even as I write this. But the moral, ethical, and conservation dilemmas. I mean even if I can control myself what happens if Rob Orr or Dan Andrews or one of the other guys of questionable character along on this trip sees the deadly effectiveness of the twitching lure?? After all it triggers the DNA programming in fish that have caused them to strike since prehistoric times. Damn you Gerry and your incredible rechargeable twitching flashing lure with vibra trike technology. What to do, what to do.
> 
> 
> 
> When I get back from the mountains I'll let you know what happened.





ML1187 said:


> I humbly request a detailed report along with pics and video of said lure. Thank you.


There seems to be some new science out on the Twitching Lure...

The Inconclusive Electrical Force (IEF) and the Twitching Lure

OSG Institute
Funded by the
Twin Creek Fishing Fraternity
Thru a grant by the
Dandrews Foundation

Part one of a year long study of the effectiveness of the Twitching Lure. As you well know the Twitching Lure is advertised as the ultimate fishing lure. This rechargeable lure uses stored electricity to buzz, flash, and twitch in the water. Supposedly triggering impulses stored in the fishes DNA and literally forcing them to bite. This is known as the Twitching Lures patented Vibra Strike technology.

The lure is charged via a usb connection like a typical cell phone or tablet. As the energy stored in th battery depletes the electrical current present in the Twitching Lure slowly declines and is thus unable to be described as a static quantity, hence the term Inconclusive Electrical Force or IEF. According to the manufacturers advertising the Twitching Lure charges in minutes to light up in the dark, flash buzz and vibrate in three sensor technology and appeal to the fishes DNA.

Estimates vary wildly, since of course, no-one has counted them all, but there are some 100 billion separate nerve cells in the human brain - which is, by strange coincidence, around the same number as there are thought to be galaxies in the Universe. But this number, however awesome, doesn't begin to capture the almost miraculous complexity of the human nervous system. Each of those 100 billion cells can make hundreds and hundreds of separate connections with other cells - and unimaginably more alternative pathways - that allow nerve signals to crackle, fizz and buzz along as they make us jump up or sit down, laugh and cry, love and hate, sing, shout, swear, eat, drink and do everything that makes us human. Science is only just beginning to understand the brain's remarkable form of 'software' - the way it works as a whole to enable us to live and think - but an amazing series of scientific breakthroughs have given us insight into its 'hardware'. And not just humans but all animals including gamefish use these electrical impulses to think and react to their environment.

To study the Inconclusive Electrical Force produced by the Twitching Lure and its effect on living animals a field trial was conducted using a spotfin shiner, a common ground slug, a fisherman recruited from the Hamilton Dam area and a fisherman from both the lower and upper Great Miami Watersheds. 

Each was fitted with sensory as well as conducting electrodes. An electrical current comparable to the Inconclusive Electrical Force(IEF) was then sent thru the conducting electrodes and the electrical impulses in the brain (or ganglia in the case of the slug) was then measured. It was found that the electrical current that represented the IEF did elicit a corresponding rise in the electrical activity of the neurosensory connections of our test subjects. The lowest electrical activity was found in the subject recruited at the Hamilton Dam, then the common slug. There was no statistical difference between the spotfin shiner and the lower GMR fisherman though both were more than double that of the slug and three times that of the Hamilton Dam fisherman. The upper GMR fisherman scored higher still and had neural activity nine times that of the Hamilton Dam subject. 

It has been suggested that contamination of polyetheline plastics may account for as least a portion of the low scores exhibited by the Hamilton Dam subject. Polyetheline plastic were quite prevalent at the recruitment site at the Dam in the form of empty bait containers and discarded fishing line. 

While not conclusive this strongly suggests that the IEF produced by the Twitching Lure could possibly elicit an electrical response in the neural networks of predatory fish. 

There is strong evidence that electrical charges greater than the IEF though might actually have a repellant effect on fish or even stun then. For example the electrical charges used by most wildlife agencies when sampling fish populations using an electrofishing technique. But these are electrical impulses many times greater than the IEF generated by the Twitching Lure. It seems safe to postulate that electrical charges comparable to the IEF produced by the Twitching Lure might in some cases result in higher brain or ganglia activity in test subjects.


----------



## ML1187

. Upper GMR got this on lock.


----------



## oldstinkyguy

ML1187 said:


> What a Saugeye. Wow.


I've been lucky this spring. I'm afraid it will all be downhill from here the rest of the year...


----------



## Flannel_Carp

This is hilarious! Must go get me a twitching lure now!


----------



## oldstinkyguy

The Toad Float...
My fishing heroes have always been a lit bit different than everyone else. Instead of Kevin Van Dam or Ike or Roland my heroes have a lot less flash. . Billy Westmorland, Dan Gapen, Al Linder, and of course Toad Smith. Toad who? The late Otis "Toad" Smith, the world class hunter and fisherman who put fishing for big flatheads on the map. Toad once had an operation where the doctor was going to have to remove part of Toad's heart. So what did Toad do? Of course he had the doc save the piece and when he was better Toad caught a six pound channel on it.

Toad was also a proponent of fishing small to medium sized rivers for channels. Not parking at the nearest bridge and throwing out some stinky concoction, but doing it right. Toad would float a river, fishing each likely bend or piece of cover a bit, catching a few, then going on the next. More like the typical itinerary of a smallmouth float. By days end Toad would have scouted miles of river for flathead holes and caught dozens of quality channels by fishing off the beaten path.

Ever since getting a stable sit on top yak I've been wanting to do a Toad Float in it.

The other day was my chance. In one rod holder I had a typical river spinning outfit. A fast action spinning rod and alure in one rod holder in the other a heavier rod with braid. This outfit I fished two ways. One was a floater about two feet up from a regular 1/0 baitholder. The other was a Santee Cooper rig with a circle hook. The Santee rig I would pitch out then put in the rod holder and either drift or slowly paddle along. Then when I'd find a likely looking pile of wood I'd work right against the edges of it with the float rig. These proved to be a winning combination. I probably caught more on the drift rig but I think a little better fish on average on the float rig fished around cover. For bait I used cut bait and crawlers. No monsters but by days end I'd caught 15 or 20 plus a couple bonus smallies that hit a grub fished around a riffle. Swell day on the water. Same shirt as I was wearing when I caught the big saugeye. Maybe I have a lucky shirt...


----------



## Saugeye Tom

oldstinkyguy said:


> The Toad Float...
> My fishing heroes have always been a lit bit different than everyone else. Instead of Kevin Van Dam or Ike or Roland my heroes have a lot less flash. . Billy Westmorland, Dan Gapen, Al Linder, and of course Toad Smith. Toad who? The late Otis "Toad" Smith, the world class hunter and fisherman who put fishing for big flatheads on the map. Toad once had an operation where the doctor was going to have to remove part of Toad's heart. So what did Toad do? Of course he had the doc save the piece and when he was better Toad caught a six pound channel on it.
> 
> Toad was also a proponent of fishing small to medium sized rivers for channels. Not parking at the nearest bridge and throwing out some stinky concoction, but doing it right. Toad would float a river, fishing each likely bend or piece of cover a bit, catching a few, then going on the next. More like the typical itinerary of a smallmouth float. By days end Toad would have scouted miles of river for flathead holes and caught dozens of quality channels by fishing off the beaten path.
> 
> Ever since getting a stable sit on top yak I've been wanting to do a Toad Float in it.
> 
> The other day was my chance. In one rod holder I had a typical river spinning outfit. A fast action spinning rod and alure in one rod holder in the other a heavier rod with braid. This outfit I fished two ways. One was a floater about two feet up from a regular 1/0 baitholder. The other was a Santee Cooper rig with a circle hook. The Santee rig I would pitch out then put in the rod holder and either drift or slowly paddle along. Then when I'd find a likely looking pile of wood I'd work right against the edges of it with the float rig. These proved to be a winning combination. I probably caught more on the drift rig but I think a little better fish on average on the float rig fished around cover. For bait I used cut bait and crawlers. No monsters but by days end I'd caught 15 or 20 plus a couple bonus smallies that hit a grub fished around a riffle. Swell day on the water. Same shirt as I was wearing when I caught the big saugeye. Maybe I have a lucky shirt...
> 
> View attachment 211678
> View attachment 211679
> View attachment 211680


The toad was a KFC eating machine. Always had a whole bucket with him.....you remember Virgil ward?


----------



## 9Left

I remember a segment on Al Lindner when they fished with the " toad" for river cats. Loved it! I just loved Al Lindners shows when I was a kid because he actually taught you all his methods and his reasoning behind them, from bluegill to bass to walleye, and everything in between... There was a time once when his shows were on public television every Saturday morning, and I'd sit on the recliner with my dad and we'd watch it together. Also watched the mutual of Omaha " wild kingdom " together every time it can on. Those were great days


----------



## 9Left




----------



## oldstinkyguy

Three days on the river. As much as I love the yak this was a job tailor made for the Pequod. The Pequod is an ancient jon boat that allows me to haul much more along. Named after Ahab's ship in Melville's Moby Dick. Because like Ahab I've been known to go a bit too far chasing my own white whales. I sometimes wonder what it says about me that if my pressed on my choices for the best fishing book of all time I'd pick Moby Dick and The Old Man and the Sea, neither of which ends very well for the fisherman.

With hot dry weather in the forecast I left the tent at home instead loading a hammock, a seine and bucket for nighttime catfishing, four rods, a cooler and some small odds and ends. Tackle selction was sparse as well. A small box of flies, a bunch of Vic's soft plastics and jigheads, some topwaters, a square bill crankbait and a couple minnow plugs and a bit of terminal tackle for baitfishing.

Rivers are not static. About the only thing constant about a river is change. So I choose to use lures and techniques I know. Things that I've fished so much, so long, over so many years that I feel I always have at least some idea of what they are doing. Even in an environment that is always changing.

When a musician tells me that listening to Beethoven (or Bill Monroe for that matter) isn't just a matter of just listening to music but it's a connection with his soul, with universal truth, I don't look at him sideways and label him a nutjob. Instead I'm jealous, I envy him. I wish I could comprehend music on such a level, where the music itself is a part of who I am. But in a lot of ways I know how he feels. Those zenlike hours where I'm right there. Down there with the jig like it's another appendage feeling the stream bottom, the current, the river. When that quarter ounce of lead and soft plastic and line is my antennae, my lateral line. A connection to another world.

I don't want to lie to you. "The old lie to the young," said Thorton Wilder. We often go on and on about how it's more than just the fishing, it's the whole experience, being out there and one with nature, yada yada yada... But I've noticed in my old age I see a lot more eagles, I appreciate a great tree, the quality of evening light on the water after I've caught a few nice fish first. My one bit of advice is too google what are effective lures and techniques for river smallmouth and pick out two or three of them that interest you and try and learn all there is to know about them. You will spend a lot less time mindlessly changing lures, hot and frustrated, eyes stinging with sweat and a lot more time catching fish. And being a lot more receptive to the beauty of the natural world around you. I think attitude is everything when it comes to nature. Nature will let you see when your willing to see, when you are open to seeing. I was lucky this trip and landed a fine smallmouth off of a bridge abutment a half an hour into the trip. A fish hefty and beautiful enough that the trip would be a success if I didn't land another.

Have you seen Flip Pallot's commercial for Yeti Coolers? The one where he says: "If you walk thru these woods,and go slowly, and are observant, you will see things, and find things, that are unbelievable. Other people are visiting a place that's exciting or dangerous, or mysterious. or cold, or hot, or wet, or dry, I don't care. That's just where I'm supposed to be." Which is exactly how I feel when I'm on the river. A Taos Indian chief once told the psychiatrist Jung that white men were covered in wrinkles because they were crazy. And they were crazy because they thought only with their heads. After a day or two on the river things have slowed enough, that my heart, or at least my gut, does more thinking than my head. I feel that spot over there is better than this one, even though they may look exactly alike, for no other reason than my gut tells me it is.

There is no substitute for time on the water or intuition no matter how long you have been fishing. Though I do think that getting that "feeling" is easier with every year on the water. Proper technique is essential but it cannot stand alone. No amount of casting skill will make a natural fisherman out of a person lacking the mental or emotional equipment. Pay your dues, spend your time on the water, listen to your gut and as silly as it sounds really try and think and feel like a fish. It will make you a better person. No really a better person. When I haven't heard birds at sunrise or the crackle of a fire at night or a good fish taking drag in a while I can't stand to be around me. Which was the main reason for this trip, it had been a while.

Towards the end of the first day I'd floated much further than I thought I would. Had seen a beaver, jumped in a couple times to cool off and had caught a couple more small bass. I ended up at a lowhead dam. A day ahead of what I'd planned. In the shallow water below the dam I seined a bucket full of shiners. Fishing these under a float in a fast run below the dam I had fine time catching channel catfish who didn't seem to mind the heat one bit. Supper was brats over the fire and I was too tired to fish much that night instead mostly just enjoyed the fire and the moon.

Half next day was spent exploring a small tributary. It was in the nineties and wading the creek in the shade was pleasant. I caught three smallmouth all twins, all about seven or eight inches long. And two carp on a brown wooly booger on the fly rod. Seemingly every hole in this creek had several carp tailing in it and I had plenty of chances, which like always, I blew 90% of. The creek was swarming with baby crayfish about a half an inch long which I'm guessing were making for happy carp. I must have seen at least a hundred of these little crayfish all the same length. I also rounded a bend and surprised three wild turkeys. Two jakes and a tom with about an eight inch beard which all sort of milled around on a rock bar confused for a minute before taking off. It was a swell little wade.

Back at the main river I pondered my options. Ahead of schedule I could continue down river thru an unappealing piece of river thru a town, stay here or there was a close take out spot. I chose the latter. Called my ride and relocated to float another stretch. Nothing too eventful the rest of the day, just floating the river in the heat catching the occasional five or six inch bass and looking for a good spot to camp. I found a great one. A big gravel bar with a nice riffle blow it and a big pond like eddy.

I had kept the bait I'd seined the day before and it was doing great. I'd put the minnow bucket 
out on a rope and let it drift alongside the boat all day and had lost very few. I made camp threw out a rod baited with a big shiner and began to search for firewood. The baitrunner was singing when I stumbled into camp with an armload of wood and I was fast into a nice shovelhead. Before the night was done I'd caught another small one and more channels. Right now seems to be primo channelcat time BTW if your in the mood to catfish. Then more sunset and campfire time. It's the "strawberry moon," June's full moon and also the summer solstice. The longest days and shortest nights of the whole year. And according to folklore and my granddaughter's bedtime stories the time of year your most likely to interact with the world of the Fae or Fairies. I remember thy are supposed to grant a wish if you throw a pebble in a fire on the solstice. On a whim I picked one up and wished for big fish. Looking back I should have wished for a winning lottery ticket or a long and healthy life after what happened the next morning.

I woke to a dying fire and the sounds of the first birds. The phone said it wan't quite 5am, still a while till full daylight. It was calm the full moon was now low on the horizon and somewhere downriver a barred owl called. It was beautiful. I tied on a buzzbait. A big 3/4 ounce one. A three bladed strike king with the skirt replaced by a clear with silver five inch grub. I'm not sure why but when river smallmouth are in the mood for a buzzbait they seem to like a big one just as much as a little "smallmouth" sized one. I cast it out and was unprepared for what happened next. From 5:30 till I'm guessing around 6:30 every few casts would be interrupted by a nice smallmouth. Sometimes a very big one. It was simply the best hour of river fishing I've ever had. Then as the sky got brighter and it became what you would normally call early morning it was like you threw a switch and it was done. But what a glorious hour it was, I'll let the pictures do the talking on fish size. It would have been a fine days fishing anywhere, much less an hour in southern Ohio. After the fishing slowed I found a sandy comfy spot where I could lean back against a sycamore and just watched the river for a while. Every thing was right with the world. The rest of day was pretty uneventful. It got hot and you could hardly buy a strike from a bass and then it was a small one. On of the scrappy little guys that I always feel like have to always be on the lookout for food if they are ever going to survive long enough to get big enough to easily chase down food and become picky. Probably the thing that sticks out in my mind most about the day was almost stepping on two big softshell turtles in two separate riffles. The second I actually nudged with my foot before he scooted off. Evening found me at a takeout point a bit sunburned, smelling like a dead carp and very very content.


----------



## oldstinkyguy




----------



## deltaoscar

You weren’t kidding, that’s a mess of great smallmouth. 

You look happy as hell in those pictures.

Excellent post.


----------



## ML1187

And that's what it's all about Folks. Nothing like a river camp. Nothing.


----------



## gibson330usa

Wow that's a bunch of nice looking fish, great report.


----------



## bellbrookbass

Awesome! I want to see some pictures of the Pequod. I imagine navigating a jon boat down the river solo would be quite the adventure. Especially some of the shallow riffle sections. Very interested to learn more about your Jon Boat processes as I have an 11' boat at home that has seen limited river action, and I was hoping to get it out more.


----------



## greghal

Great reports, a lot of good info. Unbelievable fish you catch.


----------



## oldstinkyguy

On a brown woolly bugger in the Great Miami River


----------



## oldstinkyguy

bellbrookbass said:


> Awesome! I want to see some pictures of the Pequod. I imagine navigating a jon boat down the river solo would be quite the adventure. Especially some of the shallow riffle sections. Very interested to learn more about your Jon Boat processes as I have an 11' boat at home that has seen limited river action, and I was hoping to get it out more.


It's just a plain little jon boat. With a trolling motor for the big pools and oars for the riffles. In most of the river it's much more stable than the yak. The exciting river sections I leave for the yak to run tho I think with practice it would run those fine too


----------



## seang22

9Left said:


> I remember a segment on Al Lindner when they fished with the " toad" for river cats. Loved it! I just loved Al Lindners shows when I was a kid because he actually taught you all his methods and his reasoning behind them, from bluegill to bass to walleye, and everything in between... There was a time once when his shows were on public television every Saturday morning, and I'd sit on the recliner with my dad and we'd watch it together. Also watched the mutual of Omaha " wild kingdom " together every time it can on. Those were great days


An I remember those. I had a lot of them on bus also. It's a shame that toad passed. Old in fisherman shows rocked I really loved the original opening. I look for it all the time can never find it


----------



## oldstinkyguy

Did a little fishing with the grandkids this past weekend. Good old doughballs below a dam for carp. Cailyn was fearless as you can see from her holding the channel by herself. Gavin had to be convinced but he finally petted his fish before we turned it loose. Kally was doing a swell job fighting hers till it got in close. We were standing in ankle deep water and it ran right at her feet. Her eyes got big and she tossed the rod at the fish and ran for shore. Luckily papaw was there to save the rod....
Then a bit of smalljaw flyfishing in a stream right on the Ohio border in Indiana


----------



## 9Left

Fishing with the kiddos....love it!


----------



## 9Left

Ok, so now you need to write a book on fly fishing the rivers OSG, and that first smallie pic next to the Aetos needs to be the cover picture.


----------



## polebender

Lol! You just gotta love kids' reactions at times! Great write up and pics! Thanks for sharing that!


----------



## oldstinkyguy

Its been slow for me the last couple days. I caught a few small bass yesterday on a rebel squarebill and today managed this guy on an electric blue 3" grub. Proof positive that catch and release works because she had fresh marks of having been hooked and released by somebody recently.


----------



## Cat Mangler

oldstinkyguy said:


> View attachment 213785
> 
> Its been slow for me the last couple days. I caught a few small bass yesterday on a rebel squarebill and today managed this guy on an electric blue 3" grub. Proof positive that catch and release works because she had fresh marks of having been hooked and released by somebody recently.


Yeah they can survive some stuff, when released properly. I caught one the other day that looked like someone's had just ripped the top lip most the way off when unhooking. Adaption is key to survival, and these beasts have been around for some time!

That's a chunky fish though man, thanks for sharing!


----------



## oldstinkyguy

The fishing has been pretty good the last few days. I've probably done as well on numbers of smallmouth as I have all year. No big fish but lots of them though this evening I did lose a big one. It hit and ran around a big boulder and just as I freed the line it hurtled skyward falling one way as my grub fell the other. I also had a good evening catching hybrids on the Ohio. Again no big fish but numbers. All in a hectic half hour feeding frenzy right at dark. The last photo is a pod of carp feeding on the surface in the GMR in a seam on thousands of gnats that blanketed the entire river.


----------



## oldstinkyguy

When your my age and have kicked around fishing as much as I have a PB fish is hard to come by. Not because I'm such a great fisherman but simply because I've fished a lot for a lot of years. So I just about fainted when I shown the headlamp down on this guy, right up until that moment I just assumed I'd hooked a big channel. 5am in the GMR on a 5" grub. 28.5" I'm pretty sure I won't be breaking this PB at least not around here anyways...


----------



## oldstinkyguy




----------



## 9Left

Holy moly!!! Thats a beast of a saug man!


----------



## ML1187

Isn't that your 2nd PB Saugeye of the year !???


----------



## dytmook

She's a beauty.


----------



## oldstinkyguy

ML1187 said:


> Wow OSG what a great thing to cross off the list. I bet that (muskie) will be the fish of the year for you.


 as much as I loved catching the muskie out of a small stream, the saugeye will definitely be fish of the year, I'm pretty sure I have zero chance of ever catching a bigger one. The state record is only about an inch longer, (but way heavier because it was full of eggs). Probably except for a sauger I lucked into on the LMR a few years ago the best fish I've ever caught.


----------



## mattman1341

Wow. With the amount of knowledge and passion you share, it's no wonder why the fish gods shine down upon you like beacon. You're an ambassador of the sport of fishing and we're lucky to have you and your wisdom sir. Congrats on the beast of fish and hopes for many more.


----------



## oldstinkyguy

A bit of overnight adventure with Dan out on the river.
Where we launched the yaks there is a bug light. From a distance it smelled like a dead fish in the area. Closer inspection revealed the smell was coming from windrows of dead mayflies. Hmm.. wonder what this is going to do to the fishing? Turned out it made for a cool fly fishing experience. Every small eddy had pods of carp just gulping down mouthfuls of bugs. I would cast a small marabou streamer and it would be within five feet of five or six carp. I snapped the first off on the hookset. Then broke one off and then settled down to land a couple. Pretty cool.
We ended up catching five shovels, three on lures and and two on cut bait. I landed a few decent smallmouth on a clear with silver glitter grub. And in the morning after Dan left lost a pig, possibly the biggest smallie I've had on in a year or two. It seems like I'm in a mini slump with big smallies, I think the last couple have thrown the hook. The river is a brownish greenish tint and could really use a good thunderstorm or two to freshen it up a bit.


----------



## ML1187

Fun times ! You sleep or fish all night ?


----------



## polebender

Nice catches! Your brother or buddy? looks so sad! Hope he had a good time!


----------



## Saugeye Tom

Dem dang flies.....


----------



## oldstinkyguy

Especially after the big fish of last week and really after every time I catch a good sized saugeye I receive a bunch of questions about the fish and how to fish for them. Considering how widespread and common sauger and saugeye are they seem a bit of a mystery to most folks. In no way do I claim to be any kind of an expert on these fish. But I river fish a lot, more than anyone I know and because of that I've caught quite a few. I'm also very passionate about learning just how a river works and the movement of fish in rivers so between those two things I have stumbled across a few things about saugthings I'll try and share here.
First a physical description of sauger and saugeye and how to tell the difference between the two...
The body of the sauger is long and cylindrical. Biologists call this a fusiform structure and this minimizes the drag on the fishes body and makes them very well adapted to fast currents. The body is usually an olive grey and has three or four dark patches or saddles making the fish look like it is decked out in camo. Which it is I guess. Sauger have a white belly but this does not spread out at the tail and form the white tip on the tail like it does on a walleye. The first dorsal fin is covered in rows of spots with a dark blotch at it's base. The membranes between the spines of the first dorsal fin are clear and you can see light thru easily. A saugeye is the result of a hybrid between a sauger and a walleye. Saugeye look more like the sauger side of the family except for a few key differences. The membrane between the spines on their dorsal is not nearly as clear as that of a sauger and after you have seen a few and paid attention this is readily apparent. The saugeye has a white blotch on the bottom tip of it's tail like it's walleye parent as well. Now for the problematic part. Most of the time these markers are the case but not always. In fact the world record saugeye looks an awful lot like a walleye and genetic testing had to be done to determine that it was in fact a saugeye. I kind of go by the rule of thumb that if there is doubt it's probably a saugeye rather than a sauger since saugeye vary and sauger do not. Sauger, walleye and saugeye are extremely well adapted to seeing in low light and prefer to feed at night whenever possible, even in the winter.
Though most saugeye anymore are stocked, hybrids have always occurred and do occur naturally anywhere walleye and saugeye cross paths. I think something like 4% of the natural population is a hybrid. Contrary to popular belief saugeye can reproduce with other saugeye and with either parent but only on a very limited scale. And many places saugeye are stocked do not have suitable spawning habitat and when you combine this with the saugeyes limited ability to reproduce not much natural reproduction ever occurs. Sauger and saugeye are noted for the long runs they make when the spawning season arrives. Spawning takes place in the upstream regions of rivers in the early spring; where dams are present, Saugeyes (as well as Sauger and Walleye where all three are present) may bunch up right below dams to spawn. Eggs are sticky and adhesive, and are typically laid on rocky substrates where they are fertilized by males. Following the spawn, saugfish slip gradually back downstream to their summertime location in the main channels of large rivers, the deepest pools of medium sized rivers or to lakes if the spawning run was upstream of a lake.
Saugfish spawn in the early spring when the water is between 39 and 44 degrees. spawning occurs at night usually. Often saugfish spawn right after walleye and sometimes at the same time and in the same locations. Eggs hatch in 25 to 30 days, Young saugs eat mostly zooplankton and insect larvae at first and then at about a half an inch in length begin eating other fish. Although saugs will eat other things at times like crayfish they are first and foremost fish eaters. One interesting thing I found out from reading studies about saugeye is the impact they have on crappie when they are stocked in lakes. In almost every case the average size of the crappie went up. I think the biggest limiter in the size of crappie is having too many crappie and having a few get eaten by saugs helps the rest.
In all honesty almost every sauger and saugeye fisherman I know uses just a couple baits 90% of the time. A long skinny minnow plug like a smithwick rogue and a soft plastic like a curly tail grub or swimbait on a lead headed jig.
Fishing a minnow plug...
I feel that when it comes to minnow plugs most beginning fishermen get hung up on fishing minnow plugs that are too small. Most always the best time the best time to hook up with a big saugeye is after dark. After dark a big minnow plug is easier for a fish to feel, to see, to hunt down and try to kill. There's just less chance for error on the fishes part. And most beginning fishermen are way too obsessed with how they are working their baits. Most of the time at night slow and steady wins the race for the same reasons that a big plug works best, easier for the fish to track and nail it. Slow is the key. Real real slow at times. That's where suspending plugs really come into their own especially in the winter time, they can just be worked slower than either a sinking or floating plug. Now for the part that's going to generate the hate mail. I feel that AT NIGHT you will catch many more with a slow and steady retrieve than with the typical jerks and pauses that are so popular with jerkbaits. Provided that you slow things down enough that you are taking just as long each cast as the guy that jerks and pauses. Now fishing lakes during the day is a different story and you could write a book on the best way to doctor a minnow plug to get it to hang just right on the pause to catch a wintertime fish on the pause. But I'm a river guy and I'm not going to try and act like I'm an expert on things I don't know much about so I'll leave that alone. Buy some husky jerks, some smithwick rogues, shadow rap shads or some of the other kazillion minnow plugs out there. Put on all the clothes you can stand and go out to the river in the middle of winter nights and fish the things slowly along rocky banks below low head dams and if there are saugeye in the river your bound to hook up eventually. Take note of where exactly you do hook up and eventually you will end up with a milk run of productive places to try. Too simplistic, not complicated enough? Probably but let's look at facts. Saugfish stack up below low head dams in winter in preparation for the springtime spawn, they feed better at night and they eat minnows. It just adds up. When a minnow plug doesn't work or just because they don't cost nine dollars apiece and work just as well or better most of the time many saugfishermen use soft plastics. which brings us to the next lure choice.
Fishing a jig and plastic trailer...
Curly tailed grubs and swimbaits are the second leg that most saugfishermen stand on. They are dirt cheap and you can afford to lose some. Which is important because when they are not up shallow at night hunting saugs are almost always glued to the bottom. Walleye are famous for suspending up off the bottom but sauger and saugeye aren't happy unless they are tight to the bottom. If you are chasing saugs during the day in a river your best bet is a soft plastic fished on a leadhead. Use a weight that allows you to retrieve the bait back just off the bottom. In other words bring a little variety of weights, some 1/8's a lot of 1/4's a few 3/8's and even a couple 1/2's. You want the bait swimming back just above the bottom so you might use several different weights in course of the same trip because of the water depth and current speed. During the day I might go as small as a three inch grub but when I'm after saugs I'm usually trying to catch a good one so something like a curly shad or a five inch grub fills the bill better for me. And again if you fish at night a bigger soft plastic is easier for a fish to find. Honestly I can't imagine saugfishing without soft plastics if there was ever a fish made for a minnow imitating soft plastic with a swimming tail of some sort it's saugers and saugeye. It's a match made in heaven. When I catch numbers of fish during the day it's almost always up on gravel or rock bars with swift current flowing over them or in swift flowing slots below lowhead dams. Active saugs like current even more than smallmouth bass. Inactive fish you have to dredge up off the bottom of deeper water adjacent to the bar or low head with a lead headed jig. Just vary the weight of the jighead to match the depth and current speed and a quality soft plastic will cover it all. That's one of the nice things about saugfishing, just throw a few jigheads and soft plastics in a baggie and stuff them in your jacket pocket and your all set. Of course other lures will work, I often catch saugs on lipless crankbaits at night in the summer and on diving plugs in pools but the two lure categories outlined above are all you need if your just going after saugs.


----------



## savethetrophies

Wow!!!!! Beautiful fish osg!


----------



## oldstinkyguy




----------



## oldstinkyguy

Spent part of the last couple days fishing,hiking, and exploring the upper Little Miami River and Great Miami rivers. The fishing has picked up considerably for me over last week. I've been catching channel cats consistently on both cut bait and lures,Today I got out before daylight and made a cast into a likely looking spot and the rod snaps right in the handle. I've probably took it on 75 trips and it's bounced around in the truck, the jon boat and the yak so I can't blame the rod. The problem was this was a quickie trip and it was the only rod I had along, AND a fish hit! About a three pound channel that was a handful trying to land with the rod broken and my reel falling off. Finally I got it in after a bit of a clown rodeo and surveyed the damage. HMM... I whittled a stick to jam in the two pieces and tied the whole thing together with the tow rope for the kayak. The stick was wedged in tightly enough that it didn't wiggle and wasn't too bad actually. Which was cool because the smallies were hitting well. I thought I was going to catch my second 20" smallie this year out of a SW Ohio river but she ended up being just a bit shy. Then I caught another nice fish in the 17"+ range and a few smaller fish. About nine another dandy hit and went airborne. At the top of a jump that seemed head high my clear with silver glitter grub went one way and a big smallie went the other. The stick repair was working loose and the sun was getting on the water pretty strong and I'd had a swell morning so it seemed like as good a time to quit it as any...


----------



## 9Left

funny story.... nice goin on the riverside rod repair, it's happened to me in the past also, minus the fish on at the same time, sounds like a pretty good time.


----------



## Saugeyefisher

Thanks for all the posts an pics,im enjoying them.lol a little better of a tape job an that saug my have been 29+ ,
So id say u got a good chance at beating it.


----------



## oldstinkyguy

As skanky as the river looks right now, all root beer colored and low, part of me doesn't want a big downpour or cooler weather to freshen up the water. For some reason I seem to have some nice sized fish patterned. I've found two spots with pretty good riffles to put oxygen in the water and lots of current and they have both been holding smallies and saugs for about a week and a half now. Today's 24" saugeye was ten feet from where I caught the 28" last week and in the other spot today's biggest smallie ( didn't measure, 17" or 18" I guess) was five feet from the 19.75" smallie of the other day. Not sure what's going on but I hope it stays that way a while. All my fish were on Vic's clear with silver flake grub and a 1/4 ounce jig head. Which is pretty heavy for as low as the river is which tells you how fast the current is.


----------



## savethetrophies

Beauties!


----------



## Saugeyefisher

Lol I was gonna post a week ago," the hot n sticky weather is here,were are osg`s huge deep,fast,current loving football's"- you never dis appoint! And for not being a "saugfish" guy you sure did post up some solid info! For guys just getting into it you couldn't be more right about the 2 main bait styles! Learn them,and the fish then branch off as needed(lol us saugeye guys have lure addictions to) 
One bait though that I will add that should also be a staple to a serious saugfish angler is a lipless crank or blade bait. It's just another versatile bait for any situation any time of year.
Anyways I also wanted to mention. You have really opened my eyes to just how effective a simple grub is for river small mouth. And how well they preform in the faster water. Thanks for all the solid info!


----------



## oldstinkyguy

And the beat rolls on, I can't believe how well the smallies are hitting in this heat. Fish hit at 530 am, 19.5" The warm water seems to have the fish/s metabolism ramped up and they are feeding but the window of opportunity is small, All the nice fish I've caught the last little bit have been right at daylight or right at dark.


----------



## oldstinkyguy

What hath night to do with sleep?”
― John Milton, Paradise Lost

With the onslaught of heat it seemed like a better idea to fish in the relative cool of the night. I fished a small river in southwestern Ohio for one of my favorite fish, the shovelhead catfish. In our smaller rivers the shovelhead or flathead sits square atop the food chain. Flatties are killers that come out on warm summer nights and prowl the river looking for a sucker, a big chub minnow or even (gasp) a smallmouth bass. Although all of our rivers hold shovelheads not all of each river does. I look for a few things before I try catching one. A ten foot deep hole in a bend that contains woodcover and has an adjacent feeding flat 4 or 5 feet deep will usually hold hold flatheads. Add a couple hundred yards of shallow run upstream and downstream of the hole and you have an ideal spot. What happens is that in summer flatties spend like 20+ hours a day holed up under a logjam in that bend. Then after dark out he comes to prowl up and downstream looking for prey. Most catfishermen in rivers at night spend too much time after dark fishing that deep hole when the monster is really out and about.
A better strategy is to fish a big live bait or a fresh hunk of cut bait on that feeding flat right next to the deep hole. Further away from the hole you still might catch him but what if the fish went upstream when your fishing down or vice versa? And the hundred yards of shallow run is usually almost river wide and the fish have room to spread out while the feeding flat on the inside of the bend across from the hole is narrow. You simply have a better chance of a shovel finding your bait. If your river has lowhead dams, any with a scour hole over six or seven feet deep is probably the best spot to connect with a big flathead. As long as someone hasn't killed it. It takes decades to grow a big flathead making them vulnerable to overfishing. Keep a channel or two for supper but in today's world you should turn a shovelhead loose in my opinion.
On this night I baited up with some sunfish on 7/0 king kahle hooks, heavy duty swivels and two ounce no roll sinkers. No giants tonight but five decent fish which is pretty fast and furious for shovelhead fishing since these guy are strictly loners.


----------



## oldstinkyguy

With it hot enough to fry your brain out on the river it seemed like a good day to wade the creek in the shade with Cailyn and see what we could find. We explored a tributary to the Little Miami and she had a blast, only screaming bloody murder a couple times. Once when a 1/2 inch long crawfish pinched her and once when something that looked to me a lot like a leaf "attacked" her. But even after her near death experience she was asking when we could come back again. She loved seeing a snake swimming underwater and was fascinated watching a big crawfish I was holding pinch chunks out of a willow leaf we were teasing it with. Coolest catch was what I think is a stonecat madtom though a big hellgrammite ran a close second.


----------



## gibson330usa

You're right, pre-dawn seem to be the ticket to catching fish these days. Love all the little critters, do you catch them with a seine net?


----------



## oldstinkyguy

gibson330usa said:


> You're right, pre-dawn seem to be the ticket to catching fish these days. Love all the little critters, do you catch them with a seine net?


Yep we used a seine. She held it in place and I turned over rocks upstream


----------



## oldstinkyguy

I blew up some sections of a photo Cailyn and I took of a hellgrammite we seined out of a local creek yesterday. They are really amazing creatures if you can get past the scary part and take a closer look. But make no mistake they are miniature monsters. For instance take a look at this pic of its mandibles. 







Those pincers or mandibles are what entomologists (people who study insects) call heavily sclerotized. Sclerotization is a process cross-linking the various protein molecules with phenolic compounds which means that the normally very hard exoskeleton of the insect becomes even harder, turning the hellgrammites "iron" into "steel". The hellgrammite uses these pincers kill just about anything it can get a hold of, things like aquatic insects , tiny fish and amphibians, or any small invertebrate that is a bottom dweller. And pinch the heck out of your fingers if your not careful. Yeah those pincers are short compared to adult hellgrmmites (called dobsonflies) or those of some beatles but those guys are just for show and fighting for a mate, while the hellgrammites are for killing and are very powerful. The next picture shows the other end of our hellgrammite.






It has two anal prolegs and on the end of each is a pair of stout hooks that the hellgrammite uses to help anchor itself in swift current and not be swept away. More on that in just a bit. In the next photo we can see some of the eight pointy prolegs that like the abdominal section of the hellgrammite and the fuzzy gills at their bases. 







The feathery looking gills sticking off the sides are rather immobile and simply increase the surface area. The other set of gills, the puffy dandelion fluff looking ones, have muscles attached to them. When a hellgrammite become oxygen stressed, it can wave those gills around through the water. Considering the adaptations hellgrammites display and the swift riffles they live in, hellgrammites need a lot of oxygen to survive. That’s where the hooks and the gills come in: they both help the hellgrammite get as much oxygen from the water as possible.


Heres a great video I found on Youtube that shows all this stuff in action...
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="344" src="



" width="459"></iframe>


----------



## beaver

Pretty cool! How far down stream do you position your seine when flipping rocks?


----------



## Cat Mangler

beaver said:


> Pretty cool! How far down stream do you position your seine when flipping rocks?


OSG knows way more than me about this so if he says differently, do that. But I have had best luck trying to keep is 6" or less behind. Do short stretches of rock at a time and less "bait" will get back out.


----------



## oldstinkyguy

I've taken to calling it the pig pen. It's a short very fast slot of water right below a very strong riffle. The kind of place where any other time of year a slip would send you quite a ways downstream before you could get out. With the extremely low water, high heat, and yucky green water it is drawing big smallies like a magnet. It's already an out of the way piece of river that doesn't get fished much so there are usually good smallmouth all thru it. Now they are all at the pig pen. As much as I know the river needs a good flushing out part of me is hoping for another couple weeks of this. Tonight's best fish nailed a triple winged buzz bait with a clear with silver curly shad in place of a skirt. Like I said it nailed it but didn't get hooked. I threw a three inch grub right back at it and it hit instantly. A couple big jumps that had my heart in my throat and I finally landed her. Ten minutes later on the other end of the slot right as I was lifting the lure from the water a pig smallie nailed the buzzbait with like ten inches of line out and broke me off. #&*@!! The drag was set plenty light enough but a four pound smallie on ten inches of eight pound test isn't going to end well....


----------



## deltaoscar




----------



## dytmook

The eye markings are really cool


----------



## savethetrophies

That's a summer giant. Great fish!


----------



## Gods fisherman

That makes a man want to get out there . Oldstinkyguy rules


----------



## OrangeRay

Wow, just wow.....


----------



## oldstinkyguy

This is pretty much shaping up to be just about the best year river fishing I've ever had if the last few months of the year hold any decent fish at all.
Tonight I fished a small stream I've been wanting to get on for a long long time. Even though its in southern Ohio there is little access to the thing. If your one of the three guys I go fishing with you know I've been talking about fishing this thing for about a year now. Well I finally got on her and it was everything I had hoped and more. The fish were very concentrated around any fast water with the very low water conditions and well it was amazing.
I caught most of the fish on a triple wing buzzbait with the skirt removed and replaced by the largest size curly shad. This is fast becoming one of my all time favorite big fish lures. The big curly shad and the triple blade let you work the thing like 25 percent slower than a conventional buzzbait.


----------



## deltaoscar

Not sure any bigger SWO stream smallmouth than that one has ever been posted; that I can remember.

Congrats on a awesome fish.


----------



## savethetrophies

Those are some dandies OSG. Keep these giant summer fish coming!


----------



## JugHead

Thread highjack:
Hey OSG, I met you and a few of the other guys on here a few years back in Loveland. You were giving a presentation about the LMR. I've been off the grid since then and had to setup a new profile on here recently. Glad to see you still on here and dishing out plenty of wisdom and insight! And yes, I have been fishin as much as my toddlers and wife will let me. Cheers buddy!

Sorry for the hijack, fellas.


----------



## oldstinkyguy

A couple nice bass from yesterday. They hit on a buzzbait with a curly shad in place of the typical skirt. Towards evening I was joined by my friend Dave. After he promised not to tell anyone the location, even his mom. I think Dave was a bit dubious when I took him to the spot. A small hole maybe thirty yards long and twenty feet wide. But about three casts in a big bass sucked in his buzzbait and rocketed skyward. Although lure and fish were soon parted at least we both got a good look at it before it got off. It was a very big fish. The rest of the evening's fish were small but at least he knew I wasn't pulling his leg about the possibilities of the little hole..


----------



## oldstinkyguy

I haven't really posted a fishing report in about a week so I have some catching up to do...

I spent one evening seining small crayfish out of a small creek that's loaded with them. Crayfish will stay alive nicely for several days with little or no trouble as long as you do a couple easy things. One is keep them cool. I like to use an old cooler and then sit it in a cool shady place like the garage. The other is don't drown your craws. If you do not keep an air pump going they will use up all the oxygen in the water quickly and die. But here's the cool part. If they can just keep their gills wet they can breathe air. Just put a half an inch of water in your cooler and throw in a bunch of grass for them to climb on and they will keep fine. 

So I took a bucket of craws, a spinning rod, a pack of old fashioned baitholder hooks and some small splitshot to another slightly bigger creek. What a blast, below every small riffle in the little knee to waist deep hole I'd catch a couple channels. Little guys, maybe a pound or pound and half on average but one right after another. Wading wet in a little creek catching tons of little catfish it doesn't get much better on a hot day...

Then I met Chris on the GMR. We fished a beautiful section of river, again wading wet and again killing the fish! I think Chris was using Vic's five inch grub from what I saw and I was using a three inch clear with silver glitter grub. Chris said he must have caught 12 or 15 and fished about half as long as I did so I'm guessing at least 30 or 35 easy for the two of us. Several times I caught fish on back to back casts. Mostly smallmouth bass in the ten inch range but we both caught three or four nice channels apiece too on lures. The fish were stacked up in a swift run of water right before it poured over a riffle between two little islands. A swell trip. Walking out I told Chris I'm only going to catch three or four tomorrow but one or two will be hawgs because I'm going to the pig pen...



I hadn't been back to the pig pen in a week and it was killing me. Conditions had been the same as they had been, low water and hot. Exactly the conditions that made big smallies pile into the swift oxygenated pool I call the pig pen. All evening I could hear thunder roll all around me and several times it got dark but it never did rain. The dark cloudy skies made the fish bite and I ended up catching five, which is good for the pen. I was fishing a clear with green back curly shad with the mylar instead of glitter. Which was what she hit on. And then jumped seemingly five feet in the air. And came down still connected to the lure after the jump so I was I was happy. The photo if anything doesn't do her justice. After that jump and fight I felt honored to have been lucky enough to release such a grand fish...


----------



## gibson330usa

Another great report, thanks for sharing. You definitely have them dialed in this summer.


----------



## oldstinkyguy




----------



## oldstinkyguy




----------



## oldstinkyguy




----------



## oldstinkyguy

Went to buy a map for an upcoming fishing trip to the north woods and spot hopped down the river on the way home. Smallies seem to be enjoying this cool weather and the recent rains and were biting well. About a half an hour before dark caught a good one on a pumpkinseed 3 inch grub anda 1/4 ounce jighead in fast water.


----------



## FishermanMike

Nice one! 

Enjoy your BWCA trip. We talked about it briefly at the Expo back whenever that was. I was on a trip in the Ely area in July. Ended up with brutal wind and rain, but great fishing when we were able to get it in.


----------



## gibson330usa

Love the pics and reports as usual. Glad to see the reports, I need to get out more and update my reports when I do.


----------



## oldstinkyguy

FishermanMike said:


> Enjoy your BWCA trip. We talked about it briefly at the Expo back whenever that was. I was on a trip in the Ely area in July. Ended up with brutal wind and rain, but great fishing when we were able to get it in.


Yep picking up the rental car tomorrow so this will be the last fishing report I post for a few weeks....

Had a whole bunch of action from small bass tonight and finally landed one good one that streaked over pushing a wake in front of it and hit right after the electric blue three inch grub hit the water. Also had a bunch of tiny tiny smallmouth grab at the tail. Looks like to me there was a great spawn the last couple years and the future is bright...


----------



## Aaron2012

oldstinkyguy said:


> Yep picking up the rental car tomorrow so this will be the last fishing report I post for a few weeks....
> 
> View attachment 217590


https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...wIHDAA&usg=AFQjCNEUsvipiSSA6Ttbxt2yvd8NFyMZ-w


----------



## SMBHooker

I feel like ur trip to the Boundary is a home coming. You will no doubt find yourself there as if you always belonged. Hope you have great weather OSG. I can't imagine the fish ur about to get into out there. Be safe, we look forward to your report upon returning. 

BTW: This has been one of the best threads ever put together in a season. Beautiful pix, big fish and numerous adventures. Thanks for always sharing.


----------



## oldstinkyguy

Trip of a lifetime
The North Woods, Wilderness...
Let's talk scale for just a moment. Almost everyone is familiar with the Great Smoky Mountain National Park that straddles the border of Tennessee and North Carolina. The Appalachian Trail that runs north south thru the park is about a hundred miles long and the park itself covers just a bit over a half of a million acres. Wow, pretty big right? Well consider this. Superior National Forest comprises over 3,900,000 acres and the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness itself is over twice as big as GSMNP. It extends nearly 199 miles along the international boundary. The BWCAW's northern border is Canada's Quetico Provincial Park, also managed as a wilderness area, and together they form a huge wilderness area of approximately two million acres. Great glaciers carved the physical features of what is today known as the BWCAW by scraping and gouging rock. The glaciers left behind lakes and streams interspersed with islands, and surrounded by of rugged cliffs and crags, gentle hills, canyon walls, rocky shores, and sandy beaches. Approximately 1175 lakes varying in size from 10 acres to 10,000 acres and several hundred miles of streams comprise about 190,000 acres (20%) of the BWCAW surface area and gives you the opportunity for long distance travel by canoe. Mind you I said canoe for this is true wilderness, no motors, no float planes, you either walk it or float it or you don't get there at all. Period. And it holds the animals of wilderness, bobcat, lynx, fisher, pine martin, mink, otter, weasel, black bear, giant moose and and the iconic animal of wilderness the wolf. In fact the BWCA has always been a refuge for the last large wolf population in lower 48. Minnesota has an estimated wolf population of somewhere close to four thousand, more that the rest of the lower 48 combined!
To see this grand wilderness and fish for smallmouth has been number one on my bucket list for a long time now. A couple years ago my wife said we better do this while we are still physically able to do so. So this trip has been a couple years in the planning stage. After countless hours researching on the internet I finally settled on the Knife lake region. Knife Lake is a huge lake that takes 5 portages to get to. Plenty that the fishing is supposed to be fabulous but not so horrible that a couple old farts could still get back in there and get back out alive. From Knife we did day trips to adjoining lakes and the trip turned out better than I could have ever hoped for. To start the trip our outfitter (Canadian Border Outfitters, great people BTW) took us to the very end of giant Moose Lake and dropped us off with the promise to pick us up in 8 days. Supposedly it had been hot and the fishing had been poor. But the weather had cooled a bit and hopefully...
Actually fishing started out slow during the day. Very slow, slow enough that I was a bit worried about catching some fish to go with dinner. I decided to do what I'd been doing for a month back at home, fishing a big buzzbait with a big curly shad replacing the skirt after dark and right at daylight. I really wasn't prepared for what happened next. Three years ago I'd been lucky to catch my personal best smallmouth out of a SW Ohio river, a 21 inch fish I figured I'd never top. Well I think I topped it two or three days running culminating in a 22.5 monster with a big deep belly that left me speechless. The pictures really do not do some of these fish justice they were so fat that they look shorter than they really were. This worked out swell leaving the day free for Brenda and I to explore. We saw beaver and otter and even had a fisher run thru the trees at the back of camp one day. Eagles were an hourly occurrence and loons were everywhere. We even had one dive and chase a fish right under the canoe one day passing between Brenda and I.
The last couple days we camped at the mouth of a big marshy bay on Birch Lake. Here otters fed every morning twenty feet from camp. So close you could clearly hear them crunch crayfish as they feed. The bay had largemouth in abundance as well as pike. Weeds grew in the deep water and you could let your lure drop for a few seconds and then slowly retrieve it back eliciting violent strikes from pike. Once I caught a small pike maybe 16 or 18 inches long and had a huge pike try to eat it right as I was trying to land it. Another maybe 36" pike hit right at the canoe and went airborne jumping as high as my head and crashing back into the lake a foot away from me seated in the canoe. I also found that right in front of camp was a favored deep water hangout of big pike. I rigged up Vic's biggest curly shad on a jighead with a wire leader and would fish it slow here occasionally snapping it free from the weeds. On one cast I snapped it free from some weeds and something different hit. The rod bent into the cork and the fish bore down obviously much heaver than the "big" pike I thought I thought I'd been catching. Several time I'd lead it into shallow water only to have it turn and streak back into the deep. Brenda said I was actually shaking after I finally managed to land this 42" pike of a lifetime. Another highlight in a trip filled with memories enough to last a lifetime. One of the greatest highlights was sitting by the fire one evening when Brenda turned to me and said that looks like a spotlight miles away. As we watched a huge curtain of northern lights covered half the night sky shimmering and moving like a giant celestial curtain blowing in the wind. Brenda commented it was like we were inside a giant lava lamp. I so did not want to leave...


----------



## oldstinkyguy




----------



## oldstinkyguy




----------



## oldstinkyguy




----------



## oldstinkyguy




----------



## gibson330usa

Wow, looks like an amazing trip. Wonderful pictures, thanks for sharing.


----------



## BaitWaster

<----- serious case of fish envy


----------



## Saugeye Tom

Pike......huge...exellent OSG. Just exellent


----------



## 9Left

Yup! thats pretty much how I remember that place too! Great pics and glad to hear you both got to enjoy it together.


----------



## chris1162

Those pics of the fish and campsites really made me miss the bwca. Congrats on a successful trip!


----------



## deltaoscar

One word...Impressive.

Congrats on all the spectacular fish and checking something off your bucket list.

As strange as it sounds my favorite pic was the one with the chipmunk.


----------



## dytmook

Well that certainly exceeds the one dink I caught this weekend. Great job.


----------



## oldstinkyguy

Got out for a couple hours last night with Chris Hampton on the Great Miami. We caught an absolute ton of small smallmouth bass and right at dark caught a dandy channel on a three inch smoke metalflake grub


----------



## Tom 513

Beautiful country and fish, thanks for sharing the great photos


----------



## 9Left

thats a whopper of a channel! nice catch


----------



## oldstinkyguy

I really do not want this year to end, I started things off by lucking into a big musky in a little creek, then caught a pb saugeye only to top it with the saugeye of a lifetime, then two 20" smbs in SW Ohio, then off to the Boundary Waters to catch a pb smallie and the pike of a lifetime. I'm beginning to feel like some night in my dreams I must have made some Robert Johnson type deal with the devil for my soul this year. It seems like nearly every time I go out this year I feel I'm going to be involved with some sort of nice fish. Tonight was one of the wildest of the whole year tho! We had tons of rain and though the river didn't blow out it got muddy. Very muddy. I tied on one of Vic's big chunky 5" grubs to give the fish a bigger target and never took it off. Right away I hooked a big channel. A dandy in the 7 or 8 lb range and had it flopping around in two inches of water at my feet when it came off. Then two more smaller channels and then a real hard fighting shovelhead. Then a big thump and the rod bent double. Okay another big channel or a nice shovelhead. Nope up in the muddy water rolled a huge smallmouth. And I mean huge. If no one gives me credit for anything else in life they still have to admit I've caught enough big smallies to know a good one. And this one was better than good. Easily one of the best two or three smallies I've ever had on in forty years of fishing SW Ohio rivers. Maybe the best, like I said it was huge. And I had it on forever and finally it was whipped and I was leading it into a tiny little slackwater area at my feet to land it and the hook just popped out. Six inches from my hand. 
Sigh...
Ten minutes later a big smallie hammered the grub and went airborne and tailwalked all over the river but never came off. It was a big stud of a fish and measured over 19.5 but felt more like a consolation prize. The other fish was clearly a size larger.
Sigh...


----------



## SMBHooker

We all know that feeling OSG.....been down that road this year except I didn't get the pig smallie consolation prize u did.


----------



## Saugeye Tom

Now that's a fish story


----------



## trekker

Awesome trip. A perfect example of why our "public land" has to be preserved and protected.


----------



## oldstinkyguy

Haven't posted in a few days, a bit of catching up to do. One skunk trying to find clear water coming into a muddy river, one trip with Dan to a pond where we landed two or three of those ugly green fish apiece, One trip with Dan and Chris where everyone caught several small smallmouth, a few channels and Chris landed a saugfish. I caught a pretty big channel that had a hideous sore on it's side that was actually oozing blood, didn't wanna handle that one too much or take any pics of that guy and a 13" spotted bass and one trip with a couple more channels, a 17" smb, some little smb, and a very hard fighting shovel that hammered a three inch smoke metalflake grub in two feet of water. Other than that I haven't fished much in the last four or five days


----------



## Saugeye Tom

Always nice to see yr pics osg


----------



## oldstinkyguy

The alarm jangled me awake at 4 am. For a moment I debated just rolling back over but I managed to drag myself out the door. In the last five or six days I've caught a couple nice shovels and some big channels while out smallie fishing and the time seemed ripe to try and catch one on purpose. I'd bought an Okuma Baitrunner that I kept filled with braid on a big rod for distance at places like the Big O or down in Tenn. Last night I'd taken it off that rod and put it on a seven foot carrot stix heavy action bass rod which weighed next to nothing and would be much more pleasant to cast. I had a tupperware container in the knapsack filled with oversize lipless cranks and jumbo curly shads. At the river I tied on a 3/8 ounce jighead and threaded on a huge 5" curly shad and let fly with my sophistry of soft plastic. Wow.. I could cast that thing halfway across the GMR. On one slow steady retrieve I felt a solid thump and set hard. The rod bent double as a good fish bore off downstream. Then for some reason it turned and ran right at me. I'm reeling like a madman trying to stay tight to the fish as it charged like the Light Brigade at Balaclava. Then at like ten feet it turned and the rod bent double again. But now the fish was in wide open river and in a few minutes I knelt down and grabbed that big lower jaw. Wow that was fun, I'm going to have to do that a few more times while the waters still warm...


----------



## 9Left

ha!!! awesome read and one heck of a flat mister!!


----------



## oldstinkyguy

Spent a swell day wading a little creek with only deer, a turtle, a couple blue herons and a snowy egret for company. Caught three shovelheads and two channels on three inch grubs as well as a whole peck of smallmouth bass. Mostly small but a couple decent ones. Nothing much beats wading wet in a creek on a late summer day...


----------



## 9Left

agreed! nice pics stinky!


----------



## oldstinkyguy

It's a holy day on the river

September 22nd is the Fall Equinox, the single most important day of the year for river bass fishing...

The thing I probably get the most questions about in all of my fishing is how I locate bass in the fall. Fishermen say that they constantly hear how good smallmouth bass fishing is in the fall but that they just can't catch them or they are only catching dinks. Well here's how I locate smallies in the fall. Smallmouth migrate to the best possible places they can find to spend the winter. This may only be hundreds of yards or it might be ten miles or more. This is triggered by length of day. Dr. Mark Ridgeway, a research scientist for the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources found that a smallmouth migration away from classic summer habitat begins, each year, within a week to 10 days of the autumnal equinox in September. This means that day length, not water temperature is the reason for smallmouth bass fall movements. I think we are right at the point where some smallmouth in our streams migrate and some "concentrate". In small streams there just isn't the big holes or deeper backwaters that allow smallmouth protection from high water events in cold weather. These fish have to migrate, sometimes all the way out of that little creek and into the river. Some rivers like the Little Miami or Brush Creek probably have fish doing both, migrating from shallow sections like in much of the upper river and just concentrating in the sections that have enough good wintering holes like say the lower middle section of the river. Bigger rivers like the Great Miami or the Scioto and even some of the long riffle-less sections of smaller streams like Scioto Brush Creek have more "concentrating" fish. That is the fish concentrate in big slackwater eddies and pools. Either way you are looking for the same habitat. Which is, to paint it with a broad brush, somewhere that protects a smallmouth from current in all flows. It cannot be somewhere that protects a fish most of the time but really blows out in a flood and it can't be somewhere so shallow that the fish is too exposed in frigid weather either. Most of the time this is the deepest hole in that river section but not always, I know of two spots that give up big winter smallmouth that are only eight or nine feet deep most of the time, but they always have at least a portion of them out of the current all the time.
But there are two parts to the puzzle, just as you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink, whether or not they then bite is related to water temperature. When the water temperature sinks to 60 degrees and below that seems to be a trigger point. From then till the river hits 50 degrees the smallmouth are in overdrive feeding the strongest they do all year. So the great fishing lasts as long as the water stays above about 52. If that's a week, its a week if its a month then the fishing is great for a month.
So between the smallmouth migration and water temps you need a couple things you might have not used all year. The number one tool for finding smallmouth bass wintering holes in the LMR is a good online satellite mapping site like Google Maps. Your looking for big bends and deep eddies with complex structure nearby. The deepest biggest holes you can find. Some of these can be places in town "fished out" during the summer, it doesn't matter your fishing for fish that might have came from miles away. Sometimes you just have to make a list of possibilities and head out to check them in person. Like I said the bass will migrate as far as it takes so you can't think well maybe this is good enough. Now until the water actually hits 50 to 53 the bass might not be right in that wintering hole, more than likely they will not be. They will instead be somewhere on the first two or three riffles either upstream or down feeding like gangbusters. The two best places I know have both the deep complex structure and a really good hard bottomed riffle with a hard bottom and no silt between the feeding area and the hole even though in one case its 150 yards between the two. So obviously a thermometer is a great tool is seeing where things are at. Above 60 you can expect bass to be in transition between summer and fall patterns. While the September equinox usually occurs on September 22 or 23, it can very rarely fall on September 21 or September 24. A September 21 equinox has not occurred since 1000 CE, but will happen twice in the 21st century –in 2092 and 2096 in. The last September 24 equinox occurred in 1931. It will next take place in 2303.On any other day of the year, the Earth's axis tilts a little away from or towards the Sun. But on the equinox the Earth's axis tilts neither away from nor towards the Sun. That's when the sun will be shining directly on the Earth's equator, bringing almost the same exact amount of daylight and darkness all around the world on that day, which is known as the autumn equinox in the northern hemisphere and the spring equinox in the southern hemisphere. So sometime within a week of that expect them to come pouring into those fall feeding riffles depending on temps. Not every smallmouth migrates at exactly the same time so you can still catch bass elsewhere in the river as they stop to feed while migrating but the real action will be in those good riffles close to wintering holes starting about the second week in September and getting better and better if the weather cooperates until the water cools below 50 to 53 degrees. After that you have to fish slooow down in the deep wintering holes to get much action. Sometimes a warm day will warm things a degree or two and you can sometimes catch a smallmouth or two on a hair jig fished almost motionless under a float. Just let the current swirl it around the hole and try to impart as little movement to the lure as you can. This can result in some of the best fish of the year but it also results in a big number of fishless days too.
Another thing to keep in mind when fishing thru the fall is that as the water cools crayfish become less and less active. So as the smallmouth feed heavily preparing for winter their favorite meal becomes less and less available. Because of this the bass begin to transition to more of a "minnow" bite that a "crayfish" bite in the fall. Personally I think the very biggest smallmouth in southern Ohio are always on a bit more of a minnow bite all year round. Research has shown the the biggest bass select smaller crayfish over larger ones every time. Smaller less experienced bass are not as picky and will fight a bigger crayfish. So that 20 incher we are after has to catch three or four small crayfish to get the same amount of food as she will get with one big shiner. So not only does she have to put out more effort by catching 3 things instead of 1 but those 3 things fight back. And an ounce of crayfish has less calories than an ounce of an oily baitfish and it takes more calories to digest because of the crayfishes exoskeleton. Given the choice I think a trophy bass prefers sushi. Obviously some sections of rivers and a lot of our creeks are crawling with tons of crayfish and everything revolves around them but a lot of our streams have considerably less crayfish and ton and tons of minnows. Think about the streams where you wade and see nothing but scads of crayfish and others where you spook huge schools of minnows out of the shallows as you wade. Next summer think about fishing the two differently. And in the fall use more minnow baits like streamers on the fly rod, spinnerbaits, buzzbaits, minnow plugs, and soft plastics that swim like curly tailed grubs, curly shads and paddletails.

Btw since tomorrow is the official start of the yearly quest for a big smallie and something I never tire of jabbering about I will be on 980 am WONE Outdoor Connection tomorrow night in the 8 o'clock hour talking smallmouth. Here is a link to listen online if you are so inclined...http://wone.iheart.com/onair/outdoor-connection-418/


----------



## SMBHooker

OSG, perfect timing on your post. Not sure exactly where you got your research from but I remember getting the fall issue of In-Fisherman in 2011. There is an article titled, “The Parade of Winter Smallmouths” By Matt Straw. I was so impressed with the information that I looked it up online years ago and saved the link to the article. There is a lot of extremely good knowledge in the article that lined up with a lot of what I found to be true and filled more gaps of things I wasn’t aware of concerning the Fall pattern of river smallmouth. I was just re-reading this in the beginning of the week. It’s been an item I ritually review each fall just to get in the mood.

http://www.in-fisherman.com/bass/smallmouth-bass/the-parade-of-winter-smallmouths/

*Here is the piece in the article I believe you may have been referencing OSG*:

“Ontario Ministry of Natural Resource’s Dr. Mark Ridgeway has done extensive research and radio tracking on this subject,” Pyzer says. “According to Ridgeway, the trigger for fall movement is the length of days dwindling to a certain point. Fish have a light-sensitive structure in their brains called the pineal gland that secretes melatonin and likely plays a major role in the timing of the various seasonal movements of bass. He discovered that smallmouths start their fall movements one week after the fall equinox. And it appears to begin at this same time right across the northern range, regardless of latitude, water temperature, moon phase, or anything else. *Even in the same lake, the water temperature can vary significantly from one year to the next, yet the fall movements were occurring like clockwork around the fall equinox*.”

*This is the part that really opened my eyes and made me want to track the river temps myself*:

“Terry Battisti, avid smallmouth angler on waters in Idaho, Wyoming, Oregon, and Utah, confirms that smallmouths are smallmouths everywhere. “It’s a coupling of factors,” he says. “As days start getting noticeably shorter, smallmouths move. But the drop in water temperature drives the foraging binge. The last 3 years I’ve gone to Erie, I’ve seen similar phenomena. *That 10-degree drop in water temp can happen in 10 days or less, and smallmouths go nuts.* Out here, they come to the banks and feed like no tomorrow. *The binge happens as waters cool from 60°F to 50°F every year.”*

The thing is … that 10 degree drop varies each year here in Southwest Ohio ….sometimes, to my dismay, it’s extremely short, and other years it can be weeks long even going into November.

OSG, this is when I really like to start carrying a thermometer with me on each trip out. Most of the year I rarely bring it along but for me it is critical in getting a daily pulse as to where we are locally in that critical 10 degree range and help forecast how quickly it is dropping to the 52 degree mark. It is without fail that right at 52 degrees they just shut down. They don’t stop feeding…but the frenzy is over and sadly for me that always means the end of the topwater bite till next year. I would highly recommend reading the article as it parallels OSG’s great incites and also go out and get ya a nice reliable stream thermometer. Oh and go get ya some fall smallmouth too!!! 

Thanks for the info OSG.


----------



## zaraspook

Great reads OSG and SMB!


----------



## oldstinkyguy

So I had three days off. To hunt the opening of Ohio's archery deer season. Just one little problem it was supposed to be in the upper 80's. That's just too hot to deer hunt and enjoy it if you ask me, so I did what comes naturally to me, I fished a lot . I concentrated on the Ohio river and tributaries from Meldhal to Markland. Sat was almost too hot to fish. I spent most of it waist deep trying not to melt. I caught several small hybrids a few channelcats and four or five small smallmouth. Sunday was better. Over the course of the day I caught around ten hybrids, again all smaller, topping out at maybe 20 inches, plus five or six smallmouth. In the last hour of day things got exciting. I was fishing the Prop R topwater and it seemed like a concrete block was thrown on the plug but I never hooked up. Then a fish knocked the plug two feet in the air and again no hookup. Then a good fish hit, probably 24 or 25 inches. As I beached the fish the hooked popped out in like three inches of water with the fish lying on it's side. I fell to my knees trying to grab the fish but it flopped a couple times and was gone! The very next cast a fish slashed at the topwater and was hooked solid. Jump, then another, holy cow it's a smallmouth! A very very long smallmouth. I slipped off the backpack fumbling in the fast darkening light for the tape measure. With the tail pinched right at 20 inches!!!! And very skinny, nothing like the LMR or GMR smallies I was used to. This was for sure the lightest fish this long I've ever caught. With a big head and all that length I wonder how old that fish is. No Fish Ohio though this fish was in southern Indiana. I've never managed a smallie anywhere close to the length of this fish out of the main stem of the Ohio and I was thrilled with the fish. The year of the smallmouth continues...

The next day I was privileged to fish a river about five miles up from the Ohio with two great guys. I forgot to ask them if I could mention their names so I'll just call them Mr. X and Mr. Y. These guys take their hybrids as seriously as I do my smallmouth and it was awesome to fish and talk fishing with them. They also went out of their way to make sure the dumb smallmouth fisherman caught some nice hybrids. Believe it or not the big hybrid in my photo wasn't even the biggest of the day. Mr Y caught one just as big or bigger and Mr. X caught a huge one that was one of the biggest I've ever seen in person. It was a helluva day and a great ending to a great adventure..


----------



## 9Left

Very nice Mr Coomer!


----------



## oldstinkyguy

In my excitement over telling about the long smallie and the big hybrids I forgot a couple weird things that happened...
One was finding a tarp strung out on some limbs on an island in the mouth of an tributary right at daylight. Underneath was a huge pile of blankets and junk lying everywhere. Well the blankets started moving and out crawls two guys and a blonde chick dressed only in her underwear. She casually takes her time pulling on a shirt, lights up a cigarette and they begin carrying their stuff to shore. She then makes two trips across the stream. Barefoot with just a shirt and no pants with a cig hanging out of her mouth. 
The other was following down the road a pickup truck with a cap on it that was completely stuffed with as many mannequins as it looked humanly possible to jam inside. A very surreal moment.


----------



## deltaoscar

oldstinkyguy said:


> The other was following down the road a pickup truck with a cap on it that was completely stuffed with as many mannequins as it looked humanly possible to jam inside.


Yeah, those ads make it sound like being a travelling mannequin salesman is awesome; but trust me, it's not as glamorous as they say.

Very nice fish BTW.


----------



## Saugeye Tom

deltaoscar said:


> Yeah, those ads make it sound like being a travelling mannequin salesman is awesome; but trust me, it's not as glamorous as they say.
> 
> Very nice fish BTW.


----------



## Saugeye Tom

oldstinkyguy said:


> In my excitement over telling about the long smallie and the big hybrids I forgot a couple weird things that happened...
> One was finding a tarp strung out on some limbs on an island in the mouth of an tributary right at daylight. Underneath was a huge pile of blankets and junk lying everywhere. Well the blankets started moving and out crawls two guys and a blonde chick dressed only in her underwear. She casually takes her time pulling on a shirt, lights up a cigarette and they begin carrying their stuff to shore. She then makes two trips across the stream. Barefoot with just a shirt and no pants with a cig hanging out of her mouth.
> The other was following down the road a pickup truck with a cap on it that was completely stuffed with as many mannequins as it looked humanly possible to jam inside. A very surreal moment.


Any pics of the wader??


----------



## 9Left

yea.. soooooo.......you can have those southern river stretches all to yourself man... wierdos down that way..


----------



## Tom 513

oldstinkyguy said:


> In my excitement over telling about the long smallie and the big hybrids I forgot a couple weird things that happened...
> One was finding a tarp strung out on some limbs on an island in the mouth of an tributary right at daylight. Underneath was a huge pile of blankets and junk lying everywhere. Well the blankets started moving and out crawls two guys and a blonde chick dressed only in her underwear. She casually takes her time pulling on a shirt, lights up a cigarette and they begin carrying their stuff to shore. She then makes two trips across the stream. Barefoot with just a shirt and no pants with a cig hanging out of her mouth.
> The other was following down the road a pickup truck with a cap on it that was completely stuffed with as many mannequins as it looked humanly possible to jam inside. A very surreal moment.


Maybe she is attracted to Dumbies?


----------



## polebender

Sounds like two guys were going home smelling like fish one way or the other!


----------



## oldstinkyguy

Sigh....so today is the 272nd day of the year, If I've only fished 60% of those days which is a low estimate I've fished 163 days but my seeing a white trash chick getting laid in the middle of the river is what's going to be remembered, That Hurts guy


----------



## oldstinkyguy

BTW only 94 days left in the year AND the waters cooling off, time to get fishing gents[/QUOTE]


----------



## 9Left

Yes sir! ... just got restocked...









... you know, what I like most about Vic's grubs, is the big tail .. they provide a lot of great action to the grub ...


----------



## oldstinkyguy

It's been both an interesting but quiet week fishing this week. After last weeks big smallie I decided to take a bit of time off from smb fishing and devote a bit of time to trying to catch a big stripey fish while waiting for my rivers to cool off just a bit more. Most of the week I fished with 15lb braid and a jumbo sized zara spook early and late in the day. I caught several fish but not the monster I was hoping for. One evening I had an absolutely huge fish blow up on the spook six or seven times. Each time it sounded and looked like someone was throwing a brick in the water. How in the world a fish can just explode all over a plug that has big trebles hanging off of it that many times and not get hooked is beyond me. Another day i had a fish in the seven to ten pound range come unbuttoned after a long fight. I was surprised at how many smallmouth and smaller wipers tried to eat the big spook I caught at least one or two every trip.


----------



## oldstinkyguy

Last night almost stepped on the biggest snake Ive ever seen outside of a zoo. That's the skinny part of the snake you can see out in the open, if you look off to the right side of the photo you can see part of the thicker part. A gigantic black rat snake that is much longer than I am tall, I'd guess somewhere between seven or eight feet. Needless to say even though I've been known to catch snakes I left this guy completely alone.


----------



## deltaoscar

oldstinkyguy said:


> A gigantic black rattle snake that is much longer than I am tall, I'd guess somewhere between seven or eight feet.


I met you once at a book signing; there's no way you're seven and a half feet tall.

That being said, I didn't know the black rattler' was indigenous to Ohio. Scary stuff.


----------



## Cat Mangler

deltaoscar said:


> I met you once at a book signing; there's no way you're seven and a half feet tall.
> 
> That being said, I didn't know the black rattler' was indigenous to Ohio. Scary stuff.


But his legend is ten foot tall! And he shoots lightning from his rear!

Are you sure it wasn't a black mamba?


----------



## oldstinkyguy

deltaoscar said:


> I met you once at a book signing;. Scary stuff.


Jerk. I'll be on a covert deer/fishing trip with no phone service for a few days but we should meet under the tree monday, this weekends cool weather might have your 20" biting


----------



## fromOHinMD

There is no possible way I wouldn't lose my #$#@ and scream like a girl if I was surprised by a snake that big that close. I have two examples of me doing exactly that when I thought I saw/felt a snake (neither were actually snakes but that is besides the point...) near my legs...


----------



## solos

oldstinkyguy said:


> Jerk. I'll be on a covert deer/fishing trip with no phone service for a few days but we should meet under the tree monday, this weekends cool weather might have your 20" biting


Deltaosnarky doesn't fish. I think he just cruises public forums....


----------



## Cat Mangler

oldstinkyguy said:


> Jerk. I'll be on a covert deer/fishing trip with no phone service for a few days but we should meet under the tree monday, this weekends cool weather might have your 20" biting


Would it be offensive for me to stalk y'all to acquire the coordinates of said tree? Lol


----------



## Cat Mangler

Btw steve, I really would love to fish with ya one day. Whenever I see ya, it is at some function and you're nowhere near water. Not meaning this as a bad thing as I'm this way myself, but you seem the type that the "happy" meter goes way up on the water. Even if it's on my home waters, I'd love it just to see how you'd fish it.

And I'm sure you have already seen pics of this but, I believe this is where that mad river smallie record came outta.


----------



## polebender

Wow! Just think of the size of hybrid you could've caught with that snake!


----------



## Saugeye Tom

Cat Mangler said:


> Btw steve, I really would love to fish with ya one day. Whenever I see ya, it is at some function and you're nowhere near water. Not meaning this as a bad thing as I'm this way myself, but you seem the type that the "happy" meter goes way up on the water. Even if it's on my home waters, I'd love it just to see how you'd fish it.
> 
> And I'm sure you have already seen pics of this but, I believe this is where that mad river smallie record came outta.


Steve...if you take cat Mangler. ..BLINDFOLD HIM


----------



## Cat Mangler

Saugeye Tom said:


> Steve...if you take cat Mangler. ..BLINDFOLD HIM


Haa, that wouldn't work! There isn't a single square inch of the five major rivers around me that I have wasted good saugless winter nights on, scanning Google maps! Plus I have one of those new mandatory government tracking devices!


----------



## deltaoscar

oldstinkyguy said:


> Jerk.


 I can't argue with that.



oldstinkyguy said:


> we should meet under the tree monday, this weekends cool weather might have your 20" biting


I think you may be right, see you there.


----------



## oldstinkyguy

I've been working pretty hard at not killing a deer. All that sitting up a tree hasn't left much time for posting fishing reports. So here's a photo dump of the camera sd card...


----------



## oldstinkyguy




----------



## oldstinkyguy

So I can't fish this evening. I don't really have anything pressing that needs done, just a little girl that has nowhere to stay but with Papaw tonight. She is big enough that she wants to spend a fair amount of time in her room doing girl stuff, though not all of her time thankfully. Which leaves me some time to do some thinking about fishing. 

When not fishing I do a fair amount of reading. I just finished reading a bit about the buddhist parable of the raft. Paraphrasing liberally the story goes that a man was trapped on the wrong side of a wide dangerous river that he must get across. He builds himself a raft to cross the river safely. Which he does. The Buddha then asks since it was such a good and useful raft and saved the mans life should he lift the raft onto his back and carry it overland? Or should he lay it down gratefully and continue on his way without the raft? 

Well when your life is fishing you kind of relate everything to fishing. Immediately what came to mind was several pretty good anglers I know who have let certain lures become their raft which they carry on their backs. Those lures have gotten them where they are in their fishing lives. Essentially they have "crossed over" on them but to continue further they may have to gratefully lay them down and fish on without them. Every foot of every river is different than every other foot of that same river and every river is different from every other river. Not that there aren't broad themes and similarities between different sections that you can use past experiences to exploit to your advantage. 

But there are also vast areas different than what you are used to. Or different ways to fish the ones you are used to. Remember the wise saying that it is impossible to step into the same river twice. 

If you have gotten extremely good at using that (insert favorite lure here) in the stream you fish most often but you still haven't caught that twenty incher you have been dreaming of maybe it's time for a little soul searching. Or maybe you did catch that twenty incher four years ago and haven't caught one since. In other words, if we can push aside our pride and prejudice for a moment we might admit there is more we might learn out there. It's simply impossible to know everything there is no to know about stream fishing. Or even anywhere near all, anyone who claims to know is simply showing the rest of us what a fool they really are. 

I'm not advocating changing lures willy-nilly and throwing the whole tackle box at them. I've always said that any beginning river fisherman needs to pick a few tried and true lures and learn how to use them as well as he can. Once he knows how they act in different currents, depths, how they feel over the top of different bottom compositions, then they will be the most effective tools they can be for him. But they are just that, tools. Not magic amulets or the be all end all lures that he should throw in any situation. 

Too many anglers carry a lure or two like rafts blindly clinging to them no matter what.They have used then to "cross over" from a neophyte to a capable or even admired angler. But to really grow they may have to add more tools to their tool belt. 

Back when we were going thru the hottest part of the summer I took my friend Dave to a tiny little stream. There was a maybe 50 yard stretch of very shallow water filled with big rocks that was almost dry. Right below the water dropped over a gravely lip that formed almost a small dam all the way across the creek into a waist deep pool which had water falling into into it, a bit of woody cover and a nice riffle coming out of the lower end. An oxygen rich little refuge on this little creek. I told Dave I know this looks silly and even sounds silly but tie on the biggest buzzbait you own and throw it in this little twenty foot wide by thirty foot long pool. To his credit he did and a big smallie in the over 19" club nailed his buzzbait and rocketed skyward before coming unbuttoned. Dave went a few days later and caught a 17 incher. And then walked up rock hopping the boulders and dropping a lure down between them. Right under the rod, when I said dropping I meant dropping. And proceeded to hook several really nice smallmouth bass. In tiny holes a foot across by just a few feet long and only maybe a foot or two deep. In the middle of the hottest part of the year with the nearest deep water seemingly unreachable separated from the fish by water only an inch or two deep. Water I never would have thought of to fish in a million years. Just more proof that it's impossible to know more than a fraction of whats going on in a stream.

The story doesn't end there though. About a mile down this stream enters the river in a bend pool. A classic fall/wintering pool with a big eddy and a complicated riffle both upstream and down. I fished there yesterday and hooked and lost a whale. A fish grown past the twenty inch mark by a ways and a lock to have been at least a top three or four all time fish for me. (I guess I'm taking up winter time smallmouth fishing after a decade long dalliance with saugs and stripey fish this winter but that's another story) Anyways on the way back you have to pass mine and Dave's little heat wave spot. The water was even lower than in summer and the big rocks were mostly dry with just a bit of current running thru them. On a whim I bit about two inches off of Vic' new straight worm and wacky rigged it unweighted. And rock hopped across the creek dapping the worm under the rod tip into the tiny bathtub and smaller sized holes. And five nice smallmouth in the 12 to 15" range came shooting out of hiding spots under the boulders to nail the worm. What the heck are they thinking? Obviously they can't overwinter there. Those tiny little pockets will be frozen solid. Some cold morning are they going to wriggle half out of the water like I've seen carp do thru that two inch deep water and down to that hole a mile downstream? How come they haven't moved when other fish obviously have? The more you learn the less you realize you know is the moral to this rant I guess. I'm beginning to realize in my old age curiosity and experience working together make fitting the pieces of the puzzle together even more fun...


----------



## oldstinkyguy

As the water cools the fishing sure is heating up. Caught about a dozen last night, (no pics, my background showed too much ) and about a dozen tonight. Mostly on Vic's paddletail swimbait though I think I caught two on grubs and two on a minnow plug as well over the last couple days.


----------



## Saugeye Tom

Beautiful steve......sooner or later we'll have to get together. ..trade a trip


----------



## oldstinkyguy

Yep that's the bike trail in the background, luckily the Little Miami bike trail is something like 75+ miles long so I'm thinking my new little hotspot is safe for now. Caught eight in less than an hour topped off by this 18 incher. Lousy photo, didn't realize till I got home it's tail wasn't straight but was curved back sharply towards me







 All on a Vic Coomer paddletail on a 1/4 ounce jighead in pretty swift current glued pretty tight to some big rock.


----------



## oldstinkyguy

Nothing like having a shovel nail your smallmouth grub that your fishing on light spinning tackle....


----------



## Cat Mangler

oldstinkyguy said:


> Nothing like having a shovel nail your smallmouth grub that your fishing on light spinning tackle....
> View attachment 221777


Nice! That's always a pleasant experience!

What time of day did you get this one if you don't mind my asking? Just curious since the daytime bite seems to be more active right now.


----------



## oldstinkyguy

Cat Mangler said:


> Nice! That's always a pleasant experience!
> 
> What time of day did you get this one if you don't mind my asking? Just curious since the daytime bite seems to be more active right now.


About 4pm I'd guess


----------



## oldstinkyguy

What a difference a day makes. The fish were biting pretty good but today's chilly weather flipped the feeding switch to on. I guess I caught somewhere around twenty to twenty five smallies and if catching a catfish on a lure is on your bucket list right now is the time. Four shovelhead and three channels in the last two days on a lure. Today what seemed to work best was the original classic curly shad, the pearl with a black back fished on a quarter ounce jighead in current.


----------



## oldstinkyguy

Hit the Ohio River with my friend and stripey fish guru Rob. You would think I had a decent day catching a few nice saugfish and a couple small hybrids and a couple buffalo. As long as you didn't know what Rob did...
What Rob did was fish a swimbait under a launcher further out than I could see and catch big hybrids like I've never seen before. And three were in the 8 to 9 pound range! In raging current at the end of very very long long casts. I've only been really badly whipped twice in the the last few years and both times it was by Rob and with stripey fish. I'm going to have to spend some time doing some serious homework on these fish. It's starting to get personal with me and fish with stripes. I did hook something huge on a swimbait. It didn't act like a snared paddlefish or even a giant pure striper but instead just bent the rod all the way into the cork and just slowly moved wherever it wanted to for twenty minutes before pulling off. I'm guessing a really really big blue or shovel.
Afterward I hit the GMR for a bit and caught a few smallmouth and a 35 inch shovelhead. The shovel I landed in just a couple minutes on the same tackle that the beast pulled me around for twenty plus minutes with. Sigh...makes you wonder


----------



## oldstinkyguy

A lovely evening on the Ohio River. Who knew the first of November is the new end of summer


----------



## Jointed Minnow

Awesome fish


----------



## oldstinkyguy

I left Friday after work to spend Sat, Sun, Mon bowhunting deer. ( no deer BTW) I knew I wasn't going to make it in time to get up a tree Friday so I decided to stop off and fish a dam on the Ohio River on my way out to our hunting property. I'm fishing a curly shad on a 1/4 ounce jighead trying for a sauger, walleye, hybrid striper etc., on a seven foot carrot stix with a pflueger arbor spooled with 15lb braid. I get there a bit after dark, so much the better for a sauger. Three casts in and the rod bends into the cork and then bucks like a rodeo bronc as line screams off the reel. Luckily a lot of braid fits on an arbor. Twenty minutes in and the fish shows no sign of tiring. I think the reel has like 10lbs max drag so I've got it tightened all the way down. No effect on the fish. It would take line easily whenever it wanted, I'm just lucky I guess it never decided to just leave, I couldn't have stopped it. After something like an hour it had settled into a slug fest. Besides having the drag tightened down as far as it would go when the fish started a long run I'd grab the line with my left hand and apply more pressure trying to put as much pressure on the fish as I could without breaking the line. I remember thinking of the Old Man and the Sea and the fish pulling his skiff out to sea. Finally the fish started to show slight signs of tiring. Occasionally I could feel the fish move as I pumped the rod to gain line. Still the fish would go on great runs but not quite as long each time as before. Then suddenly slack. It must have gotten off as I'd figured it would this whole time. But no, it had finally just had enough and came in worn out. As was I, you don't hook too many fish that go over five feet long in Ohio. A few hurried pics in the fog and a bit of working back and forth in the water and the fish revived well enough. A great swoosh of it's tail and it was gone. The next morning I was sitting up the tree thinking boy my bicep is sore. Oh yeah, from landing too big a fish on too light of tackle..


----------



## kingofamberley

WOW, awesome paddlefish Stinky!


----------



## SMBHooker

Best OSG story yet. How beautiful of a fish. Hope u got a cross bow because ur arm isn't pulling a compound any time soon. lol

That pic is just perfect OSG....it captures the grit of the fight you told, apsolutly love it.


----------



## polebender

Those paddlefish sure are a breed of their own! Truly a prehistoric looking fish! I've been fortunate enough to catch "snag" one years ago below the Deer Creek dam. It was only around 8 lbs. But definitely a great surprise catch! 
Nice job and great catch!


----------



## oldstinkyguy

SMBHooker said:


> Best OSG story yet. How beautiful of a fish. Hope u got a cross bow because ur arm isn't pulling a compound any time soon. lol
> 
> That pic is just perfect OSG....it captures the grit of the fight you told, apsolutly love it.


Thank you, as OGF gets slower and slower its become a bit of a chore posting when it starts to feel like your just talking to yourself.


----------



## oldstinkyguy

Been fishing Vic's new creation in the mighty Ohio. I've gotten used to catching shovels on a lure pretty cool catching a blue. Some folks call it a blade bait, I call it a sling blade....


----------



## Fisherman 3234

Very nice hybrids, and awesome Blue!!! Tis the season!!!


----------



## 9Left

nice ones stinky.... Thise coomer blade baits are now at fisherman's hq in dayton.... they look pretty slick


----------



## oldstinkyguy

November the 18th and a shovelhead on a grub!
And not at a warm water discharge but while catching sauger below a dam. That has to be one of the latest shovels I've ever caught.


----------



## SMBHooker

Pretty tail on that flatty too.


----------



## Cat Mangler

oldstinkyguy said:


> November the 18th and a shovelhead on a grub!
> And not at a warm water discharge but while catching sauger below a dam. That has to be one of the latest shovels I've ever caught.
> View attachment 223791


That's just awesome! Tonight was a great night to fish! I stopped by a local low dam after work just as the sun set thinking I might find a saug thing. Instead, I found myself amongst an absolute feeding frenzy. Not big ones but, I landed 9 smb, 5 rock bass and a crappie and missed several bites. Didn't take any photos since my phone doesn't flash and left my lamp in the truck. But I swear I caught the heaviest 12" bass I've ever happened upon, over a pound at least. 

Bite was super hot until some kids came along chucking big rocks directly in the feed zone. It is quite fun watching shad scramble and get busted on!


----------



## oldstinkyguy

I've been in the deer woods the last few days. Finally got a buck for the freezer. Not a big one but I was happy with it. When it comes to deer hunting I'm more of a meat hunter than a trophy hunter. This year was as hard as I've worked to kill a deer in a long time and it made for a good season. Anyways all that sitting it trees has got me behind on posting fishing pics. Here's this weeks trips copied and pasted from my blog...
DOWN THE LADDER...
So it's been a go to wintertime smallmouth spot for about three years now. There's just one little problem. Well one big problem actually. You see the hole is at the bottom of a ten foot cliff. It sits in a bend in the river and the river eats away at the bank digging a vertical cliff about nine or ten feet tall. I keep thinking every year that part of the bank will collapse a bit more somewhere along it's length letting you get down but so far, three years in, it hasn't. You stand on top of the cliff and look down into the clear water and just look at the bottom dropping off into darkness full of possibility. Darkness that is one big giant eddy where the river slowly revolves around back upstream. Even in times of flood the very upper end still curls around upstream and almost stops. Just the kind of place a big smallmouth will travel a ways to get in to spend the winter. It ate at me nights wondering what that deep hole held. So I devised a plan. I went to Lowes and bought some wood and stout rope and went to work in the garage cutting foot long pieces of wood and drilling a hole in each end and tying knots after every hole so that I ended up with about a twelve foot rope ladder. Now every winter I tie the rope ladder to the base of a tree up top and climb down. Today the trick was a clear with silver glitter curly shad fished slowly on a jig head. I guess I caught five or six about a foot long. This time of year I feel each fish is special and even though I've probably fished 150 plus days this year I looked at each of these a little longer than normal admiring each before releasing them. You just don't know how many days like this are left in the bank this year as winter tightens it's grip. And then about dark the slow drift of the curly shad was stopped by a solid thud and the rod bent double. I didn't realize till I got home the fish held it's tail bent away from the camera so you don't get a good look at the length but you can see her fat belly. The walk out in the dark didn't seem nearly as cold as the walk in during the daylight did.
11/23 SMALLIES...
Still managing a few nice ones. When you mold a lot of jig heads you end up with several that say didn't quite fill up all the way or most of the collar isn't there or something similar. I actually save a lot of those for this time of year. It's very hard to find a lightweight jig head that still has a big enough hook to match up well with a bass sized grub or swimbait. It seems most light jigheads have correspondingly small hooks. By saving these "reject" jigheads I can fish a grub with a full sized hook slowly in the slower water the better fish are often in this time of year. Tonight I caught these and a few smaller fish on a three inch clear with silver grub on what I'd estimate was a 1/10th or 1/12 ounce jighead.
THE PIG, SOME CATS AND THE WATERSLIDE...
Fished right after daylight this thanksgiving morning where a little pipe puts a bit of warmer water in the river. Downstream is a steeper bank with some big concrete rubble and rock dumped in to control erosion with deep slow water out n front. The fish were actually right off the bank where the warmer water swept very slowly down over the rubble and curled upstream in a small eddy. I fished a three inch smoke metalflake grub on a 1/16 ounce jighead. The big smallmouth and the smaller of the two shovels were caught maybe ten feet apart and the bigger shovel was another twenty feet down the bank. I wonder what makes one shovel so much darker than the other? Possibly one just moved into this bit of deep warmer water from somewhere else? I also learned (relearned actually) that after it rains it pays to be careful standing on muddy wet concrete. The skid marks in the one photo are left over from me helplessly sliding in slow motion down the tilted concrete into knee deep water ending today's fishing adventure. But it was worth it. It's been a pretty good week for nice smallies.
CATCH UP...
A pretty smallie from a stream close to home. The pattern was the same as it has been all week. A smoke metalflake grub fished on a very light jighead.
Then a trip to the mighty Ohio River. I was fishing a tributary mouth catching a few white bass and the occasional green fish till almost dark. Then on the flat adjacent to the mouth fish started blowing up busting what I think were shiners on the surface. I was fishing right inside the mouth and took off running. For about forty five minutes all thru sunset and about 20 minutes into dark fish continued to blow up everywhere. It was just about the best forty five minutes of hybrid fishing I've ever experienced. No monsters but every cast that didn't get a fish was a huge letdown knowing they would stop at any minute. But most casts did get a three or four pound hybrid. Not many pics I was too busy trying to get them off and fire another cast out there before the feeding frenzy stopped. I was shaking with excitement and fumbling around trying to do everything fast with all those fish blowing up. Funny the last week of November has been one of the best weeks of the entire year.


----------



## oldstinkyguy




----------



## oldstinkyguy




----------



## ML1187

Forget fish let's see the buck - I'm on my 8th straight hour of sitting in a tree and a buck sighting , even if yours OSG would be nice at the moment !


----------



## oldstinkyguy

No monsters tonight but a half dozen decent smallmouth in December, I'll take that anytime. 1/16th ounce jighead and smoke metalflake grub and six pound test were the ticket in a cold very clear river...


----------



## 9Left

Nice December fish stinky!


----------



## oldstinkyguy

A couple "other" fish from a trip to the Ohio River that saw way too few and way too small stripey fish caught...


----------



## oldstinkyguy

So if you know much about me you know I'm a stream fishing nut. Little creeks, big creeks, small and medium sized rivers, that sort of thing. Stuff you can wade or at most use a yak or a tiny jon boat on. I'll pretty much fish and fish hard for any thing that swims in these little streams but what I fish the hardest for and am the most nuts about is stream smallmouth. And just about the nuttiest thing I do is winter fish these little flows for smallmouth bass.
Right now as our rivers and creeks are dipping into the thirties I'm still out there trying to eke out that last bit of smallmouth fishing out of the dying year. I think over the years it has helped me become a much better stream angler the rest of the year as well. To consistently catch wintertime smallmouth you have to get to know your stream inside out.
You see, to survive the winter in a smaller flow requires a smallie to drastically change it's location and habits. It's been proven in numerous tracking studies that in small rivers and creeks a smallmouth will leave it's regular haunts where it has spent the rest of the year and travel as far as it has to go to find a safe place to overwinter. In what you might call a medium sized river like the Scioto River or the Great Miami River that might be a half a mile or even just a few hundred yards while in a small creek it might mean the fish travels all the way out of that creek altogether to a larger one.
There are no hard and fast rules here. A general statement like the above, "as far as it has to go to find a safe place to overwinter" is about the best I can do. There are extreme cases of smallmouth in really shallow streams in cold places like Wisconsin traveling thirty and forty miles. River fishing in general is like real estate in that it is location, location, location. And in no instance is that more true than cold weather smallmouth fishing.
So what does a smallmouth look for in a wintering hole? The short answer is somewhere the fish can be safe in all flows. Safe from swift current in flood conditions and safe from cold and ice in low water cold conditions. Usually this is the deepest hole around but not always. Sometimes a small but just deep enough and sheltered eddy can hold fish as well. Over the course of the year I try and file away candidates in the back of my mind to hit come December. But the only way to know for sure is to fish each of these candidates several times in late fall thru winter till you slowly build up a short list of spots that really do hold fish.
The bad news that ninety percent of the river doesn't hold fish is also the good news. Good news in that once you find fish you will have all the fish that were spread up and down the river concentrated in just a few locations. Yes the waters frigid and it takes finesse luck and patience but you know at least your fishing over fish and some quality fish at that.
Most of our streams also have some sorts of small warm water discharges into them. By warm water discharges I mean things that discharge water that is warmer than the rest of the rivers water. Things like cooling water from factory machinery, a power plant, even a waste water treatment plant. While these are often great draws when the water first starts to cool they lose their appeal as winter tightens it's grip. Like everything else in the river all water discharges are not created equally. Most have outflows that discharge into water too swift or two shallow for the bass to overwinter in. The fish seem to know instinctively that a sudden rise in water level will overwhelm the discharge with swift cold water and either kill them from thermal shock or simply wash them away. Often in midwinter these places will be packed with rough fish but not smallmouth bass. Once in a blue moon one of these warm water discharges will be upstream of a true wintering hole and will improve your chances of catching a fish out of that hole all winter greatly tho.
Once we find our wintering hole and thru fall have still been catching fish there how do we approach the thing in December when the river is really getting cold? Well look for the spot on the spot. It might be two or three big boulders, a little hump off the side of a steep bank, a gravel hump that rises to within a few feet of the surface that catches sunlight and warms faster than the rest of the pool. Again there are no hard and fast rules here as well but there will be somewhere in that particular pool that draws fish fish to it when they are in the mood to bite. Sometimes the clues are not obvious and you just have to fish the whole pool long enough to find that subtle spot on the spot.
Weather plays a huge part in whether or not your going to catch fish in winter. If the weather is constant and hasn't changed in a week you can usually catch a fish or two if you put in enough time. Let it warm up for three or four days in a row and the water warm three degrees or more and you might just catch several nice fish. And to be honest let there be a sudden cold snap and I'm still going fishing, just probably for saugeye instead on smallmouth bass.
Often in winter the water is as clear as it ever gets and you will double your odds at least by using lighter line. Sometimes your simply not going to get bit at all if you should be using six pound test in a small clear stream and your using ten. The same goes for lure weight. I winter fish for smallies almost exclusively with one of two different jigs. One is a hair jig of some sort tied on a light jighead. But the last few years I've mostly been using a three inch grub. The grub has the advantage of letting me tinker and adjust the size of the jighead all day long. I pour my own jigheads and being a river fishing junkie I pour a couple thousand every year. If you have ever poured jigheads you know they don't all come out perfect. There are rejects where the mold wasn't hot enough or the lead wasn't hot enough or you just messed up pouring it or whatever, you end up with some heads that are missing the collar or are only partial full. The better shaped ones of these I will save instead of repouring with an eye towards this time of year. I end up with an assortment of lightweight heads in all different weights. I tinker with these trying to find the right combination of jighead and grub for each different spot on the spot that will let me fish it the most effectively. Which means as slow as possible. Just a little bit of current or a difference in depth can make a difference in how much weight or lack of weight we need. Many of my spots on the spots are either boulders or concrete rubble and if I drag or work the jig along the bottom I'm going to get hung up. But if I can find the magic combination I can sort of float the jig along just of the bottom very slowly. This is much like the results achieved in lakes with the "float and fly" technique of fishing a jig under a float.
Light line also helps you cast lightweight jigheads as well. Plus most of the time I can position myself pretty closely to where I want to fish in a small stream. I often wonder if my camo deer hunting bibs and jacket I wear winter fishing helps with catching these close up fish in gin clear water as well.
I try to use as heavy a jig I can get away with simply because you get a better feel with a heavier weight. But a "heavy" wintertime grub might be a 1/16 or a 1/8 ounce one and often it's much lighter.
And although sometimes winter smallmouth will really thump the jig they are just as likely to take it without you feeling anything more than a mushy weight on the line.
Being a lifelong fly fisherman it came natural to me to experiment with the various small strike indicators nymph fishermen use when fishing really tiny jigs. Come December and January it's not unusual to find a foam pinch on indicator or even bit of yarn tied on my line. If I was honest with myself this may help as much with keeping my head in the game and giving me something to tinker with during the sometimes long waits in between bites as it does in helping me catch fish. Keeping your head in the game is a big thing in winter smallmouth fishing.
Midday is often best but I find that evening still holds an attraction for smallmouth. I work days so right after work I'll speed straight to the river so I can still get in an hour or hour and a half of fishing in before the short winter day is over. What I've found is that often right at dark there can still be a bit of an evening bite even though the water may only be in the upper thirties. I have found that the silence of the winter woods combined with the sun setting over the river have rewards all their own even on those all too frequent winter evenings that the fish don't cooperate. Just tonight across the river a doe walked the riverbank as the sky slowly turned brilliant red. AND I caught some fish, Walking out in growing darkness I was at peace with the world...


----------



## oldstinkyguy

This week in fishing...

Catching a few small saugs on grubs right around dark this week. Nothing really picture worthy. Caught a funky quasimodo carp with an s curved spine that otherwise seemed in great shape. Best, awesomest fish of the week tho was this largemouth bass on a three inch clear with sliver grub out of a deep slow hole in the thirty something degree GMR.


----------



## garhtr

oldstinkyguy said:


> the silence of the winter woods combined with the sun setting over the river have rewards all their own even on those all too frequent winter evenings that the fish don't cooperate. Just tonight across the river a doe walked the riverbank as the sky slowly turned brilliant red. AND I caught some fish, Walking out in growing darkness I was at peace with the world...


 Great job on the winter fish as usual
and I have to agree, fish or no fish, there is nothing quite like a winter evening on the river. It may be my vivid imagination but the river even sounds different on winter days.( even my coffee tastes better)
Good luck and Good Fishing !


----------



## SMBHooker

Cool colored carp!


----------



## 9Left

that largemouth is a chunk!


----------



## garhtr

9Left said:


> that largemouth is a chunk!


I thought that Fish was a Smallmouth---------- ( buffalo)


----------



## oldstinkyguy

A few cold weather fish tonight out of the Great Miami


----------



## zaraspook

The snow makes a great backdrop for those photos!


----------



## oldstinkyguy

I spent the last couple days exploring the Ohio river for hybrids. Not huge numbers, maybe 20-25 in two days but the average size was pretty good. Bait of choice was Vic's new bait, the Swim Shad on 1/4 or 3/8 ounce jigheads depending on current speed. One highlight was a good look at an immature bald eagle overlooking the river.


----------



## 9Left

very nice stinky!


----------



## oldstinkyguy

You just never know whats going to hit that little three inch grub...


----------



## zaraspook

What a toad! It's so stuffed it appears likely to explode.


----------



## oldstinkyguy

With the warm weather and plans for a family dinner this evening I headed out before daylight and hit the mouth of a little creek that feeds the Ohio River. While only less than a cast across it has a deep eddy hole at the mouth that draws fish like a magnet in late winter. Here they can find respite from the current of the main river. I fished cut squares of skipjack I'd caught a couple weeks earlier and froze. I ended up catching four small blue cats that weighed three or four pounds apiece and four big gar and a few small stripey fish. Pretty cool for December 26...


----------



## oldstinkyguy

I'm going to miss you 2016


----------



## savethetrophies

Very well put osg.. Beautiful slide show and the fish were unbelievable.


----------



## 9Left

nice pics stinky, happy new year!


----------



## DLarrick

Perfect way to wrap up a season many of us only dream about. Love the idea of keeping your 2016 fishing journey going through one thread. And to cap it off with a mix of beauty and tons of great fish...only OSG could do it that way. Thanks for sharing your adventure.


----------



## ML1187

Very cool slideshow. I know you caught that giant Saugeye this year but that huge Musky in the creek was UNBELIEVABLE!!!


----------



## polebender

Very nice! Congrats on a super year!


----------



## SMBHooker

Happy New Year OSG.


----------



## oldstinkyguy

Well, It's all downhill from here. Two days into the new year and two Fish Ohio fish, a gill and a sauger. One out of a pond and one out of a backwater of the Ohio River. Maybe I'll just quit and be like, "oh yeah I caught a Fish Ohio every time I went this year". The fishing was pretty tough I fished all day for two sauger, a tiny stripey fish and two drum out of a whole bunch of spots all along the Ohio River. The gill fishing was much easier today. The photo of the two herons captured a cool moment. One was already there fishing when another flew in and began puffing up and posturing trying to run the other off. They walked back and forth stiffly for a couple minutes before one finally began backing up a bit on every pass and the other kind of pushed him down the riverbank and took his spot. Also caught a tiny bass to go a long ways towards the "I caught a bass every month" this winter.


----------



## polebender

That's a really nice sauger! Really great colors!


----------



## SMBHooker

Well, you can't start off better than that... Unless it was an FO river smallmouth


----------



## oldstinkyguy

Eight degrees!! only fish of the day but totally worth it. On Vic's three inch red with glitter grub fished as slow as i could fish it. I'm liking this whole 2017 thing...


----------



## zaraspook

That's a belly buster! Nice going, OSG.


----------



## jmpmstr1998

Is that a LMB or one of those fish pillows from Walmart? Lol

Seriously, beautiful fish.


----------



## oldstinkyguy

Not a fish I'd normally brag too much about but heck it is the middle of January. Caught three of these guys after work on a swim shad fished as slow as I could fish it on a swim bait hook


----------



## 9Left

ya know.. for the middle of January, the weather has been very fishing friendly... nice catch stinky!


----------



## Cat Mangler

9Left said:


> ya know.. for the middle of January, the weather has been very fishing friendly... nice catch stinky!


Do you even fish anymore, deer Slayer?


----------



## 9Left

lol.... home improvement projects and work are takin over man


----------



## oldstinkyguy

I've found over the last few years the the spots I consistently catch bigger smallmouth bass at almost without exception are good places to catch a catfish on a lure. A decade ago it seemed like it was a novelty to catch a catfish on a lure. Sure it happened a few times a year but it wasn't something you could expect to happen while out wading the river for smallies. You were as likely to catch a big river crappie or a drum or a saugeye as you were a catfish. But as I've concentrated more and more on just trying to catch a big smallmouth and not just a bunch of little ones a funny thing happened, I began to catch a catfish nearly every trip. Sometimes several and sometimes some nice big flatheads. And my friend Dan got me started fishing lipless crankbaits and big swimbaits below lowhead dams and in bend pools at night with the idea of just catching catfish. So in part to help my never ending quest for the next big smallmouth and it part because I'm falling in love with catfish on their own I've been studying catfish a lot lately. They are really just about the most interesting fish that swims I've found out. And it sure doesn't hurt that they get huge. All you have to do is Google the legendary catfisherman Robby Robinson to see how exciting catfishing can be if you go after trophy cats. Here are a few things I've learned about these amazing fish.

Probably nothing on earth has the ability to taste like a catfish does. They are essentially one big giant taste bud as they have them scattered all over their body. I tried finding out how many and one source says 175,000 another 500,000 and then another said a quarter million were counted on a six inch long catfish! I'm guessing the number varies according to what species of catfish and what size the catfish is. It's probably mind boggling how many are on a giant hundred pound blue cat. Besides having untold numbers packed inside their mouths and gill rakers, cats have them scattered all over their body even on their fins and tail. It's impossible to touch a catfish anywhere without it being able to taste you!

To me though that's not nearly as freaky as a catfish's sense of smell. Over and over I've read where catfish can smell at least one part per ten billion. So what the heck does that mean? Well one part per ten billion is a bit over 833 FEET out of 160,000 MILES!!! Or a distance less than three football fields long out of a trip six and times around the earth. I still can't come close to wrapping my mind around that but it comes closer than saying one part per ten billion does. Hopefully my math was right on all that but either way you get the idea, its more than a lot. Some numbers are just too big to comprehend. And a catfishes sense of smell is just too good to comprehend, A fish smells by passing water over sensitive folds inside it's nostrils or nares as they are called on a fish. A small bass might have five or six and a big trophy smallmouth might have 18 or 20 of these folds. Members of the trout family who have 18 or 20 as well. Well ladies and gentlemen your average channelcat has something like 140 plus folds in his nares.

And even though catfish are known for their extraordinary senses of taste and smell their superpowers do not stop there. Take for example their sense of hearing. In most of the world's fish their swim bladder is separate and unconnected to their inner ear. And most fish can hear really well. But like everything else the catfish takes it to the next level. In catfish anatomy their swim bladder is connected by tiny bones to their inner ear and their entire swim bladder functions in essence as a giant eardrum. The hearing of a catfish is many many times more acute than that of most fish like a bass.

Catfish actually also have a sense of electroreception. Like sharks and rays and paddlefish it turns that catfish can actually sense minute electrical impulses given off by prey. It's a very close range sense probably only a centimeter or two but they can use it when rooting around in muddy water for prey on the bottom. In one study I read large magnets were placed under fish tanks and these had no effect on fish like striped bass and bass but channel catfish would change their location away from the unseen magnet when it was placed under them.

And even though it isn't developed into a superpower catfish can see perfectly well, probably something like a bluegill or bass. Their eyesight isn't a priority like it is with sight feeders like trout or bass but there is certainly nothing lacking in it.

Catfish of course have the amazing lateral line that other fish have. There are a few studies where catfishes ability to capture prey in the dark was studied. Some catfish had their lateral line severed. Using their other super senses they could still capture prey but their ability was diminished and it took them much longer to capture prey. Lateral lines on fish are a series of tiny fluid filled sacs along the fishes sides that can sense waves of water pressure given off by things in the water. In one study it was found that fish could actually sense how large or small another fish was and where it was located by using nothing but their lateral line.

And we cannot forget the feature that gives a catfish it's name, those whiskers. Catfish use those whiskers as highly sensitive feelers that enable them to do something most other fish cannot. Which is to say "reach out and touch" something without have to bite down on it. These whiskers are also sensitive to water currents and probably vibrations and in one study of a catfish found in Japan it turns out catfish use their whiskers to test the PH of the water and it was found they were as sensitive as the lab equipment in finding changes in PH levels. It seems that these catfish preyed on an aquatic worm and at night the catfish were detecting changes in PH given off by the worms breathing to find them even when they were buried in the mud of the bottom.

Small wonder that catfish can operate in any environment from gin clear water to muddy water you cannot see a half an inch into. All these incredible senses have combined to make the catfish the worlds most successful fish. There are something like 3000 species of catfish that are known but there are probably even more than that as catfish seem to thrive in very habitat on earth and there are lots of remote places left on earth where all the fish species haven't been sampled yet.


----------



## 9Left

really neat info stinky! However, it just makes me wonder...with all the super duper smell and sensation powers these fish have, why do they seem so " not picky" about eating? I have caught catfish on just about every lure i have in my arsenal... from plastics, to hard crankbaits, to inline spinners, and even topwater baits. Makes a guy wonder what all the finite powers are really for? Heck, even the heaviest of line, hook, and sinker doesn't seem to scare off a catfish . Bass however, can be much more picky and seem to check out a bait in much more detail before they take it....


----------



## savethetrophies

9Left said:


> really neat info stinky! However, it just makes me wonder...with all the super duper smell and sensation powers these fish have, why do they seem so " not picky" about eating? I have caught catfish on just about every lure i have in my arsenal... from plastics, to hard crankbaits, to inline spinners, and even topwater baits. Makes a guy wonder what all the finite powers are really for? Heck, even the heaviest of line, hook, and sinker doesn't seem to scare off a catfish . Bass however, can be much more picky and seem to check out a bait in much more detail before they take it....


I have often wondered the same thing Carl. I always thought bass had better vision and are more of a visual feeder. Where as the catfish uses more smell, vibration, and sight. But I'm not positive. This past year for me like osg said I was pulling monster channels out almost every trip in my favorite bass holes. They were ridiculously aggressive and I would catch multiple back to back sometimes. With a fast moving jig zipping by them. So u would think they had to see it pretty good...?


----------



## oldstinkyguy

I've always thought that one reason catfish were so successful is because they weren't picky about what they ate, minnow, bluegill, bullfrog, small child. If you can survive eating anything you can survive in lots of varied habitats.


----------



## Cat Mangler

I am sure, much like bass, they will hit it on a reactionary instinct as well.


----------



## Mean Morone

There is one stream/river in the SW Ohio area that is loaded with both channel cats and Flatheads. Matter of fact, your odds are pretty good that you will catch more catfish than bass while throwing lures, especially lures that hug the bottom.


----------



## oldstinkyguy

ou know when you find a unicorn AND a piano it's been an interesting week's fishing. Lot's of camo fish with teeth on three inch grubs mostly...


----------



## Saugeye Tom

Nice saugs!


----------



## rblake

Nice piano!


----------



## oldstinkyguy

A shameless plug for a good cause...River Conservation
I wanted to put out there that while you are at the Columbus Fishing Expo you can pick up something cool for your little fishing buddy. The Little Miami Conservancy has put out an excellent children's book. Instead of about dragons or fairies or something made up this one features characters based on wildlife that actually live in our rivers. Small Fry Sonny, a baby smallmouth bass, is swept downstream during a spring storm and carried far from his home and friends at Bass Island Bar. Sonny encounters danger along the way and gets help from several river critters in finding his way back upstream to home. Beautifully written by Bill Schroeder and cleverly illustrated by artist James Billiter, this book offers early readers an appreciation of conservation and river ecology. We will be selling the book for ten dollars in our booth at the show. I know my granddaughter loved it and you will be helping promote a cause dear to my heart, river conservation. And it is the only children's book I know that teaches your kids something about the fish and animals we have around here in our rivers.


----------



## ML1187

That's really really neat OSG. Thanks for sharing


----------



## oldstinkyguy

No she wasn't 20 just close. BTW it's 70 outside go fishing, its been a kinda okay week...


----------



## oldstinkyguy




----------



## oldstinkyguy

On a somber note...
Today is a sad day for entire fishing community. Legendary fisherman Robby Robinson has passed. Legendary is not a word I use lightly. So what made Robby so legendary? After all he was just an ordinary working guy like most of us. What Robby had was passion and the overwhelming drive to follow that passion. He used that passion to learn about and spend the time required to go out and catch more giant shovelheads than probably anyone that has ever lived. Over time he caught so many giant fish that photos of him and then stories about him began popping up in newspapers and magazines. And Robby spread the word of conservation and preached CPR. Catch, Photograph, Release. All the while teaching and mentoring an entire generation of fishermen. 
Let's face it anyone can go out a catch a big fish. People do it all the time that have no business doing so. Just like people go out on their first deer hunt and luck into a giant buck. Or people can buy their way into a big fish or giant buck by paying someone else to find it for them and hold their hand till they get it. But not anyone can go out and catch a giant remarkable fish over and over and over again. Which is just what Robby did over and over again.
He joins the ranks of other legendary outdoorsmen like Fred Bear or Billy Westmorland. No hunter ever has done as much in his sport or for his sport as Fred Bear did. From humble beginnings he pretty much is the reason there is the sport of modern archery and bowhunting. And Billy, just a good old boy down in the hills pursued his passion so hard that he caught more giant smallmouth than any person that has ever lived. Just a couple of guys that loved being outside and loved what they did so well that they became legends. Just like Robby. I bet they are all sitting around a fire tonight swapping stories and waiting on a bite...


----------



## Cat Mangler

Never met Mr Katfish personally, but have had some very lengthy and super informative conversations with Robby that have taught me more then I could have ever been able to repay. I don't know if flatheads can cry, but if they could, the tears are flowing right now! 

Missed but never forgotten!


----------



## Saugeye Tom

Cat Mangler said:


> Never met Mr Katfish personally, but have had some very lengthy and super informative conversations with Robby that have taught me more then I could have ever been able to repay. I don't know if flatheads can cry, but if they could, the tears are flowing right now!
> 
> Missed but never forgotten!


Ive spoke with him too....the flatties arn't crying,,,,,they be throwing a party!!!


----------



## oldstinkyguy

I've been slacking a bit in posting lately, here's a few catch up photos. It's looking like it's going to be a pretty swell spring....


----------



## oldstinkyguy




----------



## oldstinkyguy

With the river up and the color of chocolate milk I found some spots where a bit of clear water enters. A whole bunch of stripey fish and a couple bonus green ones. On a clear with silver glitter curly shad on a 1/4 ounce jighead.


----------



## 9Left

Nice ones stinky!


----------



## fishin.accomplished

You always amaze


----------



## oldstinkyguy

The wade of a lifetime, two smallies/39.5 inches!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Fishing a creek about 3/4 of a mile up from where it runs into one of the rivers that feed the Ohio River here in Southern Ohio. The first fish hit in really heavy current and the rod just bent double and she bulldogged it for a while. I was certain she was a good channel or shovelhead right up until she suddenly went airborne just about giving me a heart attack. I was sure she was going to get off as I could do little with her in the heavy current and couldn't follow but after a few heart in my throat moments I managed to land it.
The other fish was in a bathtub sized hole right in the tail of a riffle and hit like a freight train and jumped three or four times, once end over end. I measured on at a bit under 19.5 and the other at a bit over 20 conservatively and as fat as any Ohio stream fish I've ever seen. If anything the pictures don't do justice to the guts on these fat girls. I'd say it's the second heaviest Ohio smallie I've ever caught in 40 years of doing this pretty hard. Yeah the tapes not pulled tight in the pic but you can see she's hanging over the 20 mark on each end with her mouth open and without the tail pinched. She was flopping a bit and that was as good a pic as I was willing to take and still get her back in the water as fast as possible. I also caught three smallies in the 14 to 15 inch range. Everything on a clear with gold glitter grub in pretty stained water. What a trip. Life was never better for an old river rat.


----------



## 9Left

OUTSTANDING Mr. Coomer!!! have really enjoyed all of your pics and posts over the years… The pic of you holding the big one is my favorite , just LOOK at the belly on that honker!

... the grub strikes again!


----------



## ML1187

What a beast sir. Well done. Some HUGE smallies posted here lately !!!


----------



## garhtr

WOW ! What more can ya say ??
Good luck and Good Fishing !


----------



## Dizzy

I rarely post so I just wanted to say I would be really bummed out if you quit updating this thread. Thanks for the effort you put into it. It always puts a smile on my face.


----------



## oldstinkyguy

Thanks that means a lot. I appreciate it.


----------



## BuzzBait Brad

Incredible


----------



## FishermanMike

Oh dear....


----------



## BaitWaster

Good lord those are some bronze specimens! Congratulations OSG!


----------



## oldstinkyguy

Out of the creek and back in the river today. Still throwing the clear with gold flake grub though. This girl hit in a tiny eddy right inside an otherwise raging riffle. What a cool fish, with a great paint job and bigger around than she was long I think.


----------



## SMBHooker

Those are some river donkeys!!!!!! OSG what u do with a grub is amazing...I'm darn sure of it that you could wrestle full grown sharks with them grubs. 

To truly know how rare those fish in that class are in our rivers is to know truly how infrequent their encounters will be. The time it takes to catch and release unharmed is to short enough to fully enjoy. Great pix.


----------



## garhtr

SMBHooker said:


> Those are some river donkeys!!!!!! OSG what u do with a grub is amazing...
> To truly know how rare those fish in that class are in our rivers . Great pix.


 I'm beginning to suspect witch craft or worse-- voodoo. ! Nobody can catch that many big fish without help.
He has been know to haunt the river at night- alone- sometimes under a full moon-- makes me wonder.
Great catches and pics !
Good luck and Good Fishing !


----------



## oldstinkyguy

garhtr said:


> I'm beginning to suspect witch craft or worse-- voodoo. ! Nobody can catch that many big fish without help.
> He has been know to haunt the river at night- alone- sometimes under a full moon-- makes me wonder.
> Great catches and pics !
> Good luck and Good Fishing !


I just fish way way way too much mostly... 
I don't even think I'm much more than average with a rod n reel. No hand eye coordination, short, fat, old. But for a long time now I try to make every third or fourth trip to somewhere I've never fished. So I simply have a big list of pretty good spots to go to after all these years. It's kinda like deer hunting if you have enough different trees to get up the hunting is usually always good somewhere. 
Deer hunting, mushroom hunting, ginseng hunting, fishing, anything outdoors being in the right spot is ninety percent of it.


----------



## oldstinkyguy

It's a pretty sweet deal actually. I put the yak in and float about a mile down down the river. It's a long slow stretch and pretty easy to paddle back up afterward so there is no need for a car shuttle. About two miles down a creek hits the river. But I don't float all the way down to there. I've learned over the years if I stop about halfway down and hide the yak in the bushes a short five minute walk will have me hitting the creek about 3/4 or a mile up from it's mouth. Right in it's sweet spot. My spot. Where I've never seen a bait container or a piece of fishing line, only deer and beaver and the occasional wild turkey. I try not to overfish it so that all summer when I really need to feel a nice fish on the line I know I can come here and have a good chance at one.I'ts a little creek, just an easy short cast across and in most riffles you can cross in just a pair of rubber boots. But here there are three or four deep runs where you could get very wet if you weren't careful. At the first two gravel bars stretch all the way across the creek like mini low head dams with nice pockets of deep water below them and swift chest deep runs feeding into the holes. 

At the Columbus Fishing Expo Vic had a bunch of sweet 1/4 ounce willow leaf spinner baits for sale and I'd nabbed a couple. One of the perks of being cheap help is that you do get to sample the product. Willow leaf spinnerbaits are perfect for current and track thru it where a colorado blade won't. And these spots screamed spinnerbaits. Sure enough at both I caught a dandy smallie right where the fast and slow water meets and lost another big enough to elicit a bit of light cursing. In a creek this size these are mostly one fish spots with a nice smallie tailwalking across the little pools spooking things for a while. The next hole is different. The current is all shunted over against one bank and there is a long deep run right along the bank. One step off the bank and you would be in over your head. And the bank is covered in rock and twisted sycamore roots. I pitched a clear with gold grub out and let it sink deep and drift along as close to bank as I could I get it. (it's been the color of choice all week) Bam! the fish dart out from the rocks and twisted roots and caverns under the water and just hammer the jig. Here in the deeper water catching one doesn't scare the others and I catch a half dozen smallies from ten to fifteen inches. Not as big as the other fish but more of them. Also here and at the next two riffles I start picking up a few white bass and small hybrids starting their spring run. It's been swell fishing all week and the kind of spring time fishing we dream about but don't get every year, get out and enjoy this one if you can.


----------



## garhtr

Looks like you have some great secret spots, cherish those. The lonely places seem to be getting harder and harder to find. I find myself fishing smaller waters yearly or Fishing at night to avoid the crowds and piles of trash left behind, kinda sad.
Nice Fish and Good luck and Good Fishing !


----------



## oldstinkyguy

Yep the white bass run has begun...
Find any creek, river, or stream running out of the Ohio river and odds are there are some white bass running up it today.


----------



## oldstinkyguy

Another day of chasing trash fish. Caught a couple good ones and several smaller guys on curly shads.


----------



## FishermanMike

Fiddleheads, Trilliums, and Mayapples, oh my! Some more nice fish. Spring is certainly moving right along


----------



## garhtr

oldstinkyguy said:


> Another day of * trash fish.*
> View attachment 234910
> View attachment 234911


 Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and one man's trash is another man's treasure.
Nice ones. Pretty lines on that fish
Good luck and Good Fishing !


----------



## oldstinkyguy

Today explored the Ohio River right thru downtown Cincy. Caught a few stripes and in an eddy behind a barge caught what has to be the grossest catch in four decades of fishing...


----------



## DLarrick

OSG....master fish slayer and still uses protection. 

that is pretty nasty though. ill call that a lost bait.


----------



## BMayhall

You are suppose to use this type of rubber for hook protection.


----------



## BMayhall

But that is pretty gross.


----------



## garhtr

After seeing that it's gonna be at least a week before I work up the nerve to wet Wade 
Good luck and Good Fishing !


----------



## BuzzBait Brad

oldstinkyguy said:


> Today explored the Ohio River right thru downtown Cincy. Caught a few stripes and in an eddy behind a barge caught what has to be the grossest catch in four decades of fishing...
> View attachment 234978


Someone tell whoever that was that you're not supposed to spawn with the fish!


----------



## oldstinkyguy

So why do I do this? I'm asked that a lot. Why do you fish? And why so daggone much? Never mind that those that are asking have probably spent more time watching television than I have fishing this week. 
The answer is pretty simple really. (in a complicated sort of way) People watch movies or TV or follow a sports team to get away from life for a while. To forget about their lousy job or bills or their horrid spouse. Not me, I'm not out there trying to get away from life. Out there is where I am most alive, where I am free to be completely me.
If you fish a lot you find you don't get away from life at all. Instead you get it under your fingernails, smeared all over your tee shirt and baked into your skull. You even smell it on yourself sometimes when you get back home. Doing something genuine like fishing is reality, all the stuff we do in our "real" lives is absurd when you really think about it. 
For me the ultimate, the very best kind of fishing trip is the overnighter, or week long one for that matter. Where, tired from fishing all day, I can sit by the fire. Possibly hear the hoot of a barred owl or just the soft music of the wind in the treetops up on the ridge. Watch the sun set or rise and experience time the way you are supposed to, the way a deer in the woods does. Not the artificial, contrived, fake time we have created to get us to work and back in time to see our favorite TV program. But instead real time where things unfold at just the rate they are supposed to. You cannot make the evening rise on a trout stream happen any earlier. You cannot make the topwater bite on your smallmouth river not end with the coming of the heat of the day. Out here in the "real" real world things happen according to their own rhythm and there's not a damn thing you can do about it. Thank goodness for Einstein and his showing us that time is not absolute and inflexible.
People talk of the beauty of nature and I have seen great beauty while out fishing, thundering waterfalls, tiny mountain streams, first light coming thru the trees, brook trout seemingly painted by the hand of God. Things so beautiful they almost bring tears to your eyes and are beyond mere words. But I've also gotten stuck in the mud, rained on, snowed on, baked by the sun and nearly hit by lightning or washed away in flash floods. I've fished behind factories, under highway overpasses and in bad neighborhoods. I've cut myself, hooked myself, fallen, had my eyes nearly put out by sticks and nearly bashed my brains out. But all of that, the good and the bad, all of the things listed above and ten thousand other things I would never have experienced sitting on the couch. 
I think some people have to do certain things. They have to paint, or hunt to feel alive. There are runners who have to run. They would run even if it weren't good for them, even if they could never race. It's just a part of who they are. It's like that with me and fishing, without it I wouldn't be whole. I could never be completely me. 
I sometimes get to the grocery store and forget what I came for or where the car is parked. But I can name you every creek or river within a hundred miles of my house and probably half of those within three hundred. And give you a pretty good run down on how their individual food chains differ. I fish for the same reason I breathe. I cannot help it, it's just who I am. A fisherman.


----------



## 9Left

Thats a nice ,well written and sincere post Mr. stinky.... but the image of a condom at the end of your fishing line is still pretty much seared into everyone's brains ....


----------



## MoeFishin

It can't be unseen!


----------



## oldstinkyguy




----------



## garhtr

I bet that was a Fun Day !
Those are some Fatty's.
Good luck and Good Fishing !


----------



## oldstinkyguy

Tonight Chris and I couldn't buy a hybrid or a white bass to save our lives. We did manage to land these guys while we were trying tho...


----------



## deltaoscar

Nice fish mister...but you foul hooked that rubber.


----------



## Cat Mangler

Way to go Chris and Steve! Can't wit to scratch a paddle off the list, and see these beasts up close! Thanks for some great fish porn!


----------



## MDBuckeye

Those paddle fish are amazing looking. I would love to catch one some day. Great post last Thursday and pictures throughout this thread.


----------



## oldstinkyguy

deltaoscar said:


> Nice fish mister...but you foul hooked that rubber.


If u would ever answer your text we would go fishin.....BTW caught a nice hybrid at the place whose name cannot be spoken the other day. Thinking of going friday if the creek don't rise too much


----------



## BuzzBait Brad

MDBuckeye said:


> Those paddle fish are amazing looking. I would love to catch one some day. Great post last Thursday and pictures throughout this thread.


Same here! Paddlefish is on the bucket list. I love how they look so prehistoric.


----------



## oldstinkyguy

Waded a little creek this evening and caught one smallmouth after another. There was just one problem, out of at least forty fish not one topped the 15 inch mark and most were about ten. That is until I caught the crappie! Considering he came out of a little creek and not a lake I think he's a swell fish. There was a deep run about shoulder deep and when I walked up there were little minnows skittering on top like something was after them. I threw in a clear with silver curly shad and caught two ten inch smallies and the crappie out of the same three foot section of the run where it swept against a big rock.


----------



## 9Left

Nice slab stinky! Always a nice suprise to catch a big crappie from the river.


----------



## Eatsleepfish

Steve, You've been getting some very nice quality fish this spring! I gotta say, you must be rubbing off on Chris because now he too catches big fish without a hint of a smile on his face lol


----------



## Cat Mangler

Eatsleepfish said:


> Steve, You've been getting some very nice quality fish this spring! I gotta say, you must be rubbing off on Chris because now he too catches big fish without a hint of a smile on his face lol


It's like I told ya on Facebook earlier, most guys know you for your ability to catch some very large fish, but my admiration comes mostly from your knack for getting some very beautiful specimens in all species! This one is definitely proof of my claims!


----------



## oldstinkyguy

I'm just so ugly they look pretty by comparison


----------



## oldstinkyguy

The fish of a lifetime...







So southern Ohio rivers aren't exactly a mecca for smallmouth anglers. Nobody travels from four states away to fish them like people do rivers in other states. Heck what we do here in southern Ohio is go to the New, or the James or the Susquehanna. Or we go to Lake St Clair or Erie or the BWCA. We have some great fishing here don't get me wrong, it's just not exactly trophy fishing. But it's home so I fish our rivers a lot. Like 150 to 200 days a year. Every year. And just about my favorite river is the Little Miami. Now the Little Miami isn't even the best trophy smallmouth stream in southern Ohio. I can think of at least three that you probably have a better chance of catching that 20 incher in than the LMR. But I grew up on the LMR, I like to think I know it better than anyone. And over the years I've caught a few 20 inchers out of the LMR. If you fish anywhere long enough you are bound to luck into an exceptional fish every now and then. I just wasn't prepared for tonight's fish. 
I actually started out taking the yak to the GMR. And I lost a pig. No drama, no nothing, not even a jump, it just came off. Well it started storming and I didn't want to be on the river in a yak in a bad storm. And I had to be on the other side of town later on so I quit. But that fish ate at me the way only losing a big fish can. And I found myself on the LMR trying to get in a bit of fishing before another storm hit and darkness fell. It's actually an easy spot to get to. But it doesn't look fishy and no one fishes it. But years ago I found out there are some big chunks of concrete at the bottom of this very fast run. I chucked out a pearl with green back curly shad on a 1/4 ounce jighead because the water is fairly swift. Whack! And the fish took off like a big hybrid with the drag screaming. I raised the rod high to clear a big rock which the fish passed at about mach 2 and the fish was in the pool. No jumps just fast hard runs and in a few minutes I landed the fish uneventfully. Oh my goodness. probably 3/4's of an inch longer than any LMR smallie I've ever caught in thirty plus years of fishing the LMR. The fishing god's work in mysterious ways, If I hadn't lost that fish on the Great Miami there is no way I would have fished the Little Miami tonight.


----------



## 9Left

Thats a biggun' fer sure man!


----------



## deltaoscar

You weren't kidding, that's a great smallie. Congrats.

When I heard storms were coming I figured you'd do well today...but damn.


----------



## oldstinkyguy

Sometimes you are rewarded for fishing when everything is all blown out and almost thick enough to walk on. . In an up and muddy Ohio River. Nothing like having a shovelhead longer than your leg nail a five inch clear with silver grub four feet off the bank. Lucky for the paddlefish I hooked it, it had a jigging spoon stuck firmly in its back where it had broken off someone else.


----------



## oldstinkyguy

Since the rivers are all a mess it seems like as good a time as any to do a little studying. Forgive the disjointed and hop scotch writing, Its more a collection of things I find interesting than a polished piece of writing...

In Japan the smallmouth bass has been described as the “world’s most disastrous invasive species” . Numerous methods to remove them have been considered, as their introduction is a major concern for the conservation of native biodiversity. Invasive bass constitute a “serious biohazard,” and several studies on biodiversity in Japan promote their eradication in Japan. Numerous studies have found that in lakes and streams anywhere smallmouth bass have been introduced they completely change the dynamics of baitfish populations within a few years.

A study done by the University of Wisconsin found that bass greatly prefer crayfish with smaller claws. And that crayfish with large claws were approached with much greater caution and often involved the bass circling the crayfish at length for some time trying to attack it from behind. And it was found that if the crayfish acted aggressively with the claws up defensive posture that we have all been trained to look for in our plastic imitations, the bass quite often just swam off and looked elsewhere for an easier meal. There are about a billion youtube videos out there of guys throwing crayfish into aquariums with bass. What does the bass do? He sucks it in, blows it out, then repeats as often as necessary till he either kills it or renders it helpless enough to eat. Three studies, one done on the New River in W VA and one done in central Ohio and one done on the Current and Jack's Fork in Missouri found that smallmouth bass targeted crayfish in the one to two inch range and the one done in Ohio found they preferred a crayfish that was 1 1/4 inches long over one that 1 1/2 inches long! And bigger smallmouth seem to be even more selective than smaller bass. In fact one study done in the Ozarks found that big smallmouth were even more likely to take a crayfish UNDER 1 1/4 inches long than other sized bass!

According to the study, Associations of turbidity and diet in smallmouth and spotted bass and creek chubs of the Scioto River, "it is possible that there may have been a switch to crayfish at high turbidity levels." But the same study quickly states that this is not conclusive but it is food for thought.
One study done on the Current River in Missouri I found very interesting. They first seined and measured the baitfish in the river The average size minnow in the river was between an inch and an inch anda half long. But the average size minnow eaten by smallmouth was three and a half inches long. It was felt that smallmouth preferred larger baitfish but didn't pass up an of the smaller ones they could catch.
And there is a study that was done on the Columbia River that I find really fascinating, especially for anyone interested in targeting larger smallmouth bass. In this study it was determined that for smallmouth less than 250 mm long crayfish were far and away the most important food item. But smallmouth in the 250 to 300 mm range ate more sculpin (up to half of their diet) than any other food item and that smallmouth over 300 mm ate more suckers (52%) than any other food item.
So what can we conclude from all that? To me it means a couple things. There is a reason that tubes and rebel craws are standard smallmouth bass lures, they imitate small crayfish that smallmouth bass love. Don't use that big plastic texas rigged craw with the huge claws on it. I don't care if you caught a five pounder on it twelve years ago. If I fished a piece of an old sock on a jighead long enough I might catch a monster, that doesn't mean it's the best thing to use. If you do use one of those big plastic craws you just might be selecting for smaller smallmouth bass as well since the bigger bass are the ones most likely to eat a craw smaller than 1 1/4 inches long. And I feel these validate something I've felt in my gut after 40 years of river fishing, that grubs and swimbaits will catch you bigger smallmouth year in and year out in rivers than tubes will. And on the whole I think river fishermen use crayfish baits that are way too big and minnow baits that are way too small. If you are trying to catch a big one that is.

And here are a couple things I gleaned from the amazing book Lunker! by Bob Underwood. Bob was an accomplished diver, photographer and avid fisherman. He conducted tons of experiments on bass and observed the results both by diving and thru the use of large aquariums. Some things I found interesting...
Bass caught out of a school that were released unharmed quickly rejoined the school. Those bass were sometimes re-caught. But bass that were injured and were bleeding were not accepted back into the school and the entire school would swim away to avoid them. As long as bass were released unharmed the bass would often continue to bite. But if a bass was injured to the point that it's skin was broken the entire school would shut down and not bite. Oddly enough something like a puncture wound inside the mouth didn't affect the fishing unless the fish was injured to the point of bleeding. He felt injured bass released some kind of scent that alerted other bass of danger. He then conducted experiments of baitfish and found that the same thing held true for other fish species as well. Maybe it isn't so much a case of replacing a bait with a livelier one as it is replacing it with one giving off a new and stronger "danger" scent. He also removed a tiny bit of skin off of the back of a bass and hooked it on the treble of a plug. That scared the heck out of bass and they avoided the lure drastically.

According to the In-Fisherman book Smallmouth Bass most of the time unless the fish is extremely thin or full of eggs you can get a really close estimate of the fishes weight by multiplying length x length x length and then dividing by 1600. For example 18 x 18 x 18 = 5832. 5832 divided by 1600 = 3.6 pounds or 3 lbs ten ounces. which makes your average 20 incher right at five pounds. No idea if it works for largemouth but i'd think it would be slightly different.

Smallmouth bass have been introduced to Africa, Europe and Russia, as well as both east and west across Canada. The initial expansion of smallmouth bass range took place in the mid-1800s, to central New York State through the Erie Canal, then across the United States as far as California. They were introduced into California in 1874 and transplanted into the New England states in the late 1800s. Smallmouth bass are now found in all states except Florida, Louisiana and Alaska.

High water and smallmouth bass....
During wintertime flooding one study found that smaller smallmouth bass were often killed but that wintertime flooding did not seem to affect the population of larger smallmouth bass. And another study found that early springtime flooding before the spawn actually seemed to improve that years success in spawning. (possibly by washing away silt?) But of course major flooding right in the middle of the spawn was a disaster.
Up to 20 percent of adult smallmouth bass do not spawn during any given year. It was found in one study that these fish do not begin develop eggs and that whether or not they will spawn seems to be predetermined sometime the year before though scientists are not sure how this process takes place. For me that means I just go on fishing like I always do and avoid the moral dilemma of chasing spawning bass. During any given year up to 40% of all smallmouth bass nests fail but a successful nest may ultimately produce about 2,000 fry. Some bass repeatedly home to the same nesting site each year, and over 85% of these return to within 130 meters of where they nested in previous years.

Usain Bolt in a race ran nearly 28 miles per hour which is twice as fast as a smallmouth can swim. Smallmouth bass are not built for speed but instead for quick acceleration.

A 2001 survey by TWRA biologists reported the lengths of the smallmouth bass populations in Tennessee streams. Many of the populations surveyed had a low abundance of quality-size bass. The average proportional stock density was 34, meaning that only 34 percent of the stock length fish (over 7 inches) in the population were over 11 inches long. they also reported in 2001 on Dale Hollow there was an estimated 106,228 smallmouth caught and 12,227 kept.

In streams, smallmouth bass can live to be 15 years of age, and attain a maximum length of about 21 to 22 inches. The average stream smallmouth bass grows to 14 inches in length by age 6. Yep six years to get 14 inches.

And yeah we all know the world record smallie weighed eleven pounds fifteen ounces but the most amazing part to me is that the fish was twenty seven inches long. Imagine a twenty seven inch smallmouth.


----------



## chris1162

This has to be one of the best threads on ogf. Thank you!


----------



## 9Left

Hey, thanks for taking the time to post that stinky!


----------



## fishhawk1

Thank you for posting OSG. It was an enjoyable read.


----------



## SMBHooker

oldstinkyguy said:


> One study done on the Current River in Missouri I found very interesting. It was felt that smallmouth preferred larger baitfish but didn't pass up an of the smaller ones they could catch.
> 
> But smallmouth in the 250 to 300 mm range ate more sculpin (up to half of their diet) than any other food item and that smallmouth over 300 mm ate more suckers (52%) than any other food item.
> 
> And I feel these validate something I've felt in my gut after 40 years of river fishing, that grubs and swimbaits will catch you bigger smallmouth year in and year out in rivers than tubes will. * If you are trying to catch a big one that is.
> 
> *


*

• 5" C-Shad - check

• Double Willow Spinnerbait - check

• Big Paddletail - check 

• Large Topwater Plug - check 


Feeling good about my line up. 

Bring on the bigguns!!!!!!!*


----------



## Saugeyefisher

You are a wealth of info. Thank-You for all the reports/thoughts/articles/etc. You post up here for us to read. It is really apreciated....


----------



## oldstinkyguy

Being both an avid river rat and a hillbilly, when discussing lake fishing versus river fishing I'm reminded of the good old boy quote about about today's "pop" country.... "I'd rather hear a fat girl fart than a pretty boy sing"
Well a swollen and muddy Ohio river is pretty close to the fishing equivalent of a fat girl farting but at least it lets me put off for another day or two fishing still water. On a big half ounce jighead and a large curly shad fished in the eddy right below the dam


----------



## garhtr

Pretty amazing what a "River rat" will do to avoid fishing still water 
Nice job !
Good luck and Good Fishing.


----------



## SMBHooker

Unfortunately I still cannot view pix.

But I have formed a perfect picture in my mind that I am sure is quite close to what this OSG river pic looks like:

I see OSG is kneeling with one knee pressed in the mud and his other foot firmly flat on the ground with a cracked Luke Bryan CD underfoot in defiance of today’s country music. He has a ball cap on with a broken-in Brim bent just enough to increase shade and dirty enough to have visible sweat marks. Behind him the river is a dark in color and broiling in anger from so much rain – His face tho is opposite of the raging river background as he wears such a calm demeanor that even a crying baby would be soothed by his calm expression. In hand he is holding an LMR ghost – the most elusive of all fish that swim its waters…a giant native Muskie. He is holding it horizontal with one hand supporting near the end of it by its tail but with his left bare hand he holds it up gripping it by the mouth – giant teeth are poking out thru his fingers, not between them. Way out in the background of the photo in the midst of a cloudy sky a great Bald Eagle soars looking down on him in envy of OSGs catch.



---- just another normal day at the river for OSG.


----------



## SMBHooker

Double post - deleted


----------



## garhtr

SMBHooker said:


> Unfortunately I still cannot view pix.
> 
> But I have formed a perfect picture in my mind that I am sure is quite close . He has a ball cap on with a broken-in Brim bent just enough to increase shade and dirty enough to have visible sweat marks. Behind him the river is a dark in color and broiling in anger from so much rain – His face tho is opposite of the raging river background as he wears such a calm demeanor that even a crying baby would be soothed by his calm expression. He is holding it horizontal with one hand
> ---- just another normal day at the river for OSG.


 You're remarkable close ! Just replace the teeth with stripes .
Good luck and Good Fishing !


----------



## ajcurly

The s


oldstinkyguy said:


> Since the rivers are all a mess it seems like as good a time as any to do a little studying. Forgive the disjointed and hop scotch writing, Its more a collection of things I find interesting than a polished piece of writing...
> 
> In Japan the smallmouth bass has been described as the “world’s most disastrous invasive species” . Numerous methods to remove them have been considered, as their introduction is a major concern for the conservation of native biodiversity. Invasive bass constitute a “serious biohazard,” and several studies on biodiversity in Japan promote their eradication in Japan. Numerous studies have found that in lakes and streams anywhere smallmouth bass have been introduced they completely change the dynamics of baitfish populations within a few years.
> 
> A study done by the University of Wisconsin found that bass greatly prefer crayfish with smaller claws. And that crayfish with large claws were approached with much greater caution and often involved the bass circling the crayfish at length for some time trying to attack it from behind. And it was found that if the crayfish acted aggressively with the claws up defensive posture that we have all been trained to look for in our plastic imitations, the bass quite often just swam off and looked elsewhere for an easier meal. There are about a billion youtube videos out there of guys throwing crayfish into aquariums with bass. What does the bass do? He sucks it in, blows it out, then repeats as often as necessary till he either kills it or renders it helpless enough to eat. Three studies, one done on the New River in W VA and one done in central Ohio and one done on the Current and Jack's Fork in Missouri found that smallmouth bass targeted crayfish in the one to two inch range and the one done in Ohio found they preferred a crayfish that was 1 1/4 inches long over one that 1 1/2 inches long! And bigger smallmouth seem to be even more selective than smaller bass. In fact one study done in the Ozarks found that big smallmouth were even more likely to take a crayfish UNDER 1 1/4 inches long than other sized bass!
> 
> According to the study, Associations of turbidity and diet in smallmouth and spotted bass and creek chubs of the Scioto River, "it is possible that there may have been a switch to crayfish at high turbidity levels." But the same study quickly states that this is not conclusive but it is food for thought.
> One study done on the Current River in Missouri I found very interesting. They first seined and measured the baitfish in the river The average size minnow in the river was between an inch and an inch anda half long. But the average size minnow eaten by smallmouth was three and a half inches long. It was felt that smallmouth preferred larger baitfish but didn't pass up an of the smaller ones they could catch.
> And there is a study that was done on the Columbia River that I find really fascinating, especially for anyone interested in targeting larger smallmouth bass. In this study it was determined that for smallmouth less than 250 mm long crayfish were far and away the most important food item. But smallmouth in the 250 to 300 mm range ate more sculpin (up to half of their diet) than any other food item and that smallmouth over 300 mm ate more suckers (52%) than any other food item.
> So what can we conclude from all that? To me it means a couple things. There is a reason that tubes and rebel craws are standard smallmouth bass lures, they imitate small crayfish that smallmouth bass love. Don't use that big plastic texas rigged craw with the huge claws on it. I don't care if you caught a five pounder on it twelve years ago. If I fished a piece of an old sock on a jighead long enough I might catch a monster, that doesn't mean it's the best thing to use. If you do use one of those big plastic craws you just might be selecting for smaller smallmouth bass as well since the bigger bass are the ones most likely to eat a craw smaller than 1 1/4 inches long. And I feel these validate something I've felt in my gut after 40 years of river fishing, that grubs and swimbaits will catch you bigger smallmouth year in and year out in rivers than tubes will. And on the whole I think river fishermen use crayfish baits that are way too big and minnow baits that are way too small. If you are trying to catch a big one that is.
> 
> And here are a couple things I gleaned from the amazing book Lunker! by Bob Underwood. Bob was an accomplished diver, photographer and avid fisherman. He conducted tons of experiments on bass and observed the results both by diving and thru the use of large aquariums. Some things I found interesting...
> Bass caught out of a school that were released unharmed quickly rejoined the school. Those bass were sometimes re-caught. But bass that were injured and were bleeding were not accepted back into the school and the entire school would swim away to avoid them. As long as bass were released unharmed the bass would often continue to bite. But if a bass was injured to the point that it's skin was broken the entire school would shut down and not bite. Oddly enough something like a puncture wound inside the mouth didn't affect the fishing unless the fish was injured to the point of bleeding. He felt injured bass released some kind of scent that alerted other bass of danger. He then conducted experiments of baitfish and found that the same thing held true for other fish species as well. Maybe it isn't so much a case of replacing a bait with a livelier one as it is replacing it with one giving off a new and stronger "danger" scent. He also removed a tiny bit of skin off of the back of a bass and hooked it on the treble of a plug. That scared the heck out of bass and they avoided the lure drastically.
> 
> According to the In-Fisherman book Smallmouth Bass most of the time unless the fish is extremely thin or full of eggs you can get a really close estimate of the fishes weight by multiplying length x length x length and then dividing by 1600. For example 18 x 18 x 18 = 5832. 5832 divided by 1600 = 3.6 pounds or 3 lbs ten ounces. which makes your average 20 incher right at five pounds. No idea if it works for largemouth but i'd think it would be slightly different.
> 
> Smallmouth bass have been introduced to Africa, Europe and Russia, as well as both east and west across Canada. The initial expansion of smallmouth bass range took place in the mid-1800s, to central New York State through the Erie Canal, then across the United States as far as California. They were introduced into California in 1874 and transplanted into the New England states in the late 1800s. Smallmouth bass are now found in all states except Florida, Louisiana and Alaska.
> 
> High water and smallmouth bass....
> During wintertime flooding one study found that smaller smallmouth bass were often killed but that wintertime flooding did not seem to affect the population of larger smallmouth bass. And another study found that early springtime flooding before the spawn actually seemed to improve that years success in spawning. (possibly by washing away silt?) But of course major flooding right in the middle of the spawn was a disaster.
> Up to 20 percent of adult smallmouth bass do not spawn during any given year. It was found in one study that these fish do not begin develop eggs and that whether or not they will spawn seems to be predetermined sometime the year before though scientists are not sure how this process takes place. For me that means I just go on fishing like I always do and avoid the moral dilemma of chasing spawning bass. During any given year up to 40% of all smallmouth bass nests fail but a successful nest may ultimately produce about 2,000 fry. Some bass repeatedly home to the same nesting site each year, and over 85% of these return to within 130 meters of where they nested in previous years.
> 
> Usain Bolt in a race ran nearly 28 miles per hour which is twice as fast as a smallmouth can swim. Smallmouth bass are not built for speed but instead for quick acceleration.
> 
> A 2001 survey by TWRA biologists reported the lengths of the smallmouth bass populations in Tennessee streams. Many of the populations surveyed had a low abundance of quality-size bass. The average proportional stock density was 34, meaning that only 34 percent of the stock length fish (over 7 inches) in the population were over 11 inches long. they also reported in 2001 on Dale Hollow there was an estimated 106,228 smallmouth caught and 12,227 kept.
> 
> In streams, smallmouth bass can live to be 15 years of age, and attain a maximum length of about 21 to 22 inches. The average stream smallmouth bass grows to 14 inches in length by age 6. Yep six years to get 14 inches.
> 
> And yeah we all know the world record smallie weighed eleven pounds fifteen ounces but the most amazing part to me is that the fish was twenty seven inches long. Imagine a twenty seven inch smallmouth.[/QUOTE


----------



## ajcurly

The Smallmouth being invasive in Japan is very interesting. Because of americans hatred for carp I will be getting references to show all the carp haters. I intend to put together literature to show the misguided people, especially at Grand Lake. Every year they butcher the carp because they say that is the lakes problem and anyone with half a brain knows the problem is the depth and the lakes lack of wetlands to filter all the farmers runoff.


----------



## oldstinkyguy

So right before I headed out fishing this evening I poured the goo out of a can of sardines into a zip lock baggie and then dumped in a bunch of pearl glitter curly shads. No idea if that made a difference or not but I caught a sturgeon! The fish was hooked right on the outside of it's weird underslung mouth that looks like that of a stingray. A bit of googling after I got home showed that sturgeon are occasionally caught on lures once in a blue moon and that preferred baits are stinky oily minnows and fish so maybe the sardines did help. I was throwing the curly shad into a big eddy and letting it settle all the way to the bottom before reeling it slowly in. Which was just the ticket for a bunch of hybrid stripes. Nothing big but there was a whole bunch of them. A pretty cool nights fishing on the river.


----------



## 3 dog Ed

Wow I don't know what to say, never heard of a sturgeon in Ohio.


----------



## deltaoscar

oldstinkyguy said:


> I caught a sturgeon!


I like it a lot.


----------



## ML1187

Incredible


----------



## Aaron2012

[QUOTE="oldstinkyguy, post: 2320077, member: 22543"I caught a sturgeon! [/QUOTE]
Ok never heard of a sturgeon caught in ohio before. 

Ok stinky I think you need to head over to Ireland with some curly shads marinated in some haggis and catch Ol' Nessy.


----------



## 9Left

very nice osg... is that sturgeon a first for you?


----------



## oldstinkyguy

9Left said:


> very nice osg... is that sturgeon a first for you?


 yes and it got me thinking, I think now except for a blue sucker and maybe some other obscure endangered sucker or two I'm thinking I might have caught all the "fish" we have around here. (Not counting the minnow type stuff) It might be neat to sit down with a drink and a pen and paper and make a life list sometime.


----------



## garhtr

Nice catch, incredible !
How did that dinosaur fight ??
Good luck and Good Fishing !


----------



## zaraspook

oldstinkyguy said:


> So right before I headed out fishing this evening I poured the goo out of a can of sardines into a zip lock baggie and then dumped in a bunch of pearl glitter curly shads. No idea if that made a difference or not but I caught a sturgeon!


Verification of the adage......."as long as you have a line in the water, you never know what you might catch". Spock didn't quite say it this way, but "fish long and prosper".


----------



## 9Left

Yes... definitely would have a sit and make out a list of everything swimming in our Ohio waters.. that'd be pretty neat to read that post


----------



## Fisherman 3234

Looks like a Shovelnose Sturgeon....AWESOME JOB!!!


----------



## 9Left

oldstinkyguy said:


> yes and it got me thinking, I think now except for a blue sucker and maybe some other obscure endangered sucker or two I'm thinking I might have caught all the "fish" we have around here. (Not counting the minnow type stuff) It might be neat to sit down with a drink and a pen and paper and make a life list sometime.


... for some reason, i remember a picture of you with a blue sucker....?


----------



## oldstinkyguy

A fun day at a wildlife area pond. Must have caught at least 50 nice gills with quite a few being the big "cab over" ones. On a bead head nymph fished slowly. They sure are colored beautifully this time of year


----------



## 9Left

oh man....big 'gills.... thats gotta be one of my favorite fish to eat. last year i started scaling them and filleting them , keeping the skin on when i fry them... boy they sure are delicious that way... nice fish !


----------



## oldstinkyguy

The last few days in fishing...

SW Ohio rivers. A whole bunch of smallmouth but nobody really picture worthy. Numbers of small stripes during the day but the better hybrids seem to be biting after dark. In current during the day but up on shallow flats and eddies at night. On three inch grubs during the day and large curly shad at night. Two more shovelhead on a lure. I think that brings me to at least a dozen on a lure this year so far but that's mainly on the strength of three days in spring when I caught six. Caught three or four really nice drum and some smaller ones the last couple days on grubs and curly shads as well while chasing hybrids. I imagine if a person wanted to target them right now with crawlers they would really catch them.


----------



## Saugeyefisher

That last pic with the beat up hands,with moving water and rocks in the back ground tell it all! 
Looks like so much fun......


----------



## oldstinkyguy

29" and the fattest fish I've ever seen. The photos really doesn't do it justice...
What looked like shiners were skipping, then some skipjack joined in with them. Chucked out a big curly shad right in the middle of that. I'm about as happy as I've ever been with a fish. I've been trying for a jumbo hybrid for a long time now...


----------



## garhtr

BEAUTIFUL Fish ! Congratulations.
Good luck and Good Fishing !


----------



## 9Left

nice fish stinky...lol... it's getting a bit easy tho to figure out where you're at, and who's fishin with who..


----------



## BuzzBait Brad

That hybrid is awesome. I'd expect nothing less from you.


----------



## oldstinkyguy

9Left said:


> nice fish stinky...lol... it's getting a bit easy tho to figure out where you're at, and who your fishin with...


I've seen the pics "those guys" have been posting on fb. But i don't fish with them. I'm too old and don't dress well enough. Besides in another week or so the postspawn funk will be over the little streams will be down and I'll be back to doing what I do best.


----------



## 9Left

oldstinkyguy said:


> I've seen the pics "those guys" have been posting on fb. But i don't fish with them. I'm too old and don't dress well enough. Besides in another week or so the postspawn funk will be over the little streams will be down and I'll be back to doing what I do best.


lol... jes razzin ya a bit man...i dont and probly won't ever fish down that way.. but it's been fun figuring it out... and by the way.. i'm not a big fan of FB.. i just log on there to "like" posts from you and Quetico mike.


----------



## oldstinkyguy

BuzzBait Brad said:


> That hybrid is awesome.


 thank you


----------



## fallen513

Well you're certainly welcome to fish with "those guys" any time you want.  So is anybody else that likes to fish.


----------



## fallen513

Guys like OS G are the ones you should model yourself after. He doesn't chase reports, he creates them. Nice work Steve. Your dedication is admirable.


----------



## oldstinkyguy

I hope that didn't come across wrong. "Those guys" are the experts on stripey fish and know as much as anyone alive. I have nothing but respect for them and anyone who is that serious about what we do. I'm still going to say they dress awfully fancy tho


----------



## fallen513

Haha. I literally just put a button up on and I'm heading right back to where I know there are fish. Don't let the clothes fool ya, they still have skipjack guts on them from a week ago.


----------



## fallen513

And you're welcome to join. If you don't mind riding the lightning. Should be really good.


----------



## deltaoscar

oldstinkyguy said:


> 29" and the fattest fish I've ever seen


Sheesh...What's left to say...Awesome fish and well earned.


----------



## oldstinkyguy

Heads up to all you Southern Ohio river and stream fanatics, Massie Creek Gorge is a must see if you really want to understand our rivers and streams. Everything that makes our streams special all concentrated in one location. Glacial melt? check. Spectacular scenery? check. Compelling local history? check. Indian mounds and earthworks? Old mills? Jokulhlaups? Adena? End moraine? Check, check, check. Wait, a jokulhlaup? What's a jokulhlaups? One of those animals in a Dr Seus story? One of those bad taxidermy experiments using using rabbit and antelope parts? Nope, a jokulhlaup is the sudden, violent and short-lived increase in discharge of glacial meltwater. That's the cool part about lots of places in the Little Miami watershed like Massie Creek, or Glen Helen, or Clifton Gorge or Siebenthaler Fen, they expand your mind. You end up googling things you would have never in a million years looked up otherwise.
You see our geography is a little more involved than most. It isn't the typical water as rain forms little streams that cut their way down to form valleys and combine to form bigger streams the way we all think these things work.
Instead starting about 300,000 years ago, much of Ohio was covered several times by massive sheets of glacial ice that expanded from the north. The most recent advance of ice, the Wisconsinan, arrived from Canada about 24,000 years ago and lasted until about 14,000 years ago. Some of these were a mile thick! And these giant sheets of ice bulldozed everything in their path creating the flat cornfield country we see in the central part of the state. And as they melted and expanded things got a little wild. You have probably seen those ice caves and under the glacier streams on the Discovery Channel associated with modern glaciers? Picture those on a grand scale, and giant temporary lakes of dammed up water and huge floods when the ice dams broke. Giant rivers like the ancient Teays River were formed and then wiped back out again. That's why so many of our streams in southern Ohio seem backward, with the steep hillsides you normally see in the headwaters of streams in the lower portion of the stream and the flat country you normally see in the lower portion of stream in the headwaters. And connecting the two are places like Massie Creek gorge, Clifton Gorge, Fort Ancient gorge etc. And that's just in the Little Miami watershed they are found all over southern Ohio on streams like Rocky Fork, Paint Creek or in the spectacular scenery at Hocking Hills and on and on.
And it's not just geology that makes Massie Creek so interesting. There is the tall Williamson Mound, thought to be an Adena Mound built between 500 BC and 100 AD. It stands about 30' high and is 140' in diameter. Then there is the Pollock Works. The Pollock Works is a Hopewell culture (100 BC - AD 500) ceremonial center. It consists of a series of earthen embankments ranging from three to ten feet in height that partially enclose a large, 120-acre, plateau located along Massie Creek. AND...on top of the walls there is evidence that there was a wooden stockade built atop the walls. Maybe it was a bit of a fort as well? Th jury is still out a bit. It seems there was layer upon layer of Native American people using the site over thousands of years. And the history keeps coming. That big waterfall you see by the upper parking lot. Well look close in times of low water. Most of Cedar Cliff Falls is manmade though you would never know it. It was actually built to harness the creek to power several mills way back in the day. If you look closely there are signs of past mills and other remains of early settlers all along the trail following the creek. Also in three places on the day these photos were taken water just spouted from the dolomite cliffs that line the creek like water from garden hose from some of the multitude of springs in the area. Like I said a little bit of everything compressed into one spot. And the woods was filled with wildflowers in bloom. If you haven't been there and love the outdoors, Massie Creek Gorge is well worth spending some quality time at.


----------



## Rick's Tropical Delight

we used to jump off those falls and a from a tree above them back in the late 70's. we called it "Xenia Falls". we also used to go swimming at Sportsman Lake just to the east of there


----------



## oldstinkyguy

Spent a few days on the North Carolina side of the smokies with my friend Greg. I first heard of Greg thru a mutual friend who said "that guy's fishy". Which describes Greg perfectly. Whether it's catching tiny brook trout out a mountain creek, giant hybrid stripers out of the river or doing wacky stuff like developing a night time fly rod saugeye river pattern he just gets it done. I think while sitting around the fire and on the long drive we came up with the ideas for a half dozen future trips and brainstormed another half dozen out of the box fishing techniques. Definitely my kind of people.
If you have never gotten out of your car in GSMNP and walked far enough into the woods that you cant hear the road noise do it as soon as possible, it is absolutely one of the best places on earth. Like on any trip to the smokies it's not so much a matter of will I catch a fish, that's pretty much a given. Instead it's a question of how many and how big. Which in our case was a whole lot and not very. The smokies are such a special place though that it's the one place that at least for me the fishing is almost secondary, an excuse and a reason to spend a lot of time knee deep immersed in a world that's pretty much heaven on earth for a guy like me.


----------



## oldstinkyguy

Finally the local rivers are getting back into shape. Caught several smallmouth today on Vic's new toy, the underspin. You can fish it like a normal grub or swimbait but you can also use it as a searchbait. Chucking it out and bringing it in not unlike a conventional spinnerbait. Which was what I was doing today chucking and a winding covering ground and looking at an old favorite stretch of river I hadn't seen in a while


----------



## oldstinkyguy

So Rob and I set out to pretty much ruin Chris. The poor bastard seems to have a great life with a swell family and a good job. The last thing he needs is to be spending time on the river with misfits like Rob and I. But Chris's personal best hybrid was something like 19 inches. Now 19 inches is an okay smallmouth bass, a 19 inch hybrid you don't even even take a picture of. I think Rob had to pretty much pretend he didn't know him if they met out in public. For Rob, along with Greg and Seth is part of the trio of guys who pretty much are the kings of Ohio striper fishing. I might know a couple things about catching smallmouth bass but I'm a babe in the woods when it comes to stripers compared to these guys. So the goal was to get Chris a respectable hybrid striper. To that end Rob had brought a surf rod, a launcher rig and a spotting scope. This wasn't that spot everyone thinks of when launcher fishing in SW Ohio is mentioned. No...this puppy was WAY out there. I think Rob said 102 yards or maybe it was 120. It might as well have been 1200 yards as far as most people were concerned but not Rob. If you haven't met Rob, he is fast on his way to becoming a legend around here on the striper scene. Mention any hybrid spot within a reasonable drive of Cincinnati and chances are Rob has been there in the last week. And every striper fisherman you run into knows the guy. Anyways back to the story. So I'm just hanging out watching, Chris is on the rod and Rob is working the spotting scope. "Okay now let out two feet of line. now reel, reel, reel, let out a foot" All the while giving running commentary on what the fish are doing out there in that infectious excited way that only Rob can. "let out a little more line, a little more...SET THE HOOK!!!!" It was easily the most fun I've had in a long long time. If you thought listening to the Marty and the Cowboy doing the play by play on the Red's game is awesome wait till you hear Rob call a cast. Anyways I think we got the job done in getting Chris a hybrid, I just hope the guy isn't ruint....


----------



## oldstinkyguy

Somewhere in Southern Ohio this weekend....
The old jon boat I kept chained to a tree. I unlocked it and drug it the seventy yards or so down to the river and began to unload my stuff from the truck. Trolling motor and battery, food and water filter, two rods, a tarp, some nylon rope, a minnow seine, bucket, and the old pack with everything else stuffed inside. An hour later I was where I wanted to be. The jon boat beached on a rock bar, not a house in sight, the only sound that of the river. 
Camp was simple and quickly made, The tarp strung lean-to fashion between two trees, everything piled underneath and a pile of driftwood gathered from up and down the rock bar for the fire.
The river itself was up just a bit and off color. Not enough to be unfishable, just not perfect. I waded in and began fishing. Here the water isn't one of those stretches where you can just get in and wade all day. Instead there are three or four specific spots and you fish each slowly. Dissecting each completely with a variety of tactics before moving on to the next. But this was water that had produced in the past some very fine fish and was well worth the effort. The fishing was slow with the heat and the muddy water. I caught a few fish though, some small bass and a good channel cat that hammered a willow leaf spinnerbait. About an hour before dark a pretty good smallie thumped a four inch clear with gold flake grub. It was a fine fish, fat and pretty with a ragged tail. I don't know really how long, I quit measuring all but the very biggest fish a year or two ago. Does it really matter that a fish was 17" or 18"? Does it make it worth less than an 18" if it was 17"? I think I'm pretty close to leaving the tape measure at home for good, there's more to fishing for me than keeping score. After snapping a photo and releasing the fish I headed back to camp. I gathered the seine and bucket and headed up stream to a small channel behind an island. I seined a few shiners and two darters which I admired for a second before letting go. The shiners went into the bucket for the nights fishing. 
Behind the rock bar was an old overgrown tractor path leading back thru a grove of very big sycamores. Once I walked in a hundred yards or so you could hear high in a sycamore tree the cries of great blue heron chicks hollering to be fed. I imagine they are getting pretty big by now but I couldn't find them in the treetops without wading thru a sea of nettles to get below the rookery. I could see parents coming and going every now and then. A few more steps and I spooked a doe that had wandered out into the tractor path while I stood still watching the birds. She bounded off with her tail bright in the darkening woods. I headed back to the river. 
I threw out a shiner on one rod. The bail open with a small flat pebble on the line to keep it from coming off the spool but a fish could yank free. 
Back at camp, I filtered water into a bottle and started the fire. It was a fine night. Across the river thousands of lighting bugs began flashing on and off. It was more fireflies than I've ever seen. I wandered down to the waters edge and sat on a log. It looked like to entire opposite river bank was covered in Christmas lights flashing on and off. I sat for a long time just watching and listening to the river. Finally I wandered back to camp in the dark and dug out my headlamp by the glow of the dying fire. 
I walked down to find a decent channel had taken the bait. I unhooked the fish and carried it back up to the rock bar to clean it. I sprinkled the fillets with some pepper and spices from a zip lock bag and wrapped them in heavy duty aluminum foil. Cooked over the coals from the fire it made a grand feast. I caught and released several more channels thru the night.
The next morning I fished for a couple hours till the sun got above the trees and the heat began to set in again. I caught a few more smaller bass and a small shovelhead on the gold grub. All in all it was a fine trip.


----------



## oldstinkyguy

I've been fishing a lot actually. So much that I'm a bit behind on posting. Mostly smallie fishing with a hybrid trip mixed in. I'm in a tiny bit of a slump for the two best fish of the last week have both gotten off. A hybrid that felt much nicer than the one in the photo that I never saw and an absolute giant of a smallmouth that came off right at my feet. No coming off on a grand leap or anything. The thing was just about whipped and the hook just popped out. Simple as that. I'm going to be pretty sore about that for a while. The smallies have been biting very well on three inch grubs, square bill crankbaits and curly shads. I'm still learning the ropes on this hybrid thing being a lifelong smallmouth guy. I'm not used to not fishing well but I find myself doing it over and over while hybrid fishing. But I'm making progress. I'm starting to fell pretty comfortable in the tribs but the Ohio is taking a lot of learning. And heaven help any one around if I try to cast one of those launcher rigs, I'm a menace with one. At least it's an excuse to get more tackle. I got a seven foot Fenwick with a Pflueger Arbor for most hybrid fishing and I guess I'll break down and get a launcher rod eventually. I also caught three shovelhead in the last three days, two today. All three were on a curly shad fished on a 1/4 ounce jighead fished for smallmouth. The two bigger shovels were both pretty skinned up from being in the rocks. I'm always amazed at the injuries flatheads inflict on themselves this time of year.


----------



## 9Left

Love the mountain stream photos!


----------



## SMBHooker

Nothing like camping the river. 

I've seen quite a bit of deer real up close last few trips solo yaking the river. So cool when they walk right out of the brush into the river right next to you and they don't notice because you're silent paddling has become part of the river. Best was watching two-spotted fawns together on the riverbank.


----------



## oldstinkyguy

It's been a while, but the fishing's been okay...


----------



## oldstinkyguy




----------



## oldstinkyguy




----------



## fishing on credit

Wow just wow. I'd be happy catching an equal number of 13 inch fish than you do 17's all upper lmr or any gmr thrown in?


----------



## garhtr

That's a nice collection of fish, congrats ! 
I sure miss the stories that go along with those beauty's, any overnighters ?
Good luck and Good Fishing !


----------



## oldstinkyguy

September and early October the river fishing is all about location. Or as the real estate people say it's closer to location, location, location. Early fall, while the water is still hot you want to find the fastest most oxygenated water you can find in the streams you fish. I fished two days with a guy that has read everything I've ever put out there. I caught a couple 18's out of water so shallow and so fast he commented that even though I always said fast and shallow, he still wouldn't have imagined anyone fishing where those two fish came from. You have to remember it only takes a spot 20 inches long to shelter a big smallmouth from the current. And sometimes not even that. Do a bit of research on things like boundary layers that form on walls like bridge abutments, glance structures below dams, entries and exits to pipes under roads in small streams or google how fish swim in a Kármán vortex street that forms below boulders, rubble, and bridge pilings and you will find out that fish can and will hold in areas that are overlooked and even passed over by the majority of fishermen. And in fall these are often the very best places you can fish, holding the majority of the really big fish in the river. A couple weeks after fishing with the first fisherman I ran into another fisherman I knew on the river. As we talked he walked right up to a spot where I've caught some big fish in the past. But when I say he walked right up to the spot I mean he walked right up to it, like two feet from where the fish lay, hidden under a bit of raging whitewater. An hour later I came back and hooked a 19 incher a couple feet from where we had stood earlier and a week after that caught one over 20 from the exact same spot. Both of these gentlemen are fine fishermen that understand all the basics of reading water and understand things like eddies and riffles and seams. But from September all through the rest of the year the key to catching big fish is finding the spot on the spot. Sometimes it's very tiny. In rivers I'm a firm believer in the best fish takes the best spot. Around the time of the autumnal equinox the focus shifts from the fastest, best spot in the entire river to finding the fastest, best spot that's reasonably close to a wintering hole. Fish hard, Fish hard. Right now till the river falls below fifty degrees is the best chance you will have to catch that 20 incher you have been dreaming about. Just don't hit the river and blindly cruise along casting here and there like the rest of the year. Instead do some reading on fall smallmouth and while you are out there try to imagine just what's going on down there under that jumble of whitewater. Every bit of river is unique from every other bit of river, heck they are even unique themselves from day to day. It's not easy and there are no hard and fast rules but even the tiniest bits of knowledge add up over time and it does get easier every year, I promise you that. Anyways here's a bit of fish porn/fish ohio's from the beginning of September till now.


----------



## oldstinkyguy




----------



## oldstinkyguy




----------



## oldstinkyguy




----------



## garhtr

Nice bunch of fishes, Interesting and helpful info, thanks for taking the time to share.
Good luck and Good Fishing !


----------



## ML1187

It's not fall until a fall smallie fishing post shows up from you ! Nice ones


----------



## 9Left

Ahhhh..... the headlamp pics are back... nice!


----------

