# Much Fabled, Highly Elusive. WWR 9/11



## co-angler (Jan 3, 2010)

Bzzzz, bzzzz
My phone alerts me to a new text. 

GarrettMeyers: you free to fish this week?
Me: maybe Wed.

We firm up plans and as it turns out, I was in fact able to hook up with GM and hit the Whitewater for some smallie action.
Now, I could wax poetic about water, woods and the like but it was really a pretty basic day on the water with one big exception....
---------------------------------
GM and I parked our rigs at a friend of mines property and walked a short path down to the green waters of the beautiful Whitewater River. The warm overnight low temps were climbing along with the sun. No sooner had we crossed a large rocky beach and stood at the waters edge, I looked downstream and pointed out to GM a matured bald eagle perched high above the water.
Upstream is where we were headed. A riffle I have long called the "Tom &Jerry Riffle"
This is a great riffle. A cast wide, moderate current, a mixed bag of stone, sand, ledges, timber and grass. 
Basically it's the centerfold in the current issue of your favorite smallmouth river girly magazine.....
I give GM the "lay of the land" as it were and we take to casting.
It's funny how a guys like GM, whom I know for a fact has never been to the WWR can quickly evaluate the water, how it flows and breaks in its current and attack it by applying tact and knowledge gathered from time on other streams and waterways. 
I'm using my staple brown and orange craw crank bait. Fully aware of the dangers of hanging up in the chunky structure within the riffle, I carefully pull the plastic bait along. At one point the lure gets hung up on consecutive casts so I called an audible and changed over to a shad presentation crank that runs very shallow.
By this point, as guys will do, we began chatting a bit or like a cop friend of ours says, "smokin and jokin" and the fishing went into auto pilot.
I cast into a slack water area behind a small exposed pile of rocks. From there the crank bounced off of some shallow rock before the current swept the small crank over the transition area where the shallow stone ended and dropped into some 5 ft of water. 
Still cranking, my bait feels like it gets wrapped up in some stone and stops. I pulled in the slack.
At this moment, from out of the swift current launches a long smallmouth!
The following has been edited as their might be women and children about...
"Holy shirts"!
"Punk me, you gotta be punkin me"!
GM heard me and later stated that he thought I had hurt my foot or something but soon sees my rod bent and me being really excited.
I am now begging for this girl to stay buttoned up aloud.
Thankfully the fight was short as I was terrified this girl would shake free but quickly was laying on her side on the sand.
I stood over the fish speaking at a near mumble as GM came and joined me. I looked at him and said," did I just catch a 20 inch smallmouth, dude I just caught a punking 20 inch smallmouth?!
Garrett said something like, "Dude, I think you did".
I quickly got to work removing the trebles from the hoss' mouth as GM retrieved his tape measure from his bag. 
We laid her on the ground, ran the tape the length of her body.
I was pleased to have GM with me as an official measurer. 
He triple checked the tip of the mouth and confirmed he was accurately pulled to the tip of the fanned tail 

Me: it's not 20 is it?
GM: pinch the tail!
Me: dammit, it's not 20!
Me: let me stomp on her!
Me: here I have some pliers, you hold one end and I'll pull
GM: 19 and......3/4s
Wow! What a fish!







GM congratulates me. We admire the fat thing, take some pics of her and myself then walk her back to the river to get her breathing again. I noticed during all of this that there was a BIG shad tail sticking out of her throat. 







She could not have swallowed this new catch even if she wanted to! 
GM snapped off one more pic :







I then released her and she kind of hung around a few more seconds and then slowly swam away.

The rest of the outing was only so-so. I tied on a I tube and started targeting some lay downs. On our walk back I snagged my deeper running craw crank on something near the end of a long riffle. Refusing to lose the crank, I waded into the waist deep water and pulled up on what was hooked to my crank. It turned out to be a tent that washed downstream from God knows where and it weighed a bunch! Once back on shore, I noticed that the tent still had an occupant. A healthy 3.5" craw dad! I dug out my phone and snapped off a few pics of some side by side comparisons with the tube I had tied on and had been tossing all morning....







A spot on imitation if I do say so myself.
We hoofed it back to our rigs. We hit the better looking riffles along the way but only caught a few small fish. 
GM again congratulated me on a great fish, my best this year!
We said our fairly wells and climbed up into our trucks and made our way back to civilization.
Civilization sucks......





Posted using Outdoor Hub Campfire


----------



## fischa (May 26, 2011)

That is an amazing smallie! Congrats!


----------



## co-angler (Jan 3, 2010)

Another look









Posted using Outdoor Hub Campfire


----------



## gibson330usa (May 15, 2012)

Nice fishing, nice report and nice photos of the fish and craw. Well done.


----------



## BMayhall (Jun 9, 2011)

thats a cool picture, looks like one you'd see in bassmaster


----------



## HOUSE (Apr 29, 2010)

Awesome fish, CO. That last picture of the tube and the craw was spot-on. Where are all of the pictures of Garrett's fish?


----------



## GarrettMyers (May 16, 2011)

Great fish man, thanks for leaving out the part about me fighting a giant foul hooked buffalo for 20 min thinking it was a hybrid. That was easily the biggest smallmouth I've ever seen. That fish that wasn't quite 20" somehow dwarfed other 20 inchers (term used loosely) I've seen posted on this site


----------



## GMR_Guy (Apr 10, 2004)

Beautiful smallie.


----------



## SMBHooker (Jan 3, 2008)

GarrettMyers said:


> GThat was easily the biggest smallmouth I've ever seen. That fish that wasn't quite 20" somehow dwarfed other 20 inchers (term used loosely) I've seen posted on this site


Every time I come up short under one inch I think the same thing. 20"ers are a fabled unicorn of the water to me, they must be an ever impressive beauty!




Posted using Outdoor Hub Campfire


----------



## SMBHooker (Jan 3, 2008)

CA,

Outstanding fish!!! Nice to see you hooked up with a big old lady of the river. 

Craw pic is excellent. 




Posted using Outdoor Hub Campfire


----------



## kingofamberley (Jul 11, 2012)

That is a trophy river smallmouth. Congratulations. I wonder how old she is.


----------



## HOUSE (Apr 29, 2010)

SMBHooker said:


> Every time I come up short under one inch I think the same thing. 20"ers are a fabled unicorn of the water to me, they must be an ever impressive beauty![/URL]


I blame Garrett and his ruler. My ruler would have gotten a good 21 inches out of that thing! Did you guys try squeezing it between the ears and pulling on it's tail while rubbing its belly at the same time?


----------



## Tom 513 (Nov 26, 2012)

Beauty, nice report also. I fished there Sunday and through every thing but the kitchen sink and could only muster a few dinkies, nice to see what the crawdads are looking like this time of year, I looked for some hilgramites Sunday but couldnt find them either. Again thats a whopper for the wwr.


----------



## deltaoscar (Apr 4, 2009)

Awesome. That is a beautiful fish co-angler in both size and coloration. You are on fire lately.

posted using Outdoor Hub Campfire


----------



## yakfish (Mar 13, 2005)

great post and congrats on the catch!


----------



## Bazzin05 (Feb 2, 2011)

Congrats on the catch! 

I was on that river yesterday afternoon and had one that was in the same class mine was only 19.5". You got me by a .25".


----------



## fischa (May 26, 2011)

GarrettMyers said:


> Great fish man, thanks for leaving out the part about me fighting a giant foul hooked buffalo for 20 min thinking it was a hybrid. That was easily the biggest smallmouth I've ever seen. That fish that wasn't quite 20" somehow dwarfed other 20 inchers (term used loosely) I've seen posted on this site



Love it!!!


----------



## Matulemj (May 29, 2012)

GarrettMyers said:


> Great fish man, thanks for leaving out the part about me fighting a giant foul hooked buffalo for 20 min thinking it was a hybrid. That was easily the biggest smallmouth I've ever seen. That fish that wasn't quite 20" somehow dwarfed other 20 inchers (term used loosely) I've seen posted on this site


So true. If others would've posted this fish, it would've been a state record.

Nice fish.


----------



## GarrettMyers (May 16, 2011)

HOUSE said:


> Where are all of the pictures of Garrett's fish?


I exclusively fish for buffalo now. I was afraid people would find all my hotspots.


----------



## FLIPNPITCH (Apr 15, 2009)

Nice fish!!! Nice read and nice photos! congrats.


----------



## Crawdude (Feb 6, 2013)

Amazing fish! The crawdad pic steals the show for me! I get the tube thing but that is an uncanny match to the natural!


Posted using Outdoor Hub Campfire


----------



## oldstinkyguy (Mar 28, 2010)

Co-angler you are a fine fisherman and a superb storyteller. Congrats on a wonderful fish


----------



## co-angler (Jan 3, 2010)

Hey thanks all. The passion we possess as anglers really shows within this ( the finest of) forum(s).
It's about to get serious out there on the water. 
I am of the opinion that with the kind of strange summer we've had that the fall will be legen - wait for it and I hope you are not lactose intolerant because the rest of the word is - dary!
Good luck to us all. 
I can't wait to see the big pigs pics!
You gots to love the fat girls!!!


Posted using Outdoor Hub Campfire


----------



## 9Left (Jun 23, 2012)

CO and GM...you guys rock! Great smallie... And I must say CO... I love the additives on your tube baits...the colors you add and what not......you just buying regular dye for lures? I've seen that stuff around but never used it... Nice!


----------



## co-angler (Jan 3, 2010)

9Left said:


> CO and GM...you guys rock! Great smallie... And I must say CO... I love the additives on your tube baits...the colors you add and what not......you just buying regular dye for lures? I've seen that stuff around but never used it... Nice!


Thanks!
I would agree with you 9, GM rocks. 

This is what I use. I get mine at BPS but have seen it at Wmart.







You can bet that next time, I will dip the other end if the tube in the dye as well. The tail on that craw has the orange tips too and this is something I had missed before.
Good luck!


Posted using Outdoor Hub Campfire


----------

