Well due to lack of responses I assume not many people have been up that way, so I’ll give a report from the weekend for future reference…
My wife and I ended up going all the way up to the Gordon Dam (Mouth of the river) and the plan was to end up at Riverside (Hwy 35). I believe its about 23 miles by river. We made about 10 miles on Sat, camped and then did the rest on Sunday.
The weather Sat was a little chilly with some morning drizzle and it took a while to get the first fish, a solid 10 incher, but it still felt nice to get something. Once it got a little warmer I was able to get into a few more. I decided to throw a topwater the majority of the day since it was easier to work with the current and avoid snagging (my wife isn’t the greatest paddler against the current )
I found the best action on stretches right after a series of rapids on either cut banks or small eddies with some wood around them. Ended up with about 14 on Saturday.
Sunday brought a little better weather with sunshine right off the bat. Fishing time was cut down a little to make sure we made it to our final destination on time. I was still able to get about 6 or so. The stretch of river was a little slower with a lot more grass, so I was primarily fishing in the fast water areas and on the downside of islands that had nice sand tapers with grass on the end.
Nothing huge for 2 days as I expected, but I had 4 over 14 inches and 1 that was just over 16 that I caught with about 30 yards before we were done. Even the small fish were a riot with a medium light rod in a canoe and battling the current. Had a few pike crush my topwater as well and saw a nice 15 pound catfish swim under out canoe.
We only saw one other canoe over two days and no less than 20 deer along the river and a myriad number of other critters (including ticks, skeeters and horseflys ). The scenery was second to none and it was nice to be away from everything for a weekend.