Reaching In For the Wood Dwellers

Not getting on the water last weekend made me well, the wife would say…. “a bit moody” but, I call it… “a need for the fix.” The one thing that did come out of a sick day was plenty of time to think and read.
Sitting around moping, Grandpa’s Pflueger Fly Reel was spotted, which I had cleaned up early in the year hoping to use it. This is when the old days started to replay themselves in my pea brain.

A lot of us remember the Cane Pole adventures fishing in the middle of pads or around wood back in the day, 9-16 feet of reach with the cane made it easy to drop an offering in the middle of structure to the unsuspecting finned creatures. Jeff Jensen schooled Mike and I a couple years ago with the newer technology long pole in the pads. “Man I wish I had a long fishing rod”, click, the light goes on….the fly rod

At first the plan was to seat my UL President on the Redington #6 fly rod but something just didn’t feel right. It was looking at the old Pflueger fly reel sulking on the shelf because he was staying home, so……on the rod which was bought for this reel he went

There was no backing used. The reel was spooled with some 4# P-Line Floroclear, the stuff is tuff but I dislike the way it comes off a spinning reel when casting light baits, therefore it was getting used up while thinking this should not be an issue spooled on a fly reel. Hey, it works for the iceheads I hear

The rigging consisted of a thill stealth slip bobber, the end of the line armed with the Froggie Diamond jig, 2-3 feet above the jig was a small split shot. A small split shot most of the time will retrieve your slip bobber when losing a hung up jig. To seal the deal the jig was tipped with the 1inch gulp alive minnow, of which you are probably tired of hearing me say that this year But the watermelon pearl has been producing very well for me
Now armed with a 9foot advantage it was time to head for some wood

The first spot Mike’s boat was tied up to held 10-12fow and a lot of timber. It was a slow start and nothing big was really coming boat side. Still the long limber rod made for fun while pulling good tussler’s out of the wood. The rig was working to perfection. We started moving around and bumping different wood piles until finally finding an area holding some nicer fish. A couple 10inch crappies, a few 7.5-8.5inch gills and bonus 10inch perch where willing to play a put a smile on a couple old farts faces
At times laughter would bust out and I believe I almost heard Grandpa Art in the background. Heck, Mike even looked like Grandpa Art a few times

It was fun fishing with a piece of history, knowing the reel was first my Grandfathers then handed down to my Dad when he was a youngster, and now it’s mine. It’s like having the ones who taught me and loved right there in the boat
The long reach makes for an advantage over casting. Being able to stay vertical places baits with pin point accuracy between logs or holes in the structure. The long limber rods also assist in pulling the takers straight up out of there dwelling instead of dragging them through it.

The wood bite died off around 9 once the sun came out from behind a cloud cover. Not having quite enough pannies for a coupe fish fry,s, the morning was finished off hitting a wing dam. The man made rock piles are still producing awesome orange belly’s and we have been doing nothing different from my last Report when fishing the wing dams.

The bite stayed the same for my three day weekend, a good early morning wood bite and then a move to wing dams made for action all day. It was a hoot sharing the bite with my neighbor Mark also.
Enjoy the bite and the changing of the colors. Soon the bluff sides will look like a painted canvas.

Good luck fishing people