Pool 8, Pre Spawn Smallies

A step out the door in the darkness of the early AM had a slight cool breeze blowing on the face. This breeze was coming from the East and the old saying jumped into my head “wind from the East fish bite the least”, not wanting to start the day with negative vibes I shrugged the saying off with a chuckle a loaded the truck with a little of everything for gear. Mike and I had already planned on pulling three ways for walleyes as a start but then wanted to be ready incase we felt like pitching for Bass, Pike or panfish. It’s the river and you just never know what you might find on the chew. Leaving equipment at home usually only produces that feeling of…”I wish I would have brought that”, we weren’t going to let that happen.

Pulling 3-ways only produced some small saugers short eyes and a couple of spawned out pike for us. The only good battle was another brute of a crap snagged by the stick bait. Our first trip this year Mike boated a toad of a common carp, this trip it was my turn to dance with the beautiful orange and yellow bugle lipped fish.

After a couple hours and not finding anything to keep the interest level up there was the need for change. Hearing that there has been some pool 7 smallies on the chew we thought why not hit an area we know that should have pre spawn smallies preparing for the pool 8 orgy. With the weather this year everything seems to be 6 weeks ahead of schedule, why would it be any different for the bronze backs?

After a short run down river we were hitting some of our favorite wing dams in hopes of finding the smallies migrating from there their winter haunts. The last couple years Mike and I have been doing pretty good at putting together and sharpening our pre spawn knowledge and techniques for these aggressive red eyed toads on Pool 8.

My favorite is as light of a jig as I can get away with according to the current while still getting close to the rocks with the offering without hanging up. This day it was a 1/8oz Purple Pearl H2O Precision Jig head sporting my favorite piece of Pre Spawn Smallie and White Bass Plastic. The plastic is a 3inch Baby Shad Cracker from Deans tackle box. These flukes have put some good quality fish in the boat the past 2 years for both Mike and I.

The hunt for the Small Mouth Bass paid off with great rewards and a little tribulation. A word not in the dictionary but used often in Mike’s boat is “ferdamnit” The word is used and associated with snags, backlashes, hooks in fingers and…well, you get the point. It was my second maybe third cast, and my tackle was being tested with a toad devil eye. The bronze back put on an aerial display then charged for the deep drop off pealing drag form the Sedona with the power of a 69 GTO. After a great battle and the first fish pictured and released it continued, soon I had 4 fish picture worthy and Mike was on his third ferdamnit! It was time for me to take a break and let my partner get into the action before he blew his top from snapping pictures and retying. After collecting his composure Mike was in the game only to have a dandy break off boat side. Ferdamnit, ferdamnit, ferdamnit,….or something like that is what I heard
Soon back at it again his luck changed and now we were taking pictures of Mike’s fish

The areas that produced best have deep water close by, good clean rock and current seams. The fish were also giving themselves away as you could see schools of bait fish leaping for there lives as the predators prowled below. Pitching into the rock and then retrieving just fast enough to keep the jig from hanging up produced strikes that could be felt all the way to the elbow. By far, a day catching pre spawn smallies Mike and I will never forget!

The time was well past noon and the only thing left to do was maybe put a fish fry in the live well. Being close to an area that doesn’t see near the boat traffic as the dam we decided to see if maybe the post spawn perch would be willing to play. These fish have not seen near the action as the fish by the dam.

The boat was anchored up in a back water right on a drop.
On one side of the boat was 5fow and on the other 10fow. A 1/16oz Orange round ball jig tipped with a piece of crawler was dropped over the side of the boat at 10ft. Bang, there were spawned out perch making way to the live well. In short order we each kept 11 spawned out fish and called it a day.

A morning that started with bad vibes because of an Easterly wind was soon forgotten once on the water, as I reflect back through the day I might need to be fishing more of these Easterly weather patterns

Thanks for the laughs and camaraderie on the water buddy Mike. I hope the rest of you fishing nuts had a great weekend also.

Good Luck fishing people