Fished about 2.5 hours on Friday and maybe 4.5 hours total on Saturday. Both Friday afternoon and Saturday morning were excellent as the river level was up. Plenty of bait fish were moving around the abutments located at the railroad bridge, just downstream from the dam. I found some nice eddy water there and proceeded to cast with a curly-tailed grub around the base of the nearest abutment.
I became very surprised when I began catching temperate bass. As a matter of fact, those were the only fish that I caught during my trip. I wound up both days catching a total of 20 fish. Not bad, considering I didn't move from the spot during my time fishing below the dam. This was my best fish, a white bass, but the photo doesn't do it justice. It was a large white bass. At least, one much larger than I usually catch at my nearby reservoir.
Did I mention the lures that I used? Normally I'd only discuss my jig ties on this blog, but a fisherman's gotta do what he's gotta do... so, I fished the swimbaits that I have extreme confidence in to search for gamefish in areas I seldom fish. BTW, I caught my largest yellow bass of this year there and should have taken a photo of it. Come to think of it, I don't know of too many anglers that get excited about yellow bass (my cop out). ;) I do wish I had a photo of it to show. :( Here are the jigs I used:
From top to bottom:
- 1/8-oz. ball head with a 3-in. Galyan's Performance Series grub in pumpkinseed color.
- 1/8-oz ball head with a 3-in.YUM Mystic Shad in MS-Shad pattern.
- Captain Mick's Minnow Swimbait.
- 5/32-oz. silver-haired ball head jig tied by "moi". :)
Overall, the fishing was similar to tidal fishing I'd done in years past. A rising river produced good fishing for the temperate bass. The slowdown and eventual shutdown of bites came with the river's falling water level during Saturday afternoon.