Bourbon, Flies, and Lies: Westside Creekin

We have had better weather, at least it’s getting more stable. Today’s quarry would be some smallmouth bass. They should still be around in the great lake’s tributaries.

I headed to Lake Erie to see if I could find some fishy looking water. After a great breakfast and making some fresh ground coffee I then filled my thermos and headed out.

I hopped onto the breeze and headed west. The area has had some pop-up showers and I checked the USGS site and saw then no cause for alarm.

Well, I got geared up and I brought my machete today. Why you ask well some of the trail of river left is overgrown with some type of high growing weed that looks like a huge bush.

So, after the trail care part of my fishing escapade, I would rig up my light eggbeater set up. I would also again be only rigged up with lead jig heads and curly tail grubs.

The rod is a vintage Pro Star 6 feet long and rated for 6 pounds to 10-pound line. The reel is a Daiwa Ballistic MQ LT 4000-C. This eggbeater for me is the most expensive reel I have bought to date.

I will also be taking it with me to Maine. It will be rigged on a rod for Pollack. I look forward to seeing how it works. I have this reel currently lined with 30-pound power pro braid.

it truly casts like a dream, and I have my very fishy nerd friend to thank for that.

My starting leader would be the 6-pound test. I cut a 5-foot section of Seagar floro and tied it into the main line.

I then selected a 1/4 oz jig with a 3" curly tail grub. The curly tail grub was a power grub by power bait in Milky-Shad color and of course they don’t make this grub anymore. Like most folks, when they find something, they purchase extra. Well, I bought 10 packs of them in 2” and in 3” and finally I am down to my last bags. Now, I need to find a replacement which sucks!

The river here has changed so much since the last major rain event. More silt has been deposited here and there and gravel has been moved around.

After I walked over a mile downstream to the first riffle water I could find I began to swing the grub through the tail out in the pool. Then my skunk would be removed. It was a chunky white bass (WB).

As far as I could tell the strata was all sand here and small pea sized gravel and just right for these spawning WB. After a few more I stopped harassing them and moved up stream to fish along the banks casting to the opposite side.

I heard smallies busting bait up stream near a ledge pool. They ambush the bait wating below the ledge drop off then “wham”.

I fished too every piece of downed tree in the river in the hopes of hooking up and I would be rewarded over and over with a feisty smallies. That’s not to say I did not lose any jigs. I donated plenty of jigs this day into said wood.

There was a nice hatch coming off from the mud and I believe them to be hexs.

These rivers are all teaming with life no matter what cards they are dealt with in their lives.

I side stepped up stream and casted and cranked the jig. I approached the ledge pool. I fan cast up stream and slowed down my retrieve just a hair.

Then I thought I hooked the shale ledge and then she jumped out of the water. I brought my rod back down to the water to decrease the slack in the line.

She darted into the heaving current coming into the ledge pool from the shallow riffle. I applied side pressure to her to keep her off balance. She did not like that and breached out of the water again and brought my rod down again to the water surface to increase the tension of the line. I got my net so I could take some photos of her. I first noticed how battered her tail was from making her nest.