MOUNTAIN VIEW -- I'm adding a snorkel and mask to my steam-fishing kit.
Wednesday, after catching my biggest fish of the day on Sylamore Creek, I borrowed Alan Thomas' mask for a look beneath the surface of this ultra-clear Ozark creek. It teems with fish, but until you get down deep, you have no idea how many fish there really are.
Or how big.
The banner fish of the day was a 17-inch smallmouth bass that bit a Yum Craw Papi. I caught and released it at about 3:30 p.m., and the ruckus it raised shut down the pool. We didn't get another bite despite our history of catching big fish in this pool. In fact, it has been so productive that we renamed the pool Wednesday. We used to call it the Slope Hole. It's now the Thumper Hole.
At its deepest, the pool is about 12 feet at the base of a low bluff. I took a deep breath and kicked for the bottom, where a couple of monster smallmouths came to greet me. They were decidedly bigger than my 17-incher. I estimated them at 19 and 20 inches respectively. A number of others were in the 12- to 15-inch range. I also encountered a large number of adult longear sunfish that were as big as any bluegills I've ever caught. The longear is arguably the most colorful fish in Arkansas waters, but at that size they look like a Pantone color chart. Utterly beautiful. There were also northern redhorse and suckers, as well as schools of baitfish. It was an exhilarating coda to an exciting and rewarding day of fishing an obscure and underrated stream.
Al, my son Matthew and I got on the water at about 9:30 a.m. We loaded our tackle and accessories in kayaks and went about a mile downstream to a spot we call the Bluff Hole. It's a deep, wide pool in the shadow of a 150-foot sandstone/limestone bluff. We didn't fish on the way down. Instead, we walked or floated down and then fished our way back up with our kayaks tied to our belt loops.
I forgot to bring a paddle, so I used a cedar log. Al's laughter echoed off the hillsides when he saw me coming down the stream paddling the boat with a log.
"If I don't get a picture of this, I might as well go ahead and turn in my 'Man Card!'" he said.
"You don't even get a Man Card if you don't paddle with a log," I retorted.
My first fish of the day was a brown-barred smallmouth between 15-16 inches. Half of its dorsal fin was missing, perhaps the work of a great blue heron.
We caught fish steadily on the way back upstream. Al used a watermelon/red Zoom Tiny Brush Hog, and I used watermelon/red Zoom Tiny Lizards. Matthew used a Cotton Cordell C.C. Shad. Al harassed him about that lure and said he wouldn't catch any big fish with it. He offered to rig him up a Tiny Brush Hog.
"I'll switch when I get to a hundred," Matt said.
"It'll be 2016 before you catch a hundred fish with that," Al said.
Every time Matt hooked a fish, he rattled off numbers. "Forty-five! Forty-six!"
We continued upstream past Al's truck to the first deep, rocky pool that made such an impression on me when I first fished this stream in 2006. It was full of "thumper" smallmouths, but it hadn't done much in subsequent trips. The thumpers were home Wednesday, but we couldn't catch them. Al missed a hookset on one, and I broke my line setting the hook on another.
From there, we rounded the bend to the Rock Bass hole. We gave it that name a couple of years ago after catching enough rock bass, or Ozark bass, to make a big fish fry at Gunner Pool Recreation Area. We caught rock bass all morning downstream from the truck Wednesday, but this hole justified its nickname by nearly tripling our catch.
About the middle of the pool, Al yelled sharply as his hand recoiled from a smallmouth that he was about to land.
"This fish has a snake in its throat!" Al shouted.
Matt and I hurried over to see. Sure enough, the smallie had an 8-inch rough green snake in its gullet. It regurgitated the whole thing while Al unhooked it.
"That just shows how voracious these brown bass are," Al said. "It's choking on a snake, and then it says, 'Oh, man, I gotta eat that Tiny Brush Hog!'"
We were fishing for funsies to that point. We got serious when we reached the tail of the Thumper Hole. I stowed the spinning rig I'd been using all morning and rigged up a small baitcasting rig featuring a medium-action Tournament Choice Premier Edition rod and a Lew's Speed Spool reel. I tied on a 1/0 worm hook with a 1/4-ounce bullet sinker. I threaded a Craw Papi onto the hook and tested my drag.
We learned through the day that the fish were not particularly aggressive. I caught most of my biggest fish by letting the lure sit on the bottom. Little bass chased it a while if it moved. Big ones seemed to prefer sucking it up while stationary.
We had not gotten a bite when we were nearly to the head of the pool. I cast to the deepest part, reeled in the slack and let it sit for a few seconds before tapping the reel handle. That made the lure dart a few inches. I felt a quick thump. I'd felt it before several times during the day but was usually late setting the hook. Not this time. I popped my wrist, and the weight on the other end did not give. It moved only when I started reeling, and I could tell it was a big fish by the way it stripped drag.
When I released it, I felt like I had reached the mountaintop. Together we'd caught and released more than 80 fish, mostly smallmouths. To end it on such a high note that made me feel peaceful and satisfied.
A deal like puts a little sunshine on the entire week.
Sports on 06/21/2014