We almost called off Wednesday's trip to the Caddo River, but I'm glad we didn't.
With my son Matthew home for spring break, I wanted to get in at least one good smallmouth fishing trip this week. Tuesday on the upper Ouachita River was a bust, and Wednesday's trip to the Caddo nearly fell apart before it began. One angler bailed at the last minute, which left a threesome of me, Matthew and Rusty Pruitt, but storms threatened.
As we approached Glenwood, gray clouds darkened with an ominous green tint.
We were only 10 miles away, so we wanted to see how things looked before making the call. There was a pall of a storm in the air, but the sky seemed to be clearing to the north. It looked like we might skirt trouble, so we procured a couple of boats from Lucky's Canoe Rental.
Thirty minutes later, Lucky dropped us and an excited group of students at his access point in Caddo Gap.
The river was running just under 6 feet. That's good for floating, but it's too fast for fishing unless you have time to find calm spots. We didn't have much time. We wasted two hours wondering about the weather, and we needed to finish by 4 p.m. That gave us about four hours, which meant we'd have to devote our time to a few known hotspots.
"We can work that hole at the confluence of the South Fork, and there's the tail of the big S-Turn rapid where we always catch some big ones," I said. "There's also that one stretch below the Flag Hole that I like a lot. That should tide us over."
We've learned to bypass all the fine looking water between Caddo Gap and the South Fork, including the first wide pool about a half-mile below the Gap. In 1995, that spot treated me to nearly an hour of the best smallmouth fishing I've ever experienced on the Caddo, but I've never come close to duplicating it. I always make a few casts as I drift through, but I don't stop anymore.
To our great surprise and dismay, we didn't catch anything at the mouth of the South Fork, either. Admittedly, that spot is always best in late February and I've never done well there in March, but I hoped that high, cold water might extend the pattern.
Pruitt unlocked the puzzle in unexpected fashion. While I fished the confluence, he hiked up the South Fork and fished a small pool that could be crossed in five steps. I heard him yell his signature "Yee-haw," and I looked up to see a substantial fish making a ruckus. It was a 14-inch smallmouth, and Pruitt caught it on a Zoom Tiny Lizard in watermelon/red flake.
He caught a succession of fish in that virtual droplet. It was a valuable clue that served us through the rest of the trip.
"They're in small, deep, highly-oxygenated pools," Pruitt said. "I don't think we're going to find them in the deep holes or fast runs."
Our next stop was the S-Turn rapid. In normal flow, the only way to get through its treacherous rock garden is to cross the middle of the rapid and thread a needle through a series of boulders. At 6 feet, however, that is a dangerous route. That's the one time when it's better to go straight ahead because the water pours over rocks that are normally impassable.
We beached our boat at the bottom and fished the pools below the falls. I used a Zoom curly-tail grub in junebug color. My first bite wasn't the customary thump of a smallmouth, but a mere pickup that felt like a heavy, mushy weight. When I realized it was a fish, it was too late. I was ready the next time, however, and set the hook on a feisty 15-inch smallmouth that felt a lot bigger in the swift current.
Meanwhile, the storm front had passed and left a high-pressure system in its wake. The rest of the journey took us directly into a 15 mph south wind that made it hard to paddle and the wind overpowered even the stiff current. When we stopped paddling, the wind blew us back upstream.
The post-storm air was crisp and clear, and the mottled clouds provided a three-dimensional effect that accentuated the pastel pops of white, red and green from the trees and bushes along the shore. Every time we went around a bend, I marveled at color snaking up the hillsides.
Our last stop was the pool downstream of the Flag Hole. There is a big rock there that always produces a couple of big fish, and I usually catch a few on topwater plugs farther down. We didn't get a bite, so we throttled down and reached the takeout at the appointed time.
I expected a little better from the year's first smallmouth float, and we might have done better had we not had to rush.
Next time we'll take our time.
Sports on 03/29/2015