Charles took me to a small creek, best known as the creek that runs through Arbuckle Park, a small public park that is in need of a little cleaning up. We first went to another park and hiked back about 10 minutes to get to the creek.
We got back there and from a high ledge saw a huge school of smallies, some carp, suckers, and loads of other fish. In our rush to get down, the fish left before we could get in the water.
We continued fishing downstream until we saw a big pod of smallies in a hole about 4 feet deep. We fished there for over 30 minutes with not even a look. I did manage to catch a few sunfish from the pool behind it, though. We hiked down farther and Charles got the first bass of the day, a chubby, feisty largemouth. The smallies just would not cooperate with us.
We found another pool littered with fallen leaves where we both caught plenty of sunfish and bluegill. The highlight was definitely this amazingly colored sunfish. I think it's a longear sunfish, but please correct me if you know what it is!
We continued moving until we found some big logs on the water. We had to maneuver over them because going around would have meant swimming!
In between the two sets of logs, we found a spot where there was about a 2 foot shelf that instantly dropped to about 6 or 7 feet of water. We walked very carefully along the shelf and decided we'd bring back drop-shot rigs or jigs to fish with spinning rods.
At the second log we found, we had to charge over 50 feet up a steep incline to get around the logs. While at the high vantage point, we saw two 7-10 pound carp feeding under the log. We got plenty of awkwardly presented shots at them, but in the end, I wondered how hooking one of those fish would have played out.
Whoever hooked it would have had to jump under the log, have the fly rod handed back to them, and fought the fish in chest-deep water while the other person jumped in to tail the fish if we got it close enough. It would have been hectic, but I kind of want to see how that would turn out.
We eventually decided to turn around and head back upstream. After reaching our hop-in point, we decided to follow the creek upstream until we hit another park. We found hole after hole full of sunfish and a slivery minnow-like fish that look like creek chub. I'm really confused as to what these are, as they look nothing like the creek chub I caught here.
Let me know if you have any clue as to what this fish is. I'd like to add him to my species list.
We walked farther along and Charles picked up another nice bass.
At this point I will attest that the homemade "worm fly" that resembled a Texas-rigged worm Charles was using was good. We kept walking for what seemed like forever, and we probably covered a lot of water. My guess is we hiked over 1 mile upstream that day. I saw tons of suckers there, and got no looks from them on the fly rod. I'mm trying to find information on how to catch them, but so far I haven't found lots of solid experience from people. If you have any tips, let me know
After we were about halfway to the other park, we hit a pool where we could see smallies on the bottom. We tried tons of flies, but eventually a crayfish fly with a dual weighting system picked up the first smallmouth of the day for me. Unfortunately, he jumped out of my hands before I could get a good picture. However, I usually have my GoPro on and running, so I pulled some pictures from the video I got.
This was the last good fishing hole we hit because we rushed to get to the other park so Charles' mom could pick us up. I got a ton of video from the day and will be putting up a youtube clip soon. We're definitely heading back for more smallmouth and carp.Tight lines!!
UPDATE: Charles went back to the smallie hole with his brother and a drop-shot rig. He caught this pig of a smallie while he was there.
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