As the halfway mark through our season neared, the guides were in high spirits for the coming week as the conditions were looking pristine! The clarity had certainly improved despite the constant, weekly, fluctuations. Initially the week started slowly with fish sitting deep, reluctant to commit. As the week progressed, we noticed the fish eating more positively and sitting in honest lies, behind boulders and specifically in the tail-outs. The guys managed put a few fish on the boat as the weather improved. A good number of largemouth yellowfish came to hand, however, with the bigger fish remaining relatively quiet. A good indication of clarity improvement was seeing mudfish cruise over shallow rocks as we passed by on the oar rigs.
A gust of wind every now and then made casting to structure difficult at times. The guys were eluded by three incredibly sized largemouth yellows. Hook sets were perfect, but the sheer force of those big fish caught everyone by surprise! Blistering runs upstream and the dirty fighting where you could feel the fish trying to rub off on the rocks in fast water. All fish were dropped with the hooks pulling and one leader snap! Anyone who has fished 16lb fluorocarbon knows how much pressure you can put on that line. This just shows how the bigger largemouth yellows become a totally different ballgame to land! Special fish indeed!
Over the full moon which we had this week, smallmouth and largemouth yellows were feeding more aggressively at night, coming onto shallow sandbanks and drop offs in wait of vulnerable baitfish swimming by. Numerous juvenile largemouth and a couple big smallmouth yellows came to the net under moonlight.
Overall a pleasant week with excellent catering provided by our river rafting guides!
Until next time
The guides team
