Knee Deep

Writing fish stories for a living allows me to spend a lot of days fishing, and my all-species approach has me doing everything everything from casting micro jigs for bluegills to dropping bait to the ocean floor for much larger quarry. Every style of fishing has its appeals -- as do the many locations -- but if I had to pick a single favorite way to fish, it's probably wading knee deep in a mountain river for smallmouth bass.

On the way home from my recent New River float trip, I spent a wonderful morning stream wading in East Tennessee with a long-time friend, Larry Self. In classic stream wading fashion, we fished with light spinning outfits and worked from "tackle boxes" that fit in shirt pockets. The cool water felt great on an August morning, and the smallies delivered the smashing strikes, strong surges and acrobatic leaps you might expect if you've spent much time casting for swift-water smallmouth bass.

My kind of fishing outing!

Bug Season Bronze

"The bug bite" was everything Britt Stoudenmire had promised and formed the strategical foundation for two days of float-fishing on Virginia's spectacular New River. A river guide who, along with his wife Leigh, operates New River Outdoor Company, Stoudenmire cherishes "bug season" because it provides some of the best opportunities of the year to catch big smallmouth bass. Every summer the fish feast on falling cicadas, which emerge, live short adult lives and die during the dog days, and the dying bugs dictate where the big fish congregate and how and when they feed.

Stoudenmire commonly uses a variety of flies that imitate cicadas this time of year, and he has even helped develop a lure he calls a spin-bug, which serves the same function for spin-fishermen. He and the bass clearly showed me, however, that making the proper presentations in the right types of places and understanding how conditions affect the bug bite are more important than the actual lure that's tied to the end of the line.

My best fish of the trip, a thick-bodied fish that measured barely shy of the 20-inch mark, took an XCalibur Zell Pop Xz2. Stoudenmire's best, which stretched the tape to 21 inches, grabbed a wacky rigged Senko. Both were in textbook "bug water," as it had been described to me from the onset, and fell for total deadstick presentations, and my topwater fish even took my lure exactly the way Stoudenmire had described smallmouths taking popping bugs and real cicadas after they die and crash land in the river.

The bad news is that the bug bite won't last too much longer. The good news is that the team of guides at New River Outdoor Company stay tuned into what the river's abundant smallies are doing throughout seasons.

Smaller Boat Brings Big Success to Steve Kennedy

Photo courtesy of the PAA

Forsaking fiberglass and the slick rides normally associated with professional bass fishing, Steve Kennedy chose his aluminum flatbottom to fish the final event of the Bass Pro Shops PAA Tournament Series presented by Carrot Styx. That boat allowed him to snake his way to the extreme head of Neely Henry's Canoe Creek, where he spent all three days of the tournament.

Kennedy, who lives in Auburn, Alabama, only a couple of hours away, threw a variety of baits to coax enough fish from a fairly small area, with the bite growing tougher each day. His most productive lure on the final two days was an old floating Smithwick Rogue, a lure he's long liked to throw in creeks and small rivers during the dog days.

Kennedy's three-day total of 38.12 allowed him to survive a final-day charge by fellow Alabama pro Greg Vinson and to win the event by only a couple of ounces. Vinson brought 17.92 pounds to the scales on the final day by flipping in super shallow water.

South Carolina pro Todd Auten wrapped up the PAA Angler-of-the-Year title with a fourth place finish at Neely Henry.

Classic Minnesota

Maybe it's something in me (I was born in the Twin Cities), but the more I fish in Minnesota the more I enjoy fishing in Minnesota. I even had fun pulling fish through holes in the ice earlier this year.

Yesterday was a great day of classic Minnesota fishing - Lindy-rigging for walleyes on beautiful Rainy Lake along the US-Canada border. The day on Rainy followed two days of down-rigging on Lake of the Woods, which also straddles the border.

I must not be the only person who likes fishing in the Land of 10,000 Lakes, because I'm sitting in the Minneapolis airport now, and I don't recall another day when I've seen more travelers in an airport with rod tubes in their carry-ons.

I'm blogging from my phone since we're about to board, so I'll have to add a photo of yesterday's fun after I get home.

Rockin' Lake of the Woods

Today rocked, in more ways than one. For starters, the wind started at about 20 mph and got stronger throughout the day. Trolling the open water of Lake of the Woods, it's safe to say that we rocked more than a little. We also caught almost all our fish on Lindy's new River Rocker crankbait. We tried some other stuff, but the River Rocker was the top producer, by far. The catch of the day was a genuine jumbo perch. It was 13 1/2 inches long and seriously chunky. River Rocker color? Perch.

Scott Martin - Forrest Wood Cup Champion

Photo courtesy of FLW Outdoors

Congratulations Scott Martin, Forrest Wood Cup Champion. Martin fished offshore, alternating a swimbait, a big Texas rigged worm and a dropshot, to accumulate a four-day weight of 61 pounds, 1 ounce and win the championship event by a 4-pound margin. Martin took home a check for $600,000. Martin is best known as the son of legendary tournament and TV angler Roland Martin, but with four FLW Tour wins, including his new championship title, and nearly 2 million dollars in winnings, the younger Martin clearly is carving out his own important place in bass fishing history.

Prized or Despised?

The West Fork is the sort of destination that a person will either prize or despise. The same bluffs, boulders, craggy ledges and currents that make it beautiful also make it seriously demanding, and the hike into and down through the river gorge is exhausting. The fish can also be seriously fussy, especially during mid-summer.
Nathaniel's inaugural West Fork adventure included some misadventure, including my friend and I losing the only semi-beaten path at one point and the three of us having to descend a steep ridge a few hundred feet through thick rhododendron. We walked and waded about four miles by day's end, each fell down more than a few times and all left the river totally spaghetti legged. And we didn't actually catch many trout. All that said, Nathaniel now stands firmly in the camp of prizing my favorite river, and I believe he'll be happy to join me again as often as I want to go.

FLW, Favorite Waters & Walleye World

The Forrest Wood Cup begins this morning on Arkansas' Lake Ouachita. It's the FLW Tour's championship event, and the winner takes home both the title of champion and a half a million dollars. A beautiful mountain-bounded lake, Ouachita reportedly has been stingy during practice. Someone will figure them out, though, and it will be fun to see what patterns and which anglers will emerge during the course of the next few days.

Closer to home, Nathaniel and I will meet a friend at my favorite trout stream tomorrow. Nathaniel title a recent blog "Anticipation," and I agree with him. He's looking forward to exploring the West Fork for the first time, and I'm looking forward to sharing it with him. A trip down this river is a rugged full-day adventure that starts with a mile-long hike and then a creek and ridge crossing and includes a couple of miles of wading down a sometimes-steep mountain river. The scenery is the some of the most spectacular I've seen in Georgia, though, and we seldom see anywhere else.

Next week I head north -- way north -- to Lake of the Woods on the Minnesota/Canada border to spend a few days walleye fishing and taking photos. Mid-60s in Mid-August sure will be nice, and of course I'm looking forward to eating some fresh walleye!

Major League Fishing & More

Major League Fishing?

Yep. Major League Fishing. The MLF roster contains a short list of very big names in competitive bass fishing, and the format is unlike anything else ever tried. The league was spearheaded by Boyd Duckett and is privately owned by the anglers themselves, and major TV appeal is the No. 1 objective. Interesting stuff, not doubt. Read all about it on BassFan.

Meanwhile, the Forrest Wood Cup begins next week, with 58 of the nation's top pros competing for a first prize of 1/2 million dollars and the title of Champion on Arkansas' Lake Ouachita.

On the B.A.S.S. side, the All Star event concluded last weekend. Congratulations to Tennessee pro Ott DeFoe, who capped of a tremendous rookie season by winning the unique year-end event. DeFoe, who ran away with the Rookie of the Year award during the regular season, had to beat Mike Iaconelli, Gerald Swindle and Edwin Evers in head-to-head competition on back-to-back-to-back days to win the All Stars and the $100,000 check that went with the event. Quite a start to a very promising pro career!