Species Count to 21

One of the most fun things about floating Arkansas' Spring River is that when a fish hits your lure, you never know what kind of fish it will turn out to be. We floated the Spring yesterday, and I personally caught half a dozen different species of fish. Three of those -- smallmouth bass, pumpkinseed and longear sunfish -- were species I'd not yet caught in 2012, so I was able to add those to my list. That brings the tally to 21 species through the end of April. My best lure yesterday was a Rebel Teeny Wee-Crawfish; however, the group's top producer was a Lindy River Rocker, which Lawrence Taylor used to catch a bunch of smallmouth bass, rainbow trout, rock bass and various other kinds of fish.

Two Tremendous Days on the Niagara

I'm not sure how many hundreds of pounds of fish were caught and released in Frank Campbell's boat yesterday and today, but I do know that when we were not running from spot to spot or stopped to take pictures, at least one of us was usually battling a fish. Add the unseasonably mild weather and Campbell's great company, and you just can't ask for much better "work days."

Top techniques today included pulling Lindy River Rockers on three-ways and Shadlings on flat lines, hopping Fuzz-E Grubs off the bottom and dragging minnows on Lindy Jigs and on three-way rigs with Lindy Beads in front of our hooks. Yesterday we combined Lindy Beads with eggs for steelhead.

The Lower Niagara has become one of my favorite fishing destinations in the nation, in large part due to the tremendous variety of quality fish that you can catch any given day. We caught steelhead, brown trout and lake trout, but any given fish that grabbed a lure could have turned out to have been a coho or king salmon or even a big smallmouth bass.

Adding appeal is the delightful riverside town of Lewiston, with its shops and restaurants all walking distance from the Riverside Motel. Town seemed nicer than ever this week because of the Christmas lights and the open-air family skating rink, which is run by the town and free.

I've only been out of town for about seven hours, and I'm already looking forward to my next visit to the Niagara River -- whenever that might turn out to be.

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.