New Chattooga Area Exploration

Last week I explored a new stretch of the Chattooga National Wild & Scenic River. Not a new access point. Just new to me from a fishing standpoint. I’d hiked to the river at the Woodall Shoals access twice  previously  — but didn’t fish either day and don’t recall thinking about fishing prospects.

The first was a fall rafting trip nearly 35 years ago, and when I think back, I think it was the first spot I ever entered the river. When the water is very low, which it was that day, Section IV rafting trips sometimes begin below Woodall, instead of at Highway 76, a couple of miles upstream.

The second time was with my wife on an anniversary outing in the South Carolina Upcountry, and we just went to climb the rocks, see the infamous rapid and enjoy the river. I say infamous because Woodall Shoals is extraordinarily dangerous, and a keeper hydraulic beneath the main drop has taken several lives over the years.

I’ve fished the Chattooga for more than 30 years, fishing near many different access points and fishing some sections that can only be reached by significant hikes. Why I had never explored the access at Woodall Shoals or even thought much about fishing prospects I really don’t know. It is a shorter drive for me than several parts of the river I have fished many times, and it’s a quick walk (maybe a 1/4 mile or so) to the river.

What I found there was pretty good wading access to a significant stretch of river, with plenty of varied and great-looking water. The water is pretty low right now, and I think that’s important. Some of what I waded through to get to spots would have become sketchy even with typical flows. For low-water times, though, it’s excellent access, and I could have reached more water than my time and total plan for that morning allowed.

Woodall is well downstream of where trout ever get stocked, although some rainbows and browns find their way downriver or come in from tributaries. I briefly hooked one fish that I think was probably a trout. Native Bartram’s bass are the main attraction. Thankfully Bartram’s are some of my favorite fish!

I didn’t catch a bunch of bass, but I wouldn’t have expected a bunch on a mid-August bluebird-sky day. I caught just enough to confirm that the fish are where they should be and that this is an area that warrants more attention in the future!

Jacks of Jacksonville

Jacks ruled in Jacksonville last week. They weren’t the only game. Chris Holleman and I caught several fish species, and a couple of good snook and some quality trout were in that mix. Jack crevalle were the most plentiful and widespread and provided our best action, though.

That’s no complaint from me. Jacks are hard fighting fish that absolutely slam lures and are really fun to catch. From my perspective they are extremely underrated by the general sport fishing community.

Holleman noted that jacks have been abundant all year, and that they’ve made a lot of days for area guides and their clients. Species like redfish and speckled trout are more acclaimed and what anglers have in mind initially. However, most fishermen don’t have to catch many jacks to discover how fun they are and want to catch more.

What really struck me last week was how the jacks were in such a variety of locations. We hit a pretty diverse range of area and caught jacks all over the place. 

We also caught them a variety of ways, but of course my favorites were the ones that crushed topwater lures!
 

New Lures for Creeks, Rivers & Ponds

Heddon Spin'n Image Jr

Late summer often delivers new lures to my tackle selection. The ICAST show takes place in mid-July, and that’s when many fishing tackle brands introduce new products for the upcoming year. Because I work in marketing for a lure company that owns multiple brands , that means I typically have new lures that I need to get photos of and gain familiarity with for writing projects.

What stands out this year is that several of the new offerings from our brands really hit home with the way I like to fish the most and are perfectly suited for the waters I fish the most. I expect at least a few of these to remain a key part of my arsenal for years.

Heddon, Bandit and Rebel Lures all released new baits this summer that are extra well suited for the creeks and small rivers I love to wade and for walking the banks of ponds. All are small in size, but my expectations are big. That sounds like marketing talk, but I’m not wearing the marketing hat when I’m writing this blog. It’s just fortunate for me that some of the lures I currently need photos of the most are really good fits for my personal fishing preferences.

I won’t detail the features of each. Again, marketing isn’t the objective here. However, I will run through the stuff I’m excited to use. In truth, I’ve been catching fish on a few of them for a few months. One nice thing in my job is that I get some stuff early for photography needs.

Heddon Lures added a couple of topwater lures I know will excel in smaller waters. The Spin’n Image Jr is a downsized version of a proven rotating-tail topwater lure. The Spook Stick is a slender profiles small-sized surface walker. There is also a Spook Stick Crawler that I know will be an excellent lure, but it fits a little different niche.

Bandit Lures, meanwhile, added the Bandit 50 and 50D, which look and act a lot like the iconic Bandit 100 and 200 but are substantially smaller. They were designed for small water and for finesse situations and match perfectly with the light travel rod and spinning reel that live in my car all the time.

Finally, Rebel Lures added a couple of great new shapes to their LIVEflex soft plastic series. One is a hellgrammite, and every stream angler knows that hellgrammites are candy to creek fish. The other is a tadpole, another important forage species in ponds and creeks that surprisingly is not often imitated with fishing lures. The LIVE Hellgrammite and Tadpole are the two I’ve already used to catch a lot of fish!

You’ll likely be hearing more from me about some of these new lures. I need to go sit at the computer this morning, bit I really just want to go fishing!

Bandit 50

Heddon Spook Stick

 

Rebel LIVEflex Tadpole

Provo River Return

Provo River brown trout

In my most recent post, I looked back on a cross-country fishing/blogging trek I did with one of my boys 11 years ago. That post reminded me of one of our favorite stops — the Provo River in Utah — and of a brief return to the Provo with my daughter Autumn a couple of years ago.

Autumn and I also made it all the way to the Pacific Coast by car, but our trip was mostly vacation, and the primary objective was to see the world’s largest trees (sequoias), tallest trees (redwoods) and oldest trees (bristlecone pines). We had time for a couple of fishing stops, and the Provo was close enough to a possible route home that I couldn’t resist a return visit.

Good that we stopped. The river was substantially more crowded than it had been nine years earlier, and we struggled a little initially to find decent looking spots where we weren’t stepping in too close to where someone else was fishing. We ended up finding a nice section down a trail, though, and thick-bodied brown trout were plentiful and willing to play I didn’t count, but we caught a lot of trout, and most were good ones!

Trout in the Provo mostly see flies, and our Rebel Tracdown Minnows and Crawfish prompted a lot of action from feeding brown trout.

My experience with Asher on the Trout Trek had been similar. I’m pretty sure we caught more fish and better fish from the Provo than anywhere else on the trip — and in both cases, most fish were brown trout. We also caught most of our trout on Tracdown Minnows. The biggest difference was that he and I had far less competition from other anglers.

I’d first learned about the Provo River from a friend who had gone to school at Brigham Young, which is located in Provo, Utah. The best waters were only a half hour from campus (and some areas even closer), so it was an easy escape for him. At the time, the Provo’s trout-filled waters were largely undiscovered, and the few other anglers who used the he river mostly fly-fished. Like what Asher, Autumn and I found (except to an even greater extent, I’d guess) the trout would readily attack his lures.

The Provo is no longer a hidden gem, but it remains a gem. I’d head that way tomorrow if it wasn’t 1,896 miles from my house!

Utah's Provo River

 

 

Remembering the Trout Trek

A Facebook memory reminded me that 11 years ago today, my dining room table was covered with gear that would somehow have to fit in my Ford Fiesta hatchback. My son Asher and I were preparing to drive across the country to fish for trout, shoot photos and blog.

Asher, who was 10 at the time, had never been outside of the Eastern Time Zone prior to the Rebel Trout Track. By the end of the journey, which spanned about four weeks, we had logged nearly 7,000 miles. The farthest we got from home (Georgia) was the Pacific Coast in Olympic National Park in Washington. 

We fished in nine different states, with all except Arkansas being in the West, fishing many types of waters but always with trout as our primary targets. We fished all public waters, fished by wading, on the bank or by float tube, and went with no guides.

We fished iconic waters known best as fly fishing destinations, using spinning tackle and a DIY approach. Each day we blogged and sent a photo gallery for Rebel Lures social media.

Asher and I sometimes revisit the trip mentally, talking about favored fishing stops and various cool things we saw along the way — and of course daydreaming about doing it again. Although it’s unlikely we can ever recreate anything quite as extensive as the Trout Trek, I do hope some day we can fish some of those waters together again.

My daughter Autumn and I fished one of my favorite Trout Trek spots — the Provo River in Utah — a couple of years ago, but that story is probably another blog for about time.

Always a Rod & Reel Nearby

 

Always a rod in hand, growing up

The photo above of me as a teen wasn’t from a fishing trip. Not something planned as a fishing trip anyway. I know by the dock shape it was taken at the Circle F Dude Ranch in Central Florida, which means it was from a retreat with my church youth group. 

Retreats always had full agendas, packed with meeting times, games, horseback riding, meals, chores, etc. Too much unstructured time with a bus load of middle schoolers and high schoolers doesn’t tend to lead to good things. Therefore, I probably didn’t have much time to fish. I can say with near certainty, though, that nearly every minute I had free that weekend was spent on that dock or along the shore, casting a plastic worm or some other lure.

I do remember catching some bass at the Circle F Dude Ranch. I don’t know if it was that day or even that trip. We went there a few times. That never mattered. If I was allowed to tote a rod on a retreat,  Scoit campout, church picnic, family vacation, or anywhere else, I always did, and I fished as long and as often as I could get away with. 

I remember that at our region’s Scout camp there was one very short dock where I could stand and fish, and realistically maybe four or five different casting angles, and I would stand in that one spot and cast for as long as the leaders would let me.

One weekend Scout trip, I wasn’t allowed to bring a rod because of space limitations. So instead I carried a spool of line and a Lazy Ike, and I repeatedly pitched it my lure out and retrieved it hand over hand. I’m pretty sure I didn’t catch anything with that method!

At every church picnic, I scrambled to the lakeshore upon arrival, fished until I was called to the potluck line, gobbled down some food, and scurried back to the lake until it was time to go home.

Not long ago my daughter and I were looking at photos from my high school yearbooks. She was amused because in two different years’ yearbook staff group shot, I was holding a fishing rod. Just me, for no obvious reason, in staff photos taken at the school. I couldn’t tell her why I had a rod and reel in both photos, but I also wasn’t surprised.

The year I was Student Life editor, that section had a Fishing spread. I don’t think that’s really the norm!

It seems some things don’t really change. I’ve just returned from a week on the coast as a 4H adult leader at a summer camp. Although I pretty much knew there would be no opportunity to fish, I still toted my travel rod, a reel and a small lure selection. As suspected, I never broke out the rod, but I had it along, just in case!

Double Delight Fish Catches

 

Bartram's bass double

“Double!” my buddy Jeff called out while I was reeling in a Bartram’s bass. I looked over and saw that indeed, he too was fighting a fish. Soon after, we had our only double of the day in hand. After a couple of quick photos, we slipped them back the water.

Neither was the biggest fish of the day, and they were two of quite a few. Jeff had even caught and released a more significant bass, which would count as his Bartram’s bass for the Georgia Bass Slam.

There’s something about doubling up with a fishing buddy that’s extra fun. From my perspective, it’s even more fun than catching two fish at once on a tandem rig or a YUMbrella.

I cannot say it quote beats doubling up by catching two fish at once on the same lure - something I’ve managed only a few times over the years. My favorite of those was a pair of peacock bass in the Amazon River basin that got hooked on opposite ends of a big topwater lure.

While crappie and white bass fishing, I’ve also been a part of a few double doubles, with a buddy and I both catching fish on both jigs of a tandem rig.

I’ve also been on a pier or boat when three or more anglers were hooked up at once — several, on a couple of occasions, on party boats. That’s getting away from doubles, though, and might be another story for another time.