Favorite Fishing Destinations Countdown: Honorable Mentions

A 9-2 largemouth from Mexico's Lake El Salto, fishing out of Anglers Inn International

Last week I noted that I would soon start a countdown of favorite fishing destinations. I've been mulling that one, and have my list mostly together, although it continues to shift in my mind, as I suppose it always will. Ten was the target, but I couldn't quite cut it that small, so I had to acknowledge a handful of honorable mentions before beginning the Top 10 listings. I'll hit these quickly in a single post and in no particular order. Top 10 will get individual posts and will count down to No. 1, although as I noted in last week's post, there isn't a lot of separation between any of the honorable mentions and the last ones I'll highlight in the countdown. I'm more than a little bit fond of all of them!

Lake El Salto - Given the spectacular fishing and scenery and the entire experience at Anglers Inn International, El Salto probably couldn't stay out of the Top 10, except that it's more accurately dubbed a place I "have fished" than one I "do fish." I'm thankful to have had the opportunity to fish their twice and of course I hope to return someday, but it's tough to say whether that will ever happen.

Big Pier 60 - Big Pier 60 in Clearwater Beach is similar, but very different. It's very accessible and I've spent dozens of days (and nights) fishing there. Most were more than three decades ago, though. It will forever remain one of my favorite places to fish, especially at night, under the lights, for speckled trout.

Reelfoot Lake - I've often likened Reelfoot to the world's largest farm pond, based on appearance and the way it fishes. I've gotten to spend some crazily fun days catching big bluegills, channel cats, crappie or bass from Tennessee's earthquake lake, and I always enjoy hanging out at Blue Bank Resort.

Buffalo River - Flowing freely for its entire 135 miles through Arkansas' Ozark Mountains, the Buffalo National River is quite simply a spectacular place to explore, whether by wading or floating. Great smallmouth opportunities are truly a bonus. The only downside from my standpoint is that the Buffalo is about a 15-hour drive from my house.

New River - Speaking of spectacular smallmouth rivers, the New is another of my absolute favorites, and I've had opportunities at times to fish sections spread from the relatively gentle upper reaches in Western North Carolina to the famous whitewater section of New River Gorge in West Virginia. Check out New River Outdoor Company in Virginia or Adventures On the Gorge in West Virginia if you want to discover this spectacular River for yourself.

Ozarks in Autumn, Round 2

Having taken the same basic trip at the same time with the same group (two of my boys, a friend and me) two years in a row, I supposed it could have been dubbed our second annual Autumn Ozarks Adventure. Whatever the name, we made the trip a week or so ago, and much like last year, enjoyed some excellent fishing and had a bunch of fun.

We spent most of this year's fishing time working the Buffalo and White rivers, hitting both rivers in several spots. My 12-year-old son Asher also got to spend a delightful day catching trout from Dry Run Creek, which is a wonderful youth- and handicapped-only, catch-and-release trout stream. The other two explored a bit on the Norfork River during part of that day, but didn't find much to their liking. I just followed Asher and stayed busy taking photos.

The Buffalo was mighty low and a bit slow. We did catch some fish, though, and the Buffalo is such a beautiful river that wading along its edges or floating it is always delightful. We started fairly far up the river and hopped from access to access, walking river banks and wading. The White yielded plenty of trout, including a few truly fabulous flurries.

This year's trip also include stops at a handful of disc golf courses, including one in Mississippi that we visited along the way and four in Arkansas.

We split our nights between camping and cabins and enjoyed both in different ways. Best meal, by my take any way, featured cheap steaks cooked over coals beside the White River.

Banking on the Buffalo

I had only floated Arkansas' Buffalo National River in the past, but given low water that would have dictated a lot of canoe dragging, Glenn Wheeler suggested a wading approach for our day on the Buffalo last week. I'm glad he did, and I'm intrigued by the notion of a multi-day trip with a similar approach some time in the future. The many National Parks Service access points provide a tremendous amount of river access, and I think it would be really fun to hop from access to access, working down the river, for a three or four days, camping by the river each evening.

The Buffalo is ever-winding, with gravel bars on long inside bends and bluffs across the river. Access points naturally are on the inside bends, so from just about any one, you can cover a lot of territory without any kind of boat. And when the water is low, like it is now, before you reach a point where the river changes directions, it's easy to wade across to stay on the shallow side.

In truth, for our trip, with limited time and a desire to hit a few different access points, we didn't even have to wade. An enormous amount of really good water could be reached from the bank. I ended up wading some, mostly because I like getting in the river, but two of our in our group stayed dry, and I didn't catch any more fish then they did. Together, I'd guess we caught a bout 40 fish (mostly smallmouths) in half a day of hopping from one access point to the next.

Just as it has when I've floated it in the past, the beautiful Buffalo River left me longing for more and I'm already mentally planning "next time." When exactly that next time will happen, I don't know, but I know I'm looking forward to it!

Let it Rain

Rain was hitting the tent when we woke up this morning. It' raining outside our hotel room tonight. In between, well, it mostly rained. While I won't deny the rain putting somewhat of a damper on the day's plans, it sure didn't keep us from fishing. In truth, Nathaniel, Asher and I had fun fishing the White River in a steady downpour. We had the river basically to ourselves, and we even managed to catch a few trout.

Fishing in the rain also made us appreciate the Gaston's restaurant more than ever. I had a Gaston's Burger, which is huge and comes with avocado and seriously good bacon. No doubt I also really enjoyed my coffee today.

Plan had been to camp tonight, but with heavy storms projected and even a tornado warning, we decided that driving toward the Buffalo River (where we will fish tomorrow) and getting a hotel room would be prudent. That also gave us the chance to dry out some gear and reorganize the back of the truck a little better.

I'm really look forward to exploring the Buffalo River tomorrow. Then, it'll be about time to point it back toward Georgia.

Autumn Ozarks Adventure

Objective are simple: Explore rivers, enjoy autumn in the Ozarks and catch fish. Agenda is lightly defined. Likely stops include the Spring, Norfork, White  and Buffalo rivers (plus Dry Run Creek for Asher). Little Red is a possibility, too. How and exactly where we fish and where we put up the tent each night will depend on river conditions, weather, results and simply what we feel like.

That's a nicety of November. Campgrounds are uncrowded, so no reservations are necessary.

We leave tonight and should be in Arkansas by daylight and fishing by mid-morning or so. Crew includes my 17- and 11-year-old sons and one other friend. Trout and smallmouths are the primary targets, but I'd be surprised if we don't catch some rock bass, misc. other panfish and who knows what else.

We'll likely float the Spring River with help from a friend. Everything else will be wading or bank-fishing, so river conditions will dictate quite a bit, especially in the tailwaters.

I'll certainly pack several cameras, and truth be known, gathering work photos, video clips and other content has to be also part of my objectives list. This one is a little different from normal media trips I take, though. We're just going fishing and letting the photos opportunities happen. Of course, I don't think good material will be hard to come by while as we fish four or five Ozarks streams during the first week of November.

I supposed I'd better get back to packing and to getting stuff done so I can travel tonight!

7 Spectacular Smallmouth Rivers

Fourth-generation guide Billy Rosner with a chunk of Vermilion River bronze.

A question I'm often asked is what species or type of fishing I enjoy the most. I'm an all-species angler in every sense, and there are aspects I cherish about everything from crawling up a tiny mountain creek to flipping from the deck of a bass boat to fishing from a big boat for ocean fish. Forced to choose, though, river smallmouth would get the nod. The places they call home; the floating, wading or jet boat approach; and the way they attack and fight puts river smallies ahead of the pack in that mind.

With June being an outstanding time to target stream smallmouth bass, it seemed fitting to share a list of my favorite moving waters for smallmouths.

A couple of disclaimers, for starters. I'm not attempting to name the seven best smallmouth rivers in the country. 1) These are personal favorites -- waters I've fished and enjoyed immensely -- but all are legitimately spectacular places to fish for smallmouth bass. 2) Order is alphabetical.

Buffalo River, Arkansas
Free flowing for 135 miles, mostly through federally owned wild lands in Arkansas' Ozark Mountains, the Buffalo National River offers spectacular scenery and fast action from smallmouth bass and lends itself to a host of floating and wade-fishing options.

New River, Virginia
Steep-sided, rugged and rural, the New River cuts a south-to-north swath through the western tip of Virginia, and a mix of mild and wild river sections produce some seriously big smallmouths (plus more than a few husky muskies) for anglers who know how to target them.

New River Gorge, West Virginia
I know. Same river. However, West Virginia's gorge section, with its crashing rapids, house-sized boulders and towering bluffs, deserves mention of it's own. Super-abundant fish with occasional giants, and all within a very dramatic canyon.

Penobscot River, Maine
Most Penobscot fish have serious shoulders and they hit topwater lures with absolute abandon. The river winds between dense forest and occasional farms, and you never know when you might spot a moose or a bear.

Spring River, Arkansas
As the name suggests, the Spring River rises from a giant spring, so its waters stay a wonderful temperature for smallmouths year 'round. Expect fun mixed catches of smallmouths, rock bass, rainbow trout, brown trout, walleyes and more. Avoid summer weekends, when giant "canoe hatches" occur.

Upper Mississippi River, Minnesota
Because Minnesotans favor walleyes over bass and lakes over rivers, you can enjoy some of the world's finest action for heavyweight smallmouth bass within an hour's drive of the Twin Cities, and you might not see another fisherman.

Vermilion River, Minnesota
Northwoods beauty, a canoe and big, mean smallmouths make for a fabulously fun fishing trip, and that's exactly what you find on the Vermilion River, which is WAY north in Minnesota -- almost to the Boundary Waters, in fact.

Flood Thoughts

Being just home from a week on the road, it's hard to not think about the rain that's pounding on my tin office roof and how thankful I am that Nathaniel and I were able to get in as much good fishing as we did. Apparently, the area we fished in Tennessee (under blue skies for two days) has had rain every day since we left, including absolute downpours last night, and  the gravel bars we walked on in Arkansas' Buffalo  River were majorly flooded only a day later. Meanwhile we somehow dodged the heaviest of Georgia's rains as we drove home today. And the Mississippi, where we began our fishing adventure, is high and red right now.

The Bassmaster Elite Series pros fish West Point on the Georgia/Alabama border this week, and apparently it was storming, with heavy rains and even big hail as the pros arrived in town today. They'll be fishing flood patterns and dirty waters, I suppose. Most Georgia waters run pretty red when the rain falls hard, so that has a big impact on how the fish behave.

Sometimes flood waters wash out a trip. For example, floating the Buffalo would have been dangerous after the big rains came. Some lakes simply get too muddy for the fish to find their food or the current in a river gets so strong that the fish just move into survival mode for a day or two.

Often, though, flooding creates opportunities (as any extreme condition can) because it washes food into rivers into rivers and lakes, causes fish to position themselves predictably in obvious eddies, tight to cover, or in the clearest water they can find. Sometimes it just makes them more aggressive.

The key is to consider the conditions that the weather has brought and fish accordingly. Unexpected flooding might mean searching shallower, using bigger and noisier lures and keeping lures much closer to cover. It also might mean doing a lot of looking to find little pockets where the water color is better.  Find those, and you've found something special. It'll be interesting to see how that kind of stuff plays out on West Point this week.

Figuring Out Trout & Smallmouths

The trout in Dry Run Creek were tough customers today. With so many fish in such a s small stream, you'd think that catching them would be like shooting fish in a barrel. That's not the case, though. In fact, sometimes they get very finicky. That's especially true during the spring, when a lot of school groups visit this special "youth only" catch-and-release stream, and the fish get caught and released a lot!

Nathaniel had the stream to himself today, but the fish were wary, and he had to experiment with a variety of lures and presentations to figure out how to trigger strikes. Eventually, he figured out that a black Fuzz-E Grub was pretty tough for some fish to resist.

Tomorrow we'll be floating the Buffalo River with smallmouth bass as our primary targets, and we're already pondering what might work best. The river is notably higher than when I've fished it before, and it actually is on the rise and has a bit of color. The small baits and subtle colors that normally work well for me might go unnoticed by the bass.

 I sort of think that jerkbaits and crankbaits will produce better than soft-plastic offerings tomorrow, and that the best soft plastics will have opaque color pattens and lend themselves to fast presentations through ambush zones. I also think that picking the best locations will be critical as the smallmouths will be laying low but will be ready to ambush easy meals. The challenge, I think, will be making good presentations through key fish-holding areas.

Those are just guesses, though. I"ll have a much better idea once I'm on the section we will float, and hopefully the pattern will develop as the day progresses. Either way, I"ll pass along the report!

Travel Prep

Today is al about packing and prepping stuff for a week on the road. Tasks range from gathering gear for at least three different kinds of fishing to making certain camera batteries are charged and memory cards are cleared. I'm mostly working in a triangle, going from bedroom to office to basement, but occasional satellite missions take me to the truck with stuff that's fully gathered or even to the store, post office or money machine. Fortunately, I'm up-to-speed on deadlines, so I'm not trying to squeeze in writing between other stuff.

Nathaniel and I leave tomorrow for Tennessee to fish a couple of days on Center Hill, Old Hickory and/or Priest for bass, crappie, bream and whatever else might happen to bite, but as of now I'm thinking we'll blast out dark and early and do some trout fishing in the North Carolina mountains along the way. From Tennessee, we'll steer west, to Arkansas, where we'll spend a few days fishing in the Ozarks. Two of those days will be on the Buffalo River, water levels allowing, float-fishing for smallmouth bass. One day might find us in another trout stream.

We'll wrap up the trip with a day in Mountain View, Arkansas at the Dulcimer Jamboree. No fishing plans there. Just a day of good music and time with friends.

Then it's back to Georgia and back to writing fish stories.

Buffalo to Taneycomo

Low water made for slower than normal fishing on Arkansas' Buffalo River, but that didn't make our outing any less fun. Nathaniel and I enjoyed a couple of fun days with friends. We floated the river yesterday and wade-fished this morning. And while the bite was slow overall, we did manage to wrangle of few smallies from the river's beautiful emerald-colored waters.
This afternoon, Nathaniel and I traveled to Lilley's Landing on Lake Taneycomo in Branson, Missouri. We fished two or three hours on our own this afternoon and caught a couple of browns and a couple of rainbows. Tomorrow morning we'll be back in the lake with TJ Stallings and a local guide. Taneycomo is famous for it's trout, so I'm looking forward to seeing more of the lake and its fishy residents.

On the Road Again

Photo by Alan Clemons

Tomorrow begins an excursion of work, school and play for Nathaniel and me. Stop No. 1 is the Buffalo River, a spectacularly scenic Ozarks river in Northern Arkansas. We'll float the Buffalo and stay in a cabin with friends (with Nathaniel adding evening front porch music) before continuing north to Branson to fish for trout on Taneycomo and then attend the Southeastern Outdoor Press Association's annual conference. At SEOPA, Nathaniel is most looking forward to an event called Breakout and to "Pickin' and Grinnin'" after the final evening's banquet. Our last stop will be Kentucky Lake, where we'll do photo work with Strike King's pro staff.