Fishing Forum

We fished the Snake, upstream from Walters Ferry, on Sunday morning. There was a noticeable increase in vegetation floating down the river. We were targeting smallmouth and were able to locate some decent ones. We made it a pretty short day, but caught between 15 and 20. The average size of fish was noticeably smaller than recent trips. Most of them were all between 11 and 12 Inches.

Had some success with a small chatter bait with a soft plastic minnow body that I recently picked up. Definitely found a somewhat slower presentation to be more effective in the cool morning. Although it did warm up to mid 80s that day. Most of the fish we caught were hanging out about 10 to 15 feet down.

I thought I hooked into a monster in one of the deeper holes. Turned out to be a carp that probably weighed around 12 pounds. I caught him on a drop shot rig with a leech. First time I have caught a carp on a lure. He put up a heck of a fight.
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I fished the area from Swan Falls to walters ferry for cats. After we floated past celebration park as was heading for Walters we didn't get into as many cats so we picked up and motored to walters. We didn't fish for bass at all through that whole run. The cats were amazing. Sounds like you had fun. Did you fish between celebration park and walters? Ron
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We didn't quite go as far as Celebration Park. We ran up to a spot that has been consistently productive for us over the summer, and fished it first. After staying anchored there for a short while, we used the electric trolling motor to control our speed as we drifted back towards Walters.

Ron: I saw in one post that you mentioned using a bottom bouncer while drifting for cats. I actually picked up a few after I read that, but I have yet to employ that technique. Were you doing that on this trip?

Here is the YouTube link showing the carp that I caught. Didn't know my friend recorded it on his cell phone. [url "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lJNfhfbGSw"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lJNfhfbGSw[/url]
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It's good to hear that you got into some fish. I've sure had a hard time on the Snake since they doubled the flow. The SM where I usually fish have moved to new locations and are harder to find. That 1/8 oz Chatterbait is a good bait for smallmouth. Try a 3" curl tail grub in your favorite color when you wear out the factory tails.
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The bass may have been smaller, but the numbers are still good.

Good job on the carp, It looked like a nice sized one. They can really give you a run. Fun!
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I did use the bottom bouncers when drifting on about half of the trip. I normally use split shot, a small one or two just to get the bait to settle to the bottom. When the bottom got real rocky I went to using the bottom bouncers.
That looked like a hog carp. My son is jealous he wants to catch a big carp and so far has struck out. Ron
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