Ohio River Magic

I have lived my entire life within a short drive of the Ohio River.  The definition of "short" has changed a bit with some moves, but I have never been more than a 35-40 minute drive from the river.  Most of my earlier childhood through high school, it was more like a 10 minute bicycle ride away from the front door.  Having not picked up fly fishing until around the college age, I have pretty limited experience fly fishing the Ohio.  I've made an effort to change that in recent years.  There is no denying that the Ohio holds some incredible fish, but fly fishing the big river throws some hurdles at you, as well.  Shore fishing can be tough.  Wading is not much of an option.  So when a friend called over the weekend and offered a seat on his boat for Monday morning, I jumped at the opportunity.  This buddy and I go way back, and he has no issues cracking jokes and poking fun at my fly rod usage from his fiberglass bass boat.  I expected the same for Monday, and got it.

We went into this 1/2 day outing with no real solid plan.  Tackle and gear was brought along for most scenarios and species we expected to encounter.  I brought an UL spinning rig in case we found sauger in 20+ feet of water, a heavy weight baitcaster rig for catfish, and my Orvis Access 9' 7wt.  We started off fishing near an industrial site along the river with some large pilings that create some current breaks.  This spot usually has a lot of baitfish, which attracts the skipjack and larger predatory fish.  I did manage the first fish of the day on the fly there, this feisty little smallmouth that was chasing bait near the pilings.

The Murdich Jig Minnow, from last week's tying tutorial post, in a size 2 was the only fly I threw on this outing.  Even in the larger size, and presenting a larger meal, the fly casts easily and gets down well considering the fairly light weight of the fly.  After failing to catch catfish for about an hour and a half, we changed gears again and decided to hit the rocky shoreline below the tailrace.  Upon motoring up, we immediately saw small baitfish getting blitzed by skipjack.  After a few minutes, we saw a larger boil, indicating something bigger feeding here, as well.  A long cast tight to the rocks got me bent again on the 7wt, this time with a chunkier smallmouth.

They were getting bigger.  We had made several drifts down one particular current seam with both of us catching fish.  He was getting channel cats on a bottom rig, I had caught a smallmouth and lost another unidentified fish that felt heavy.  A tiny point of rock that jutted out into the current was the location of repeated boils, but no hookups after repeated casts.  On the next drift, barely in casting reach of that rocky outcropping, I laid out a long cast on the money.  One strip...boom.  I felt a hard grab and set the hook.  

On the hook set, I told my buddy "Good fish." A split second later, a huge smallmouth erupted from the water and crashed back down.  I turned back and shouted "Holy fecal matter!" or something similar to that.  What ensued was a crazy battle with hard surges to the bottom and towards the rocks, followed by leaps out of the water.  I knew from the moment I saw this fish that it was by far the biggest smallmouth bass I had ever hooked.  Repeated attempts to land the fish by my friend at the front of the boat failed, so I took matters into my own hands.  I got the fish near the back of the boat, dropped quickly to my knees, and got the beast lipped.

Fish Ohio is the trophy fish certification program in Ohio.  For years, the minimum qualifying length for smallmouth was 20", heavily influenced by the tank smallies of Lake Erie.  I had never come that close to a 20" fish and always assumed it to be out of my reach.  This year they added the qualification size of 18" for non-Lake Erie smallmouth which I had met on one fish this spring.  This fish measured 21".  There have not been many fish that have left me shaken, but this bronze beauty did just that.  We snapped a few quick photos, took a quick rod measurement, and I got her back in the water.  Once she was ready to go, we parted ways.    

For years, I have heard the stories and seen the photos of smallmouth like this being caught from the Ohio River on conventional gear.  I knew they were there, but I honestly never thought I would ever find myself attached to one on the fly.  Most of the stories I have heard revolve around deep structure, the types that are almost impossible to effectively fish with fly gear.  The location where this fish was caught had everything: food, current, cover, shade, and nearby depth.  Add it all up and it was sort of the perfect storm to allow a fish of this caliber to be in reach of a fly angler.  I was lucky to be in the right place at the right time to make a memory that will last a lifetime.