Oodles of Panfish

Yesterday I showed Mark Whitman (fishingsmallstreams.blogspot.com) some good smallmouth spots, as he's been looking to catch some of those frisky river bass. Smallmouth in the summer are a very fun alternative when the water's too hot for trout fishing.

It didn't quite go according to plan. We did catch some bass, but they were not big. They weren't even average. Maybe the cold nights have them on the slow side, maybe the bright sun was encouraging them to hide under the rocks. Whatever the case, we didn't catch a whole lot of the target species. It sure wasn't a bust though! We caught piles and piles of panfish.

I was primarily fishing a little streamer Geoff Klane gave me. The sunfish were absolutely hammering it! Mark fished a popper pretty much the whole trip and it took a pounding too. He actually got two rock bass, which was a bit of a surprise for me as I fish this water regularly and have only landed one rock bass there!

It was good to get out on the water with Mark, until this trip we've only fished together on the annual New Year's Day outings. The fact that we caught oodles of beautiful wild fish made it all the better.