Some Housatonic Smallmouth

A while back, my friend Rick, his grandson and I made an afternoon and evening trip to the Housatonic after smallmouth bass. I don't get to the Housy often so it was a nice change of pace from the more local freestones which have much lower densities of those acrobatic brown bass. Of course, passing a bridge pool on the way down to our first stop, I couldn't help but deviate from the plan and catch a beautiful wild brookie to start out.

The first spot turned out to be about dead. Despite seeing a few fish roll, which may actually have been carp, none of us got so much as a bump there. This really surprised me, as this had been an exceptionally productive spot the last time I'd fished it. We moved upriver, and our second stop wasn't any more productive. Third time's the charm though... fast pocket water in the shade gave up a couple small fish of crazyfish imitations tied on jig heads.

Following that pattern, we moved to a fourth spot, which also featured pocket water but was above a large deep hole. Bigger bass like the cover deep water provides and the food the fast water provides, so in the evening they are likely to slide up into the pocket water to feed. This proved to be the most fruitful fishing of the day. I took one half decent sized bass as well as a number of smaller ones, as did Rick. Nick got bit off by a pike!

The jiggy crayfish remained the most productive tool through the evening.

I thought things would really kick up late, especially if we got a hatch. We did, and some bass were rising, but poppers nor good mayfly imitations got the job done, and neither did wet flies or streamers. Overall, the catching was mediocre... I've done much better, I've done much worse. But it did just go to show how good the Housatonic is for bass. A steady pick of small fish over a couple hours is slow there. That river is just full of fish!

Until next time.

Fish for the love of fish.

Fish for the love of places fish live.

Fish for you.

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