An Unknown Stream, A Man And His Fishing Pole

Sometimes you just have to find out. That thought had been going through my mind for a few weeks. That's because sometimes on Sunday mornings I have to take my son to meet his mother in Franklin, Ohio. I do this so I can work at my job for a few hours.....

After I drop my son off, I take Interstate 75 North back up to Beavercreek, Ohio. Now after you get on the interstate about 100 yards north on your right hand side you will see a stream. Now your going going about 70mph and this is a construction zone so there are orange barrels that you have to watch for.You only have a quick moment to notice there is a stream, a very small, slow moving pretty little stream....and it screams "small mouth bass live here"....

Now I passed this stream 4 times, before the next Sunday morning I could not take it anymore, and as I crossed the bridge I had to quickly smash my brake peddle and pull over without hitting one of those damn orange barrels. I did just that, pulled off the interstate onto the shoulder, a bit into the grass, perfect. Stepped out of the truck, and gazed at the on coming traffic wizzing by me at 70mph, grinning....I pulled out from behind the seat of my truck my fishing vest, and a bass rod.....gonna hit this unknown stream...I have one hour before I need to go to work which is only 20 minutes up the road. So thirty minutes to peek at this Unknown stream and maybe wet the line...I am like a little kid in a candy store...buzzing with excitement.

I quickly made my way down the steep embankment, heading towards the stream flowing under the bridge......First thought was how clear the water is in this stream.....The stream was about 15 yards wide and clear as a bell... the deepest this part(under the bridge) of the stream was maybe 3ft....some minnows swimming around....I need to go upstream where the bends in the stream where. The ones that I could see from the interstate. The ones that drew me to this point I am at now. So upstream I headed....have to go threw the bushes and trees...

The bend in the stream was what I think of as a normal bend for these parts....the shallow side had a small sandy area, the other side was the side with the hole and a couple of downded logs. This is where I thought I might get lucky.....Now I could see it, this area, so pretty....I need to see if there is a bass over there....I am standing at the edge of the woods, and I need to drop down the embankment where the water had once cut away the bank....maybe a 5ft drop....Now there I am, in my work clothes....black dress shoes....ready for work....sneaking thru the woods....probably tresspassing, just wanting to check out a small stream....maybe catch a smallmouth bass...the ground before me looks dry....so I jump down....and my feet shoot out from under me and my ass hits the ground....I quickly push myself up and take a step into mud, that I had thought was dry ground...I take a few steps and look down at myself...mud covers my shoes up to my shins....my left arm is a muddy mess and so is the seat of my pants...all mud...and I have to go to work......thats the bad news...good news is the stream is right in front of me and I am on the bend that i had been viewing from the road all those times....it is pretty...more shallow that I had thought it would be....but I have a small section I might as well fish...this stream might hold a few...I don't catch any in this small area, not with the jig I had brought..but I have to get back to my truck...gotta get to work and somehow get cleaned up....don't have time to get home and then to work....shit!!!


........ok so I climb out of there...make it back to my truck....guess what?....Can't find the keys to my truck....they were in my back pocket when I slipped in the mud and landed on my ass.....I know thats where they are....gotta re-trace my steps and go find my keys...gotta get to work....covered in mud....all because I had to find out about this damn stream.....

....call me crazy, stupid...whatever.....I made it to work...I found out something about that stream...I have a good story to tell....

Go Fish

New Video Clips

Been real bust fishing lately....have had to use my camera on my phone here are a few clips....

Great Miami River 8/29/11

What a great day. I dropped my son off at school at 8am and headed over to the river. it was a very cool morning and the sun was just burning off the clouds. I parked my truck, put on my gear, waders, boots, and vest. Rigged my line with a white curly tail and spinner....caught 3 very nice small mouth bass. 2 were very big. My buddy met me on the water and caught a couple as well, including a nice channel cat....just like i did last week....

Great Miami River

August 23rd, 2011

Went smallmouth fishing yesterday in downtown Dayton, Ohio. Chose to fish the area around Riverscape. This is where the Mad river Dumps into the Great Miami. This is a really pretty area, and makes for a great backdrop for some awesome urban fishing. This river is really full of fish and it really fished well. I was targeting smallmouth bass. and I caught a lot of them yesterday in just a few hours. But towards the end of the day I caught a channel cat, going 5lbs, on an old spinner bait I use for smallmout. The cat was in the current feeding and nailed my lure like a freight train. I guess he thought he was bigger and badder than he actually was. Because I brought him in on my 5ft. UL, with 4lb test Floro......awesome ending to a great day....now GO FISH and tight lines

Cranberry River

Just posting a few more Pics of our Trout packing trip to the Cranberry....

Cranberry River 2011

.....and we went again. This is a reoccurring theme for us. We hopped in the car last Sunday July 24th. It was pouring down rain....which put us a bit behind. So we finally got rolling about 3pm or so towards West Virginia....we were hell bent on doing some trout fishing.
..... We didn't get to the top on the Mountain until about 10pm. It had done some raining in this neck of the woods as well.....so we camped at the top of the mountain, next to the car......gonna hike in at daybreak.....that we did.
.....We got down to the river in quick time the next morning, July 25th.....found a shelter along the river and strung up our Hammocks.....made camp in like 20minutes and got our fishing stuff ready and headed out....


.....now summer fishing on the streams can be terrible. The water in usually low, temps are up, and the fish tend to be spooky as hell....and all this was true, the conditions sucked which meant that one or both of us should have gotten skunked....but that was not to be the case....I fished pretty hard that day landed 3 nice trout and lost about 3 others....not bad for that time of year.....Marshall land 5 or 6, and also lost a couple....pretty good day no matter how you looked at it.

.....What saved us was the fact that is was over cast and rainy that day. We did a lot of hiking and fishing...

Lots of wildlife on this trip....turkeys and deer....then on the morning of the 26th, before our hike up the mountain we had a visitor from a black bear who walked through our camp early in the morn....I got that on video....he just passed by and went along on his route to wherever....very nice.

Tight lines....go fish.

Smallie

Sorry it's been such a long time since I have posted anything.....I have all sorts of excuses....blah blah blah. I went out the other day to an area of The Little Miami that I have never fished. Xenia, Ohio.....at the end of 235......with success.....wasn't out long but got a few. Really nice area....check out the video.

Little Miami River

4/30/2011 - We set records here in Ohio for rainfall amounts this month. That being said, do I need to tell anyone that the rivers are still way up. Muddy. The fish? Hell I didn't catch any, but I tried.

Yesterday at 3:30pm I took off out of Fairborn, Ohio and went to see if after two days off no rain had the rivers recovered. The answer is "Hell No". I parked at the Public access point at U.S 35 and New Germany Treibien Roads. This is Eagles Pass canoe launch....whatever. Water was up past the launch and real muddy. The weather although was perfect about 70, sunny, a little breeze, no humidity....perfect. Except, I could not get a fish to grab my line no matter what I threw at 'em.

I lost 3 of my favorite crankbaits. The wouldn't even chase my spinner. White in color that I always have luck on in the spring. Tube Baits? Nope, not even a nibble.....it was one of those days.

I would rather be out walking the river, loosing lures, getting snagged. Than stay at home to mow the yard or something crazy like that......

So there I was, standing in a river, waving a stick, not catching a thing....and loving every moment of it.

Go fish

Fishing In The Snow Part 2.

This is yet another clip from our Fishing Adventure on the Mad River in West Liberty, Ohio. This is a little clip of Marshall "Cranberry" Hamden catching and releasing a nice Brown Trout.

Snow Fishing

I quickly wanted to post a new video. No time to waste have fun watching.

Febuary Mad River Brown Trout

Cold and shitty weather, always a good day to try your luck at some trout fishing. I don't know why, but it seems if you suffer with the cold, rain and snow, then the fishing "Gods" let you get some fish.(read trout!)

That's exactly what was going on this last Saturday, Feb. 5th, 2011. The temps sat between 28 and 32 degrees that day. With a slight drizzle to start the day at 8am. Then sleet, followed by snow, and yes, some good strong wind just to make sure Old Man winter was happy.

We finally got our butts moving and in the car at about 9am with the intent on heading over to the "Great Miami" river to catch something for a mid-winter fish fry. We thought we might be able to get on some sauger, saugeye, or maybe walleye. But to my disappointment, no such luck.....it's kinda hard to cast at a big river, an urban fishery in Downtown Dayton, Ohio when you know that the Mad river is right around the corner. That at first is not a big deal because most rivers around here are about the same, but that's not true about the "Mad", because the "Mad" holds some nice Brown Trout, at least in its upper reaches.

So after some time trying to locate some catchable fish in the "Great Miami", my good fishing pal, Marshall "BMW" Hamden, came up with a great idea and said "Let's get outta this place and find us some trout". Now it is my belief that because it was snowing, a lot, and mighty miserable, my friends brain was able to come up with this magnificent idea. Of course, I agreed, and why wouldn't I? It would have been absolutely adsurd for me to say anything else except " Good Fucking idea". Or something of that effect.

So, we hopped in the "Trout Mobile" and headed north towards West Liberty, and that River that will not release it's hold on us. Of course it really started snowing at this point, the roads became bad the farther north we traveled, of course we had to stop off at "Wally World", to pick up so odds and ends. This is always the way it goes, there always has to be a stop along the way, at least for us. I have always wondered if this was the case for others as well. But we can't seem to ever just get in the car and head to our destination. That would be way to simple. But in the end it never really matters, it is just part of it. Part of the process, of getting were we need to be, I think.

.....we stopped in West Liberty, Ohio, after fishing a few other parts of the river on the way. This is were it started to come together for us. We came to a hole in the river. The only real winter hole we had seen on the river that day. This is were we started to get some action, nothing good but Marshall pulled a small brown up and before he could get it, it came off the line and right back in the water. Now I could see that this was frusterating for him and I did what any good fishing partner would do and I laughed and snickered a bit.....

After this hole we waded our way up the river to Lions Park, where once again we came to a good whole, where he again lost what he thought was another Trout. Now I had been taking it easy and had not been fishing much the last 300 yards or so, but I anounced "Ok, enough messing around let me in there" were upon my first cast in the whole I pulled out a nice Mard River Brown Trout. Which might have been his fish, or maybe not,. Not to matter, there were more in there and he also pulled one from that very hole...

...will finish the story and add more pics in the next article in a day or so. ....Until then, Go FIsh!!