Sunset Smallies

I decided to hit my local smallmouth river after I got off work this afternoon. I only had a few hours to wet a line before it got dark, so I hit one of my usual beats close to the house that tends to yield numbers over size. Today was no different, caught lots of 7"-9" smallies hangin out in deep runs and shallow riffles. They were also regularly station at the exits of runs, pretty much everywhere there was enough water for them to hold in. The fishin was fast and furious, sometimes hooking up on 4-5 consecutive casts, almost all were small fish, but still a blast on an utlra-light all the same.

Adicus was even able to get into the action some. We have a game that I'll toss small fish into shallow runs and he'll try to grab them out of the water. More often than not, he'll come up empty handed or mouthed if you will. Today he actually got ahold of three of them. He says that's some mighty good eatin! Might be why he watches me so closely when I hook a fish. I can just say the word fishin and he starts whinning and getting excited. Lately, when I start getting my things together, he'll go and sit next to the truck so I don't forget him. Man, that dog loves to go fishin!!! Maybe as much as I do!

The two of us continued to move upriver as the sunlight faded to into a dusky twilight. We proceeded to catch more smallies along with the occasional redeye and assorted panfish. Nothing very big was caught, but serinity from a days work and life's problems was found. The water is getting lower, so some of my favorite runs are only 4"-6" deep, usually they are 2' deep. Sad, we need rain or I ain't gonna be fishin streams much longer. The fire threat is increasing, along with the heat. Thankfully, none of this is on my mind as we do our thing in the water. Foremost in my mind is that I can smell a polecat somewhere upriver of me. I'm lookin for it because the last thing I want is for Adicus to get juiced from one of those!

I'm starting to get closer to a run that is my best chance for a decent sized bass and the sun is behind the trees, so it's starting to get a little dark. I cast next to a large rock that swept my jig into a deep run, and set the hook on a solid 13" smallie. Not huge, but a titan compared to the dinks I had been catching earlier. After releasing the smallie, I heard a splash behind me, I turned around to see an otter rooting around in a pool to my left. Every few minutes, he would stick his head out of the water to see what I was doing. I've seen otters out here before, but never in this particular section. The sun was setting behind me and I took a moment to .... well ....... enjoy the moment. One of the reasons I love to fish is that it gets me out and about at different times of the day, and I get to see the most incredible things. Wildflowers, critters, sunrises, sunsets, and just plain beautiful spots too hard to describe. Maybe it's my own form of self-medication or my personal psychiatrist, I dunno. But I'm able to keep functioning on daily basis with heavy doses of fishing. You can ask my wife about what I'm like by time spring rolls around, I can't imagine living somewhere where I really couldn't go out for most of the winter. Growing up in Georgia, my idea of winter is a little different than most of the country's. I'm just now starting to get used to how cold it gets here sometimes, I find it hard to get motivated on a day that the high is 35 degrees.

All in all, it was a very pleasant evening on the river. Plenty of fish were caught, some were even eaten. The sunset was nice, as was the walk back to the house. I love summer twilight.