Just a short post for March, as due to the low water levels, some personal commitments, and Spring Break, I only made it out two times the entire month to shad fish.
Last Trip to Toso
On March 2, Ray and I returned to Tosohatchee and found the recent rains had mucked up the roads pretty good. There were two mudholes deep enough to push water up over Ray’s truck’s hood while crossing. Surprisingly, even seeing this, a minivan following us also decided to give it a go, likely swamping his interior and ripping his bumper off (as we found out on the way back.) People are clueless. SMH.
Anyway, the rain had pushed the SR 50 gage back up over 2.9ft. Even so, things were skinny and while we contemplated a run up to Possum Bluff, we figured we would end up walking most of it and decided to limit our upstream run to First Junction. Here Ray managed to catch a couple of shad on the conventional rod. I did not.
Our next stop was Catfish Hotel, where we found little current to swing a fly so again, we covered the area with the spinning rods and did not find shad. Hindsight being 20/20, we probably should have fished the run from the shelter’s side, as there is more of a trough there than the outside of the pool. That said, we did not waste a lot of time there.
We made the quick run down to the 7 Palms run where we fished the opposite side of the river than we usually do. We figured there might be some more depth there. There was not. The depth of the run is in a trough near center, and even so, was maybe only 2ft deep. We covered the area thoroughly and did not find shad. Ray did find one lone egg lying in the sand which made us scratch our heads though. It was near a gator that we ran off, but did not seem to be an alligator egg. With the price of eggs near record highs, I think he seriously considered keeping it. Speaking of alligators, with temperatures in the mid 80’s, they were friskier than usual and kept close watch of what we were doing.
We ran down to the spot I am now going to call “Monster Hole,” instead of 40 Gator Pool, because there were a lot more than 40 in the pool this day. While we had found good numbers of fish here the week prior, it was quiet this trip. Well maybe quiet is the wrong word actually. Being that there were so many alligators in one pool, the big tour airboats kept stopping by to give the tourists a show. Quiet they are not!
We noticed birds working the run in-front of Paw Paw Mound and being that was the only activity we saw all day, decided to check it out. Here we found some of the best remaining current in the river and Ray picked up a couple more fish on the spinning rod. I swung flies with the one hander and switch rod and had no takers.
Our final destination of the day was the Cypress Run. Here I found fish sitting just outside of the main current of the run, Ray found fish actively feeding up top on the bend, and we both caught our fill. The excitement of the day came after two of the large tour boats came through, one going downstream, the other going upstream, creating a wake strong enough to break the canoe off its landing. Luckily Ray was fishing upstream of me, saw what happened and whistled. I made the split-second decision to drop my rod, bag, and gun before jumping in to recover it. Thankfully that water was only waist deep and all of the alligators were well upstream.
The highlight of the day had to be fishing for shad feeding up top. The Fry Fly performed well for me but just about the time I had finished saying, “man… I wish I had one of Steve Kantner’s Little Richard flies with me,” Ray had finished tying one on his line. He began skating the fly across the current and had numerous short strikes, misses, and close calls before finally landing one on topwater. Good times!
While Ray and I made it out one more time for a half day out of CS Lee, we had already switched gears in our minds to focus on bass. Even so, with the gage above Lake Harney under 1 ft, there just isn’t enough water in the river to focus on much of anything right now. We need some rain!
Until next year, tight lines and good luck to my northern friends! I hope you have solid shad runs this year!
