Another Beautiful October Day on the River

What a beautiful October day! I awoke at 5:00 a.m. and the local weatherman said it was already in the upper 50's and heading to 80 degrees by mid-afternoon. A low pressure is moving in tonight and bringing showers for tomorrow. It was definitely time to go fishing.

I hooked up the boat, went to breakfast, and around 10:00 a.m. headed to the ramp. On the way, I called smallieman (Josh Kreider) to see what he was up to. He was on his last four milk runs and was going to be back at the shop real soon. He had asked a retired buddy from work to go fishing below Harrisburg today. I encouraged him to reconsider his location after his trip on Sunday, but he stuck to his guns. I wished him good luck. 8)

The water was pretty darn clear and low at the ramp. There were four other trucks and trailers in the parking lot. I only saw one other boat fishing. The others were most likely duck hunting.

I had a water temp. reading of 62.2 degrees which was very close to Monday's reading of 62 degrees. Josh told me later that the river reading where he was today ran around 66 degrees... he was in shallower water with less flow.

The skies were overcast most the morning until around 2:00 p.m. That's when the sun broke through and brought on blue bird skies. By 2:00 p.m., most of my fishing for the day was done. I had just finished eating lunch around 1:30 p.m. Afterwards, I caught one nice 16.5" smallie and a 15" cattie on a firetiger colored crankbait. Then it was back to the ramp around 2:45 p.m. and home by 3:30 p.m.

I had a total of 15 bass today with two 19.25" and a 20" walleye. Except for the after lunch fish that came on the crankbait, the other fish all bit a lipless crank. I also threw a 3/8th oz. spinnerbait, tube, and JB. The JB was very successful in the evening when the sun was setting (lower light) on Monday.

Here are the two 19.25" smallmouth. Check out the difference in their body shapes. The one looks like a football and the other looks like a linebacker. They both had decent shoulders on them.

My first 19.25" came around 11:30 a.m. I had to wait for about 30 min. until another angler left the site before I could move into the position I wanted. The angler had been sitting on a beautiful ledge and right over top some of a lot of bass similar to this one. :wink:


Here is my second 19.25" of the day... a living football!


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