What a Difference a Day Makes

By Garry McMichael ©1999

I wanted to float fish a nine mile stretch of the Big River above Washington State Park, but because the river was both low and slow, the only sensible way to do any serious fishing was to make it a two day trip. Weather and news reports warned the weekend would be extremely hot and muggy with heat indexes over 102 degree mark. Before I could get the canoe loaded, I was completely soaked in sweat. Fortunately, there was a nice breeze and with an occasional dip in the river, I was able to stay reasonably comfortable.

Despite the heat, I hadn’t gone a quarter of a mile before catching a 12" largemouth under a root wad in a quiet pool. A few minutes later, I caught a 14" smallmouth in fast moving water just below a riffle. Both were caught on blue/black Chompers. A half hour later, I was playing with a weedless spoon around some timber when I hooked a scrappy 11" smallie. This became the routine for the day. The action was never really fast, but I was catching fish about every thirty to forty-five minutes on a variety of lures. I caught a 12" smallie out of a pool with a Rebel Crawdad, and a little later, I caught another one on a orange and brown Chomper.

As the sun began to sink into the west, I switched to a fly rod and caught a goggle-eye and a smallmouth on a chartreuse Woolly Worm in the same log jam. Then I hooked a spotted bass with a tiny spinner and towards evening, caught a 10" smallie on a Sneaky Pete along with several sun fish.

At dusk I watched several smallies go into a shallow water feeding frenzy by charging into schools minnows. Throwing a Skitterpop into the frenzy I got a violent strike only to have the lure thrown back into my face. On the next two casts I caught smallies in the 10"-11" range. On the final cast I had another terrific hit only to see what would have been the largest smallie of the day jump and throw the lure, causing me tangle my line. It was dark, time to quit, make camp, and eat supper. After all, I had all day tomorrow to slowly float the remaining four miles and catch fish just like today.

But what a difference a day makes. I rose early and broke camp before the sunlight ever touched the gravel bar. Back on the water I started by slinging my "go to" bait, Chompers on a bullet jig pulled slowly along the edges of downed timber and around root wads. But by 9:30 I hadn’t had so much as a twitch on my line.

At one point the river divided with half of it going into thick cover and under low hanging trees. I switched to my fly rod with the chartreuse Woolly Worm and made a cast into fast water as it came out from under a log. Wham! I had a solid hit and found myself fighting a nice smallmouth that was going to be worth bragging about. After about twenty seconds of tug of war I reached down to lip lock and admire this scrappy fighter. But he had other plans - with a violent shudder of his body he threw the hook and slipped back into the water. That was as close as I would get to a fish the rest of the day.

What happened? I don’t know, and I doubt there are any other anglers who could give me a good answer. The weather was the same, and the river wasn’t any different. I threw every lure that had worked so well the day before plus a dozen others, and I hardly got a tap on my line. Late in the afternoon when I finally arrived at my take out point, hot, tired, and my brain beginning to feel a little foggy I found the same thought running over and over again; "What a difference a day makes... What a difference a day makes... What a difference..

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