I fished the CT River this morning and the water was high, swift and loaded with floating grass and weed debris.
I had tied on a Whopper Plopper 110 and on my first cast had a blowup that missed the bait. I cleared the grass and floating weeds off of it, and fired it back in the vicinity of the strike and surprisingly, he ate it. It was nice to start the day with a fish on the second cast!

After that, every cast resulted in grass and had I had to constantly clear the bait after every cast, and most casts were ruined by grass or weeds on the bait.

I stayed patient knowing that this was going to be part of today’s adventure. I tried to avoid the grass going subsurface with a soft jerk bait and a swim bait but the current was moving too fast and I never had a touch on it, plus it was still getting grass anyways.

I switched back to a Whopper Plopper 90 for a smaller profile with less chance to pick up grass, and continued moving upstream. I was rewarded with 2 quality fish and 5 smalls..

So despite the tough conditions, I was still able to land seven fish and had a few other strikes that never hooked up. It was a beautiful morning, the weather was great, and the water wasn’t too cold too still wet wade.
Good times!