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!
Nice trip Jon. I really miss doing that. I started wading that river 50 years ago. Don't think I could do it any more. I did try once last year up by the canal.
Edited by Don D (09/06/2004:34 PM)
If there are fish to catch. I'll be there to my end.
Great trip. Way to adjust to the adverse weed condition. When it is like you described, nothing is weedless. I spend more time and effort waiting for the right time to cast to get slightly less weeds in the flow then I do fishing when it is like this. There are also a few dead falls that catch the weeds and provide a parking spot size place of weedless water to fish. Problem is they are very few and far apart. They also get worked like rented mule by all the other kids fishing. I was also bothered by weeds on Monday at Mansfield. I did not catch didley. Great job.