8/8 - 8/9: DAWN PATROL

Saturday, Aug. 8th: Woke @ 4:30am., stepped foot in water @ 5:35am.

It was a beautiful morning as a lite fog rose from surface of the river. There seems to be a peace that comes with fishing at the break of dawn. Maybe it's just me, but this early morning fishing is THE best time to fish. I only wish there was a hot Foldgers lady standing on a sandbar holding a fresh hot cup of coffee for me. Only in a perfect world.

My world is not perfect, and the early morning bite was not what I was hoping it would be. I got in to some fish, but it took a lot of work. I was casting the fly rod looking for a topwater bite along the edges, but couldn't get anything to take a swipe. I tied on a minnow imitation and couldn't get anything to hit on that. Switched back to a popper and started getting action, the hour was 7:30am.

I ended up picking up 3 smallies on top with the fly rod. I switched over to spin gear and picked up 2 more smallies on top. I had a ton of misses.

Sunday, Aug. 9th: Woke @ 4:00am., stepped foot in water @ 6:10am.

STRANGE DAY

We had storms that were suppose to move through the area overnight and into the morning hours. I checked the radar and could see that there was a strong chance of these storms hitting the area. After watching the storms track, I decided that any of the strong stuff would stay to the south of the area, and I jumped in the car and I went.

It was the perfect morning, weather-wise. It was kind of cool, I had cloud coverage, everything was the way it's suppose to be. Would somebody please tell the fish.

Again fishing was tough. With an overcast sky I stuck with top water poppers on the fly rod. The action was mute until.....you guessed it.......7:30am., when I brought the first of the day to hand.

Today I had more misses on that popper than I could believe. I even had what looked like a 30+" pike explode on it on three different casts. The rest of the day went the same. All kinds of blow-ups, but nothing on the hook. It was like a territorial thing was going on. Strange. Ended up only bring 3 to hand. No size to speak of.