Daily Routine: Wading for Creek Smallmouth

Yesterdays trip was back to wading in Goose creek. This time to explore another stretch that we had not fished in a while. I challenged Collin to a popper contest each using the Teeny Pop R I had an all white he used a clear one. He took the lead  almost immediately with the little smallie pictured on the left. I then had a big hit on my lure it sounded like someone getting smacked in the face, but the fish missed the lure.

The bluegill and other panfish were aggressive in this stretch and we were constantly getting little hits from the pan fish. We both caught about a dozen bluegill combined and I even caught a kinda rare rock bass. I may need to take my fly rod out there and have some fun catching these guys on the popper fly.

We continued searching for the target species and after a lull in the action we moved down further to the next pool.  There was a ton of action on the surface with minnows and even some large carp moving around the pool. We worked the top end and Collin hooked up again with a 12 inch small mouth this time. Now I was down 2-0 in the popper challenge I stopped joking around and entered into a full tournament focus. I had just laid down a good good cast deep into a downed tree I hear collin say hes hooked up. I could tell this was a larger fish because it didn't just come in like most fish you hook in the creek. After a decent fight he landed it and it ende up being a 21 inch virginia citation smallmouth.

After the excitement of the big fish I went back to fishing and as soon as my lure landed on the water a fish was on. As I reeled in my fish Collin hooked up and we had two high jumping smallies pictured below. I finally was on the board but I was still down by 3 fish and the sun was dropping quickly. As it got darker my white popper began to shine and I caught 5 more  in the last 30 minutes of daylight. The final score in the popper challenge was me 6 collin 4 so I won even though he thinks the big fish should count for two.