Post by reelteacher on Jul 25, 2009 11:15:01 GMT -5
My father and I just returned from a fantastic trip on the St. Joe. Despite the bass tournament event, we had a great time and caught many fish. We have a friend who lives up there and he informed us of where to go. He said "just access the river and there are fish everywhere." Well, this wasn't far from the truth. We experienced some pretty fantastic fishing. We didn't catch huge fish, but the sheer number of fish that we did catch was impressive. We fished both above the twin branch dam and below the South Bend dam and caught fish.
We took dad's 16' flat bottom boat with a 9.9 hp. motor and that was perfect. We had trouble launching our boat at the access across from St. Mary's so we went north to just south of the Indiana/Michigan border. There, we found a few smallmouth bass and they were fairly eager to hit big deer hair poppers. The river was swift in this area, so we motored upstream (south) and then drifted back down stream (north) and fished as the current carried us. It was very enjoyable.
Just east of Mishawaka we accessed the river at the county line road. There is a bait shop right at the bridge and a boat launch. There is a ramp fee of $5.00 to launch your boat, but it is worth it. Here, the river is impounded by the Twin Branch dam, without a fish ladder, so it does not have a population of steelhead or salmon. Actually, the river resembles more like a reservoir, but there is a noticable, slow, current. There are walleye, northern pike, perch, crappie, rock bass, redear, sunfish, bluegill, catfish, carp, largemouth and smallmouth bass. We caught mainly rock bass, bluegill, redear, sunfish, largemouth and smallmouth bass. I had a shot at a carp in the 15 lb range, but blew it when I cast my fly right on top of its head. He was gone as fast as my fly sunk into the water.
On Thursday, 7-23, we experienced a remarkable hatch of the large Brown Drakes (Ephemera simulans). They had hatched the night before and were resting on the leaves of Hackberry trees that lined the shore. When our fly hit the leaves of a tree, 20-30 mayflies would fly out of the tree, some of them would inevitably land in the water and be eaten almost immediately, as would our fly! It was one of those events every fly fisherman should experience at least once. The best thing about a hatch of this type is that every fish in the river was keyed in on the easy smorgasboard and you never knew what type of fish was going to eat your fly next. You would catch several small bluegill, and then a 12 inch smallmouth, then 3 or 4 more smallmouth, then a few more bluegill. Every fish we landed was so fat and full of mayflies, they were puking them up as we brought them in. It was absolute gluttony!
If you are ever up in the South Bend area, check out the mighty St. Joe River. It has some very nice fish and incredible fishing diversity.
No, we didn't fish for the steelhead, but with so many other fish eager to eat, I was going for the quantity rather than quality.
Here are a few photos of the hatch.
Immediately we noticed husks of the mayflies all over the water.
Here is one I picked up and placed on the bow.
The Brown Drake, Chocolate Dun or Ephemera simulans
That was one lucky spider!
Here are a few photos of the fish.
We took dad's 16' flat bottom boat with a 9.9 hp. motor and that was perfect. We had trouble launching our boat at the access across from St. Mary's so we went north to just south of the Indiana/Michigan border. There, we found a few smallmouth bass and they were fairly eager to hit big deer hair poppers. The river was swift in this area, so we motored upstream (south) and then drifted back down stream (north) and fished as the current carried us. It was very enjoyable.
Just east of Mishawaka we accessed the river at the county line road. There is a bait shop right at the bridge and a boat launch. There is a ramp fee of $5.00 to launch your boat, but it is worth it. Here, the river is impounded by the Twin Branch dam, without a fish ladder, so it does not have a population of steelhead or salmon. Actually, the river resembles more like a reservoir, but there is a noticable, slow, current. There are walleye, northern pike, perch, crappie, rock bass, redear, sunfish, bluegill, catfish, carp, largemouth and smallmouth bass. We caught mainly rock bass, bluegill, redear, sunfish, largemouth and smallmouth bass. I had a shot at a carp in the 15 lb range, but blew it when I cast my fly right on top of its head. He was gone as fast as my fly sunk into the water.
On Thursday, 7-23, we experienced a remarkable hatch of the large Brown Drakes (Ephemera simulans). They had hatched the night before and were resting on the leaves of Hackberry trees that lined the shore. When our fly hit the leaves of a tree, 20-30 mayflies would fly out of the tree, some of them would inevitably land in the water and be eaten almost immediately, as would our fly! It was one of those events every fly fisherman should experience at least once. The best thing about a hatch of this type is that every fish in the river was keyed in on the easy smorgasboard and you never knew what type of fish was going to eat your fly next. You would catch several small bluegill, and then a 12 inch smallmouth, then 3 or 4 more smallmouth, then a few more bluegill. Every fish we landed was so fat and full of mayflies, they were puking them up as we brought them in. It was absolute gluttony!
If you are ever up in the South Bend area, check out the mighty St. Joe River. It has some very nice fish and incredible fishing diversity.
No, we didn't fish for the steelhead, but with so many other fish eager to eat, I was going for the quantity rather than quality.
Here are a few photos of the hatch.
Immediately we noticed husks of the mayflies all over the water.
Here is one I picked up and placed on the bow.
The Brown Drake, Chocolate Dun or Ephemera simulans
That was one lucky spider!
Here are a few photos of the fish.
