Fishing in the Rain
At times, Mother Nature pulls a fast one and closes one window and opens another at the same time. Such was the case last week, when rain, snow, and wind in the high country kept me from a planned trip to Strawberry and forced me to stay closer to home.
Determined to fish somewhere, I chose to take two rods and reels rigged to catch largemouth bass, and (between rain storms) fished an area close to home, the stream that leaves the Provo waste water facility and provides much of the water for the East Bay Golf Course, in south Provo.
This stream is only a few hundred yards long and passes under 1860 South (the road that connects University Avenue and I-15 to Highway 89 between Provo and Springville). While parking to golf, I oft times see anglers trying their luck fishing for catfish, white bass, walleyes and largemouth bass in the meandering, slow-moving stream. However, on this day, due the weather, no one had bothered to brave the elements and left the entire area to me.
Target Bass
The two rods and reels I took were rigged to target largemouth bass as they built their nests (to spawn) or to entice them to strike as they protected fry after their spawn ended. Being prepared for both possibilities made sense while in my heart, I hoped to catch a few fish before they spawned.
As I walked the banks of the stream, making certain not to enter the golf course to the south, it was obvious the water was clear enough to see bass nests (beds) up and down the stream, very near the shore. With my polarized sunglasses, nests were visible: circles two feet by two feet in size and recently cleaned and fanned by male bass preparing for a female to come and claim the spot.
After seeing the first few nests, I backed away from the shoreline and threw my first rig, a 1/2-ounch white spinnerbait parallel to the bank and attempted to bring my lure across the nests just above the gravel bottom. In this manner, if a fish were protecting the nest it might hit the lure thinking it was a threat. If I timed it correctly, the fish would be a male bass preparing the nest for a ripe female.
Within three or four casts, I caught a 14-inch largemouth bass that came up from deeper water to crush my spinnerbait as it passed over the top of a well-groomed bed. Since I was alone, I snapped a photo of this fish in the grass on the shore before I removed the lure from its mouth (shown in the photo accompanying this column).
Cloudy Day Bites
That first catch told me all I needed to know about what was going on. Some of the largemouth had in fact spawned but as of yet, none of the eggs had hatched and males were still protecting each bed. Not wanting to interrupt their vigilant security, I immediately released each bass I caught as I walked the length of the stream and continued throwing my spinnerbait.
Largemouth bass love an overcast sky and seem to be more active and willing to bite on cloudy days even in the midst of a pounding rain. In the course of an hour or so, I caught and released five nice bass, the largest weighing close to four pounds (just an educated guess since I didn’t bring a scale), and also caught several “tiny” bass (10 inches in length) that aggressively smacked the spinnerbait.
The second rod and reel I brought was rigged with a Yamamoto Senko, but I didn’t use it at all. The excitement of throwing a spinnerbait trumps a Senko most of the time and it did so again on this day.
When faced with staying at home wishing you were catching fish due to some untimely weather, change your mindset, stay local, and try fishing, even in the rain. For more information email me at don@donallphin.com.
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