Hey Jude LA LA LA LA LA LA LA

[ronk]

With the river at its lowest level of the year but with rain forecasted I decided to take a break from 'gilling for some stream fishing.So i exchanged my 2wt bluegill rod for one of my 4wts and hit the river yesterday.S ince rain wasn't forecast til nightfall I didn't bring raingear.Of course it sarted raining as soon as I started fishing.Luckily it was light and as the afternoon progressed it stopped.The river is in as good shape as could be hoped for-no eelgrass(yet) not too much algae and the rains seem to have cleared out some of the silt.Had a good day catching 5 smallies and 1 16"lmb.Only 1 of the smallies was small, the others going 16.5,17,18,18.5".The small smb and the lmb came from midriver,the others off the bank.Photod all the big fish taking a timer pic of the biggest.Why the title?All were caught on top on a big black Jude bassbug.2 of the smb chased after it for about 10' before whacking it.The Jude fly didn't let me down.

 

 

[Guest airbornemike]

Sweet pics, that top water bite is still eluding me this spring, nice job.

[jude]

Good to hear! I caught a few on the Jude Bug this weekend, as well. Have you been using it as a slider or popper? I almost always use it in slider mode. It will be 90% topwater from now until November!

[ronk]

Good to hear! I caught a few on the Jude Bug this weekend, as well. Have you been using it as a slider or popper? I almost always use it in slider mode. It will be 90% topwater from now until November!

I was using it as a popper thuogh the slider mode would've been good too with the low clear water.While I won't fish topwater that high of a percentage I will fish it about 66%of the time on the Fox and 100% of the time on the Dupe once the eel grass chokes the river.Once that occurs I primarily fish the Fox where I prefer a big noisy dish shaped popper or a blockhead due to the murkiness of the water.I haven't fished the Kank much for the last cupl years. For one thing it's a harder river to figure out and for another in recent years it's remained in a perpetual hi and murky state never dropping and clearing.Although I once got a 20 on a bassbug under the I55 bridge for some reason I've always tended to go subsurface on that river.