This Week @ Bass Edge

Going with the flow

Standing on a gravel bar staring downstream through the dim light of a new day, a strange emotion was stirring inside.  It had been almost a year since I embarked on just such a morning for a 15-day float down Arkansas’ Buffalo River. An experience like that becomes part of you forever.

This day’s venture would be something quite different. I would have six companions and we would be taking johnboats instead of canoes. The distance would be short to accommodate fishing. The river was still in shadows when the scrape of gravel on metal broadcast the launch.

When first the power of the current is felt, there is a sensation of vulnerability. You belong to the river. Float fishing has a special place in the hearts of most Ozark anglers. The peace and the pace is just something special. And there is nothing like fishing a river.

Whether fishing Ozark streams like the Buffalo, or a larger river such as the Chattahoochee, as Elite touring pro Dave Wolak and host Aaron Martin did in this week’s Bass Edge, many of the same considerations apply to angling success. Chief among those considerations is current.

For free-flowing streams like the Buffalo, the flow is a constant. Finding current breaks like rocks or root wads near the fastest moving water allows fish to wait in ambush for food to be washed down without expending too much energy battling the current.

These same ambush points are sought out on larger rivers, but many of those waterways have varying currents controlled by man.

“Most of our lakes have dams that generate electricity, explained Tommy Barbaree, Pinkard, Ala, angler and veteran of the Chattahoochee. “If you are going to fish a river system and there is a possibility of them pulling water, then it is to your advantage big time to know when those hours are.”

Barbaree says that fishing on the Chattahoochee becomes much different when water is being released from the dam.

“When the current starts moving, the fish adapt to it. They’re use to it. They get in certain places.”

Those places tend to be current breaks.

“If they don’t have a current break, they have to expend more energy to stay in that current. They get in eddies, pockets or backouts, and they don’t have to work as hard to stay in that water. The food comes to them.”

Barbaree also looks for logs, trees, rocks and long points where bass are likely to be waiting in ambush. Outside river bends are a good place to look for such structure.

 “That’s where the most water pressure is and the where most trash will be deposited.”

Bridges are always a good place to look for bass. The upstream sides of bridge pilings catch a lot of debris and can hold a lot of fish. The concrete base on larger bridges also provides a significant break in the current.

“There is usually an area of current break in front of it, and at the back where the main current is swept around. If you have a rectangular bridge piling with a flat base to it, right behind those two corners there is an eddy.”

Barbaree’s favorite bait in the current is the jig, to match the favored food of bass in the river: crawfish. In clear water he prefers 14-pound line, but steps up to 17-pound when stained water allows.

“The main thing is to get the bait into the target zone. Depending on how fast the current flow is, I fish from a ¼ to a 1 ¼ - ounce jig.”

Finding the current and throwing the bait that best handles the intensity of the current is the key to catching bass in flowing water. But hang on. The fish that have to negotiate moving water tend to be stronger because of conditioning to the current, and the current itself can add to the fight.

There really is nothing quite like fishing on a river.