Jacob reels in his 1st Bass

Mother Nature has finally decided to lay off of the rain a bit, and I had a chance to get out on the Clinch River twice this week.  I floated between Miller’s Yard and Dungannon bridge on Monday. The river was at a great level, but the color of the water was still a bit off . We were able to pull in some redeye and smallmouths off brown jigs with a green watermelon trailer. Just about every fish we caught were very shallow and close to the bank. The fish were hitting the bait as soon as the bait hit the water. Also there were very few fish that followed the lure back to the boat so they just were not picking up the color unless you were putting the bait just where the fish were.

Today I took my son down to Oxbow Lake in St. Paul to fish. The wind was blowing too hard for him to catch blue gill on the lake, so we headed to the back water of the lake where it runs into the Clinch. This area offers much more shelter from the wind and Jacob was able to pull in his first bass. This one was landed on a 5″ Zoom Pumpkinseed lizard and jumped twice to give him a great fight. The water level is perfect on the river, and the color is the best I’ve seen in over a month, so this 4th of July weekend is going offer some great fishing on the Clinch.