Central Pennsylvania Fishing

There comes a time in every smallmouth bass fisherman’s life that he or she is haunted by a particular bass. For the past four weeks one such bass has eluded me. This smallmouth bass is no monster by any stretch of the imagination but I estimate it to be 17 plus. That being said it is a nice fish given the stream size and the fact that the hole it calls home is no more than 4 yards wide. Feel free to read on about my epic battle with the bass I have come to call “Clint”.

About The Fish

I found the smallmouth I call Clint in a piece of stream barely 5 feet wide. The hole has one distinct feature which is a huge root wad. No doubt this is what has attracted the fish to this location. It is also the feature that tempted me to take a few casts at it. I call the fish Clint because of its pale bronze color. When I was a kid, one of my favorite movies was Pale Rider which featured none other than Clint Eastwood as the main character. This fish is not only pale but it is as tough as nails as you will see in subsequent writings. At the day of writing this I have not yet brought the fish to hand.

About Clints Home
The fish lives in a hole that is about 12 feet long by 5 feet wide during the low water we have been having. The pool is only about 3 feet deep but it has a huge root wad installed almost mid stream with about 2 feet of flowing water underneath most of its length. As you will see, the root wad has been a source of frustration in trying to land this big smallmouth.

My First Encounter With Clint

Upon seeing the hole I’ve described previously and pictured above, I cautiously made may way up to it from a downstream position. Acting more like a trout fisherman, I stood well back from the hole and pitched my bait as close to the root wad as I dared without getting snagged. I watched intently as my 4″ stickbait sank slowly in the crystal clear water then, without warning, I saw a pale bronze streak come from under the roots and snatch up my bait. The fight was on! My drag was getting quite a workout as the fish drove hard upstream only to make a quick direction change downstream.

At this point I’m thinking “man what a fish!”. Then as fast as he had come out of the root wad he made a hard run under it going about 2 feet deep into the winding root system. I knew if I let this continue he’d surely tangle me and swim free so I did what I had to do and tried to horse the fish out of the root. Well to make a short story shorter the pressure was too much for my 8lb. mono and the line snapped.

Round one over. I’m left standing stream side without the fish trying to assess what just happened in the few seconds I had the fish hooked. I decided right then and there that I would catch this fish no matter what! I left the stream that morning plotting how I would return and catch the fish the next day.

I have continued to visit the steam over the past several weeks and will continue to write about my endeavors to catch this smallmouth bass until my mission is accomplished or the waters become so high I can no longer locate him. stay tuned!

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