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Wacissa River
Trip Report 4/17 -- 4/18/09 (personal best!)
by The General
OR
How to Smile Through
Gritted Teeth
by Creekstalker
Editor's note: I've
taken The General's outstanding trip report and added my own
commentary in italics
I love river bassin'. I
love camping. I love fishing with old friends. When you get to do
all three, it is awesome. When you combine these three with a fish
of a lifetime, it is a blessing from God in heaven.
The annual GeorgiaRiverFishing.com Shoaliepalooza is always a
favorite of mine. When last weeks rains postponed the trip, I was
disappointed. After a little wrangling, I was able to convince FRF's
owner/operator, Creekstalker, into making the nearly five hour drive
south to the sunshine state. (After some initial skepticism on my
part- "Todd, tell me again how we are getting back upstream?!?"- I
was completely and enthusiastically on board!)
Most of the rivers here in the panhandle were blown out as
well. We decided to venture over to the Wacissa River. Not only did
I catch a 4-13 largemouth last weekend but I saw another man catch a
9-5 largie. I just hoped to catch some fish and hang out with my
friend.
We started Friday morning early. I left the house at
4:01am Central time and Sam left around 3am Eastern time. We met
with the sun just coming up at the Wacissa River Canoe Rental
Launch.
I should have taken
a picture of our loaded canoe. We had all our camping equipment,
change of clothes, fishing tackle, and firewood loaded in my Old
Town 159. Creekstalker even had me get in first before he did just
to make sure it still floated. What was he saying? (I'd rather
see you outswim the gators than me.)
The river starts off at the Wacissa Springs. It is
gorgeous and our hopes were high. Here is Creekstalker with early
morning optimism. (Or maybe I just pooted)
After about two
hours, I was getting nervous. We hadn't caught anything or even had
a strike. With the river already dropping and the grass very high,
you had to either throw topwater or put on heavy weights and soft
plastics. We chose the latter. (It wasn't much of a choice,
really. We had a bunch of water to cover and needed to be able to
fish quickly and keep moving. I tried a spinnerbait and then
switched to a big plastic swimbait rigged weedless. Todd stuck with
the buzzbait)
I finally got on the board with this nice 3-5
largemouth on a black buzzbait. This buzzbait was a double
propeller, inline spinnerbait made by Bill Deas. I highly recommend
it. (you'll see later why). (I've still got your white one. Unless I
receive a large sum of money, I'm going to mail it back to you piece
by mangled piece. Or I'll just fish with it.)
Creekstalker had to
top me. He scored his first river bass of 2009 (Happy New Year Sam!)
with a nice one. He had to pull it through a lot of grass. (This
was my second good strike on the swimbait. I thought I was onto
something. I wasn't.)
This 4-15 bass really had us both excited.
(This makes you a hero most of the time. Not this time...)
I caught a couple more
small ones and then things got quiet again. We went the next couple
of hours without a hit. The river narrowed up again and we enjoyed
the beauty of the Wacissa. (...and were amazed every time a cast
went unmolested. This is very fishy-looking water!)
Making an uneventful cast (No kidding. We had both made
hundreds of casts better than this one today. Why couldn't I have
cast to that spot?) in medium current next to some a grown up
grass bed paid off! It looked like someone flushed a toilet as my
black buzzbait sunk into the tea colored water. My line tightened
like never before and my heart began to race. There was a moment of
fear as Creekstalker yelled, "mudfish!". Then my drag started to
squeal and my hopes were high again. After an amazing fight, I
landed the fish of a lifetime. (I've never before seen someone
lose their breath after a fight with a freshwater fish. It was a
tremendous battle, and it should be noted that Todd landed this
monster using 6 or 8 pound-test line!)
This 10lb 10oz largemouth was awesome! A real
blessing! (I'm so jealous I could spit.)
Another shot of this pig beast. (Sure
Todd, I'll take another picture.)
And another (not trying to brag but it was
awesome). (I'd never say this out loud, but I'm thinking about
throwing you and all your stuff except for that buzzbait into the
river.)
Creekstalker
commented that he had thoughts of throwing me in the river and
taking my lure. (OK, so I did say it.)
Although not as exciting but very fun. About twenty minutes
later, I landed another great bass. One of the other biggest I've
ever caught.
This 5lb 5oz largie hit
doing the same thing. (I'd tie on a buzzbait myself if I ever get
a chance to put down this dang camera.)
We didn't know it
at the time but this would be the last bass for several hours. We
were seeing that the fish would turn on in spurts and then turn off
just as quickly. That was our theory anyway. (We probably should
have tried other baits, but after catching these fish on buzzbaits,
neither of us was willing to experiment a whole lot.)
We arrived at the campsite around 4pm. The
site is perfect. It sits on a peninsula and you are surrounded by
water on three sides giving you a constant breeze. (Awesome
campsite!)
Creekstalker and I ventured back out after
getting camp set up. We both managed a couple more that evening.
Here is Creekstalker with another solid 3lber. (Buzzbait.
Anything with treble hooks, even fished on top, was worthless due to
all the grass. The grass definitely limits your options.)
Right at dark, we headed back to the
campsite. All told the first day, it was good. Sam got the campfire
going.
I cooked up some deer sausage and baked
beans. (Good stuff! I drowned my jealousy in a concoction of
barley and hops.)
After a good nights rest, we headed out
hoping for the morning bite. It wasn't there. We didn't have a
strike. We headed back to camp. Sam decided to get one of many power
naps of the day. (What a wuss! I crawled in the tent and slept
for a couple hours late morning and then caught another nap in the
chair mid-afternoon.)
The scenery was great all day long. We saw
turtles. (Everybody was napping.)
We saw a ton of gators including this little
one. (Snore)
We also saw baby pigs and tons of birds. This
guy was our best camping neighbor. (Our worst camping neighbor
kept insulting our beloved Georgia Bulldogs and asking to borrow
stuff.)
We spent the afternoon fishing some smaller
sloughs downstream of the campsite. It was gorgeous and I managed
another small one. (It'd be easy to get lost down here. Not sure
if the bass aren't here or if they were just off today. It was
really pretty back in there, though.)
That final afternoon, Creekstalker, had the
best blow up of the trip. Here he is showing how to get fish out of
the grass. (Great strike on a buzzbait. My second in about ten
minutes. I thought we might be on to something, as both strikes came
off floating vegetation rather than grass. Nothing else came out of
the slop though.)
He could land this just as well too. (If
this fish had been much bigger, I'd have never landed it!)
And, finally, he
shows off a hard fought 3-3.
Due to flooding in the Aucilla River nearby,
we couldn't do a normal shuttle. The Goose Pasture Campground was
completely closed off by road so we had an interesting shuttle.
Corky, the owner operator of the Canoe Launch service came down and
got us on his airboat at the end of the second day. (Hold on to
your hats boys.)
As a river
fisherman, I don't really care for fan boats but it was fun to make
the 11 mile journey upstrem in about thirty minutes at the end of a
two day trip. Here is a short video of our trip up one section that
required us to slow down some. |
