There are still secrets.\u00a0 You\u2019ve seen the posts by savvy Facebookers, showing awesome fish from undisclosed streams or lakes. \u00a0Do you secretly want to know where they caught the fish?\u00a0 Did you look for clues in the background that might reveal the location?\u00a0 \u00a0This spring someone had pictures of beautiful wild steelhead from \u201ca part of Lake Superior you won’t think of, from a river you don’t know\u201d.\u00a0 That\u2019s the kind of shit that keeps me awake at night.\u00a0 There is not a part of Lake Superior I don\u2019t think of, and I\u2019m pretty sure I\u2019ve heard of every river that flows into it.\u00a0 The excellent pictures offered no clue to exactly where they were taken, and I think I\u2019m glad.<\/span><\/p>\n Sometimes [if you are very determined, have lots of time and are a complete fish nerd] you can figure out where some of the pictures are from.\u00a0 I disappointed and surprised a friend by being able to ID a house in the background of a photo of him with a giant smallmouth from one of these places.\u00a0 I had a vague idea where the picture was taken, I could tell by which way the current was going in the photo which side of the river the house was on, from there it was easy to scroll upstream for miles along the river on Google Earth until I found the house.<\/span><\/p>\n I\u2019ve got a few secret spots.\u00a0 Some are hiding right under everyone\u2019s nose.\u00a0 I caught a ridiculous number of largemouth one day by casting right up to a bridge that every one of you has driven over dozens or hundreds or thousands of times.\u00a0 I know you would not expect there to be a bass in there.\u00a0 That is if you even noticed there was water down there.\u00a0 Another time I caught smallmouth after smallmouth off a point in a small lake that has a thousand cars an hour drive right by.\u00a0 Every damn thing I threw up there was eaten immediately. This particular day I was doing some scouting, based on a couple of words I overheard someone say in a hushed voice at the tackle shop I worked at.\u00a0 I had a guide trip lined up for the evening, so I left the giant school of smallies still biting, figured I\u2019d save them for my customers.\u00a0 When I met up with them later in the afternoon I excitedly told them of the giant school of smallmouth I had found in a nearby lake.\u00a0 They opted to fish the river instead.\u00a0 Sigh.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n I\u2019ve got a secret smallmouth river.\u00a0 Some of you who know me know where it is.\u00a0 I\u2019m not going to say the name of it, but even if I did you still wouldn\u2019t go.\u00a0 This stream remains unfished because it is too far from anything. \u00a0And it isn\u2019t really that good–if you added up the weight of the three biggest ones I caught there the last time they would weigh about the same as an average smallie from Mille Lacs.\u00a0 I know I\u2019ve never caught a 3 pounder there.\u00a0 But get this, the last time there I fished for about 4 hours.\u00a0 I can\u2019t ever keep track of how many fish I catch if the number is more than 2, but I know I caught least 20.\u00a0 All on a fly, mostly on a popper.\u00a0 I also caught a few goldeyes and got bit off by what I think was the same pike twice.\u00a0 After the second bite off the scoundrel jumped all the way out of the water in an attempt to get rid of the fly now stuck in his face. \u201cSwiper no swiping\u201d was all I could think. \u00a0One time I made a particularly nice cast about 60 feet across a tailout.\u00a0 A tenacious smallmouth obliged by loudly eating the cork popper right away, but after a couple of jumps he shook the barbless hook and sent the popper back at me.\u00a0 The popper landed 10 feet in front of me and another one ate it before I could do anything.\u00a0 For a while I was fishing with two flies for some reason, and twice while unhooking a fish that ate the top fly a smallie ate the trailing fly while it swirled around me in the thigh deep water.<\/span><\/p>\n![\"photo](\"http:\/\/wildsmallie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/photo-1-300x224.jpg\")
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<\/a><\/span><\/p>\nLook familiar?\u00a0 I didn’t think so<\/span><\/h5>\n
![\"photo\"](\"http:\/\/wildsmallie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/photo-300x224.jpg\")
<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n![\"photo](\"http:\/\/wildsmallie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/photo-3-300x224.jpg\")
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