Jigging Smallmouth Bass with Berkeley Gulp Leeches, and Rebel Pop-R Surface Plug

I've never enjoyed fishing a jig so much as I did for a half hour along a stretch of Delaware River today at Barryville, NY. Current moved along the east bank, shallows to the west side. We didn't get much more fishing than these moments with jigs tapping rocks, hits missed, and five smallmouth bass for me and some for Steve Slota, his son Tom, and wife Donna. Wind flowed from the south and paddling was hard. We made for the Zane Grey Museum area with thunder in the air, phoned Cedar Rapids Rentals, and called it a day as a downpour drove some of us into the museum to observe the writer's preserved legend.

Back at Cedar Rapids, the boys swam for a long time, and Steve caught a smallmouth on a Rebel Pop-R that would weigh about 3 1/2 pounds. We didn't judge the storm well because this was a joint family venture, not one of a few daring outdoorsmen willing to risk whatever would happen. The storm isolated as predicted, the real line of storms has come in the evening. At the Salmon River I twitched a Wacky rigged Senko-type worm through a similar V current at the tail of a stretch to catch my biggest bass of our efforts a month ago. Steve did the same with the topwater plug. I caught a couple of big red breasted sunfish, and lost a few more bass on the jig with Berkeley Gulp leeches while wading a stretch part of the time the boys swam, a rocky range where I have waded many times before to catch some bass.

Part of the reason I enjoyed jigging so much, apart from fast action, involved efforts flustered. I suppose I would have caught at least 20 bass today. After awhile, they might have seemed to come all too easily. On these annual ventures we normally stay on the river until 6:00, getting at least eight hours of fishing.