Hole is Bigger than I Recall

The hole at Higginsville is bigger than I remembered. It made me realize all of my fall and winter trout have come from shallows. Years ago, a friend and I canoed here from Three Bridges. Underneath the bridge I photographed, the water is about 10 feet deep. 

This is a great hole for late fall/winter/early spring smallmouth bass. If you don't mind exchanging a day's pay for all the jigs you would lose to jagged rocks on the bottom. Actually, the way to go would be drop-shotting live shiners. Maybe small shiners, because you won't be hauling out one four-pounder after another. Good luck getting a single nine-incher, really, but smallmouths do head for the holes as it gets cold. Also, if you would try for them, make sure the line attaching the sinker to a small swivel is much lighter than the mainline and line to the hook. (Buy sinkers at discount price.)

I would have done better with at least 1/8 ounce, 3/16 even better. Not that I would have caught anything, but it would have been a better possibility, swimming the jig right over those rocks at bottom.

I wondered if the spot even got stocked. There is a Fish & Wildlife trout stocking poster, but it didn't seem quite as fresh and up-to-date as the one I saw at the North Branch a little later this afternoon when I was about to begin fishing in the rain. Higginsville is a lot of water volume per the amount of trout that get stocked in the fall, compared to shallow areas. 

Trout Story Nearly 13 Years Old