'Magic Zone' kind to anglers
It's mid-summer hot and humid as I write this. The coolness of the air-conditioned office is a welcome reprieve from a past week of hard river fishing, a productive one where big smallmouth bass and walleyes chased down our offerings.
But no matter how good the recent action's been, I suppose it's human nature to look forward to what the next season holds.
While I appreciate what each phase of a 12-month calendar of fishing opportunities presents, there's something special about what I call “the Magic Zone,” that time during the fall when the water temperature of my local river — the middle Allegheny —falls into the mid 50-degree range, and continues a (hopefully) slow and steady descent to around 40. That zone has provided some of my most memorable river trips.
During early to mid-fall, river smallies and walleyes are in transition, moving from the fast-current areas that provided the necessary food and cover when the water was warm. Typically, by late October, they will be migrating to slower, deeper areas protected from the force of the river's current. The result is concentrations of fish in identifiable areas, and at winter's doorstep, still on the feed.
Some years, things fall into place just right, like that of around 15 years ago. It was a Halloween weekend when my friend Dave Keith and I experienced an exceptional day on river smallies and walleyes, a bite that lasted well into the darkness, especially for the 'eyes.
On the drive home that evening, I called fellow outdoor writer Darl Black, who had asked me to keep him informed should I get into some hot fall river fishing. The following day Black met up with me, and fishing the edges of a deep, protected pool, we landed three dozen smallmouth in the 15 to 18-inch range in a couple short hours.
The bass took four-inch tube jigs fished on exposed insert-style jigheads — casted along the shallow edge of a major wintering hole. I doubt that any of the fish were deeper than four-five feet, though water in the 10-15-foot range was nearby.
That weekend was the start of the best late-fall river fishing I've experienced. November fishing was incredible. Thanksgiving weekend was incredible. Not only were wintering holes productive, it seems every shoreline pocket shielded from the current by boulders held biting bass.
They hit tubes, hair jigs, a twister-tail grubs. The weather stayed mild, and while deer hunters lamented the lack of cold weather, our river assault continued.
Over Christmas Eve, with the water temperature in the low 40s, my boat and Black's boat accounted for over 130 smallies, and while time has dulled some of the details, I doubt if many were under 15 inches.
Finally, the second week of January, high water and then winter finally arrived, putting the end to a remarkable two-month-plus stretch of river fishing.
Since then I've enjoyed some excellent fall river fishing, but nothing quite like that, at least not for such an extended time. Looking back, I suspect it was a “perfect storm” kind of thing.
Not only was the weather mild through late fall and early winter, the river had been quite high and muddy during much of September and October, perhaps limiting foraging opportunities for bass. When feeding conditions improved, they made up for it.
While jig-style lures —tubes, hair jigs and grubs — are the mainstay of late fall river fishing, one should have a suspending jerkbait tied on also, not only for smallies but walleyes as well.
It was a Thanksgiving weekend when Dave Lehman and I were fishing the Allegheny near West Hickory. Trucks loaded with folks headed for deer camp sped along Route 62 as we plied the protected water of an eddy, me with an olive-hued hair jig, Dave with a four-inch suspending jerkbait that he worked ultra-slow.
I'd set the boat up for a drift that would end at the mouth of an incoming creek, along about a 150-yard stretch of river that had the right current and depth to hold walleyes. Each drift produced a couple 'eyes, all of which were quality fish. It was a magical afternoon when the fish came regularly, and kept increasing in size.
Lehman capped the day with a 31-incher that pulled the scale to nearly 12 pounds.
Late last November, during one of my final river smallmouth outings of last year, Jason Wagner and I worked shoreline pockets of protected water. Though cold out, the conditions were dry and calm. But the bass turned their noses to jigs and jerkbaits, yet crushed my soft paddle tail swimbaits and Jason's spinnerbaits.
The bites weren't many, but when the bass ate them, they inhaled them. And all of them were big — 18 to 20 inches. The water temperature was 40 degrees.
Whether it lasts for two months or two weeks, the Magic Zone provides some of the finest river bass and walleye fishing of the year. It's something to look forward to.
Jeff Knapp is an outdoors columnist for the Butler Eagle
