Today I caught my first warmwater fish of the season, a smallmouth bass in a local city park stream.

Today is the third day in a row of temperatures in the 60s, and the water temperature was 52F. I fished a medium-sized pool just below a large riffle on my lunch hour. I used a Clouser minnow with a size 16 pheasant tail nymph on a dropper. I was fishing with Tim Holschlag's "crayfish hop", using an indicator at the leader-line junction. The bass took the nymph and my first thought was, "I've snagged bottom". The indicator just stopped for several seconds, and as I was giving a tug to free the rig, the indicator moved. I quickly set the hook and landed this:

2016 First Bass.jpg