WAY OF THE WALLEYE  CD ROM 
Fishing Summer Peak Rivers: Keep It Simple
by CD RomCo

This information is presented as promotional material for Way of the Walleye CD Rom and is protected by copyright. © 1996 CD RomCo and its Licensors

Little rivers are great places to get away from the ravages of wind and weather - and to bring back memories of simpler days and sun-soaked afternoons when the ozone layer was something only astronauts had to worry about. Fishing pressure and crowds often are almost nonexistent, with dependable patterns nearly guaranteed to produce fish. Peaceful, pastoral, scenic, serene. Wildlife abounds. Great places to spend a day introducing new anglers to the sport and getting back to your roots when other oft-visited fisheries lose their luster. No need for a big rig here. Counterproductive, in fact. This is small-boat low-horsepower territory, where a modest investment in time and money can pay off. Fish from a 12-foot cartopper, a johnboat, a canoe. Or from the nearest rock. Whatever you feel like doing - so long as you can have some fun while you're doing it. In a small river, it helps to be a good caster, but without much flooded wood cover or tangles to probe between in summer, fancy casting tactics generally aren't necessary. Targets are more open, like the visible edges of current breaks, individual large boulders, or a fallen log rather than a fully submerged tree. Cast close to an object, then steer your retrieve as close as possible to the object as the lure passes by - directing a spinner along the face of a bulge, or zinging a diving crankbait off a key section of broken rocks. Seldom is it necessary to flip and dip a weedless jig along hundreds of yards of tangled shoreline cover, because the river just isn't high enough in summer to make this much of a factor. If you encounter a flooded tree in deep water, tie up to it, then dip into the crevasses with a weedless jig or slip bobber rig tipped with livebait. The rule is to keep it simple.