Why Do I Wade?

A while back Bill Cadwell asked me to share some of my insights on wading for smallmouth in South Eastern Minnesota. If you’re looking for a how to guide from an expert fisherman, I would recommend a couple of books by Tim Holschlag. His current book Smallmouth Fly Fishing is still in print. His first book, Stream Smallmouth Fishing is out of print but still available on-line from various sources.

What’s the difference between me and Tim? Tim is a professional writer and fishing guide who has fished for smallmouth bass most of his life in places all over the Midwest and Canada. Tim is also an expert at fly fishing for smallies. I am a hobby fisherman. I get in the water when I can which is never as often as I like. In the last two years I’ve been out three times each.

What I hope to share with you is the type of experience you might have as a beginner to wading. Hopefully I will share a couple of tidbits that will make your first wading outing safer, hassle free and maybe even productive. I’ll give you a couple general ideas of where you can fish, but I really don’t have a list of secret spots. As a matter of fact, the list of spots I would like to fish is much longer than the list of places I have fished.

I thought I would start out with ‘Why do I wade.’ I started wading because I lived in a county that had no natural lakes and I had no boat. I wanted to fish, but I didn’t want to have to travel 40 miles every time I got the urge wet a line. My ignorance of the area told me that Silver Lake was not a good fish habitat, Willow Creek Reservoir was a barely developed fishing hole, Lake Zumbro’s public shore line fishing access is extremely limited and Chester Woods was still an undeveloped woods with a creek running through it.

I’ve learned that wading can be very inexpensive. Old tennis shoes to protect your toes, a fanny pack to carry a very limited amount of lure options and a low budget spin cast rig with relatively light line are the basics you start with. A couple of in-line spinners and a few jigs with twister tails were the lures I started on.

Another reason to wade is because of the weather. When high winds can make boating a challenge or canoeing feel like an exercise in sailing, I have found that the shelter of high banks and shore line trees neutralizes the effects of wind on casting. Rain, cold fronts and changes in barometric pressure also has less of an affect on small stream fish than is true in a lake where fish can become tight-lipped during weather changes. Finally on a hot, humid day in August there really is nothing better than standing knee deep in a cool running stream when you have a smallie make a downstream run at the end of your line.

Wading can be a personal experience when it’s just you and the stream. Each time in the water you learn new things about the stream. The stream changes from the last time you visited. Downed trees get moved or removed by the flow. Newly downed trees become fresh structure for hiding bass or crappies. Early summer time wading is often in deeper water than the same stream in late summer when the lack of rain causes the levels to drop. These changes only add to the challenge of finding the smallies.

Wading is an opportunity to notice the nature around you. I’ve watched a raccoon waddle down a slope towards the water until he pulled up short, noticing me. He casually turned around and waddled back up the hill. I’ve watched deer crossing up stream ahead of me, grey heron’s that squawk and fly off as I’ve entered their territory and I’ve had dragon fly’s rest on the end of my pole as I watched my twister tail float down stream. One time I accidentally scared off a small white tail that had been hiding in an overgrown island.

Wading alone or with friends can be a personal event. I enjoy getting in the water and making the search for the smallies. Sure, you can predict many of the usual areas where to expect a bite, but it’s that unexpected hook up that gets you pumped up and excited. You can also set aside the day to day world for a couple of hours and enjoy the hunt and the experience of the outdoors. On those times I’ve fished with friends we have shared fishing know how, jokes and a little competition.

Privacy is another great reason to wade. I’ve heard and read stories of boat fishermen frustrated by other boaters invading their space. I almost never run into another angler that didn’t come with me. The majority of Minnesota fishermen are out in their boats looking for walleye, bass and panfish. My favorite Minnesotans are the ones that go golfing instead of fishing. On any given afternoon, even during the week-end, you can find a stretch of stream that is completely your own when your wading.

In Southeast Minnesota opportunities for wading are abundant. The smallmouth range in size from 4 to 21 inches yet they all fight like there is no tomorrow. There really is not a more personal fishing experience than wading and I can’t wait to get back into the water. I hope you have the chance to enjoy the same experience; you just need to get your feet wet.

Very good read Lew!

You’ve brought back the “being one” with the Kinni River I had in the 80’s trout fishing outside of River Falls. After fishing that stretch of river for 5 years, I found each visit different in many subtle ways. Sometimes it was good for my fishing…sometimes not so good and other times it didn’t matter. If I would have been tubing or canoing, I would have never noticed.

Prior to trout fishing, my fishing consisted of one or two trips per year walleye fishing but the majority of the time my dad and I spent hundreds of hours fly fishing lakes around Hutchinson MN for mostly sunfish and a few crappies.
While the boaters were spending money fixing up their boats and spending time getting them ready, dad and I would have our waders on fishing the shallows for lunch.

Thanks for your post…it’s time I did that again!

good read lew

Thanks Lew. It just goes to show that a person doesn’t have to have all the fancy boats and gear to enjoy fishing. I started out my SE MN fishing in the small lakes around Faribault and Lake Zumbro when Nate was real little. Then we got caught up in the big river [pool 4] type fishing for many years. The past couple years I have spent time on the Zumbro again, met many friends who fish Lake Zumbro and the small bodies of water in the Rochester area, and have had a blast doing it. I have my tenth grandchild due in July which explains why, besides for my own enjoyment, that I try to keep up on how the bite is on the different waters around here. For the first year after my divorce, Nate was 8 years old then, the boat sat because I could afford the gas and had 3 of my four kids to finish raising by myself, we fished from shore only. Boy, do I wish back then that I knew about the better shore fishing spots that I hear about now but yet we still had alot of fishing fun. There wasn’t any internet around here concerning fishing sites that I knew about till James Holst started this site. It cost me 1100.00 for a computer when I heard about this site when it just first got started and was then named FTR/FTL, then the name changed to EFN, then IDA and now the parent company is IDO. I’m on my second 1100.00 computer now cause of that guy. lol. This site has opened up alot of information for all of us anglers, made everyone alot of new fishing friends over the years, and we are all better anglers because of it. In fact its made that very special bond we all have together because of it. I love to fish, I love to learn more about fishing, and I love making new fishing friends. Its made us all like one big fishing family. The type of fishing you describe here is a very peacefull kind of fishing. Yet I still find myself enjoying a very peacefull day on the water even being on a small body of water when there are still many boats on that body of water. Fishing is between you, nature, and the great creator who created everything. Thats what makes it so very peacefull. And in this type of fishing there are no boats anywhere around you. Thanks for sharing an insight into your special world of fishing Lew.

Thanks, Bill

Good read Lew and the same reasons I wade too. This immediate area has 3 creeks of similar flows and all are smallmouth haunts in the spring and summer months. As the water warms the unshaded creek has a few less but still has some.

One creek is a spring fed creek and that one runs the coolest all summer, the next is a bigger creek with deeper holes and more logs laying in the water and both hold some really nice smallmouths.

From the time when the spring rains come the fish begin to move up the creeks to the holes and they wait for warmer water and they feed more then the previous month. Wade fishing these creeks during warmer weather is usually one experience after another. Turning the bend in the creek and looking for holes and undercut banks or a midstream gravel bar gives you an opportunity to think what steps to make next not to spook anything. Many smallmouths feed all during the warm months In these creeks and it dosen’t have to be a big creek eigther. A 10′ wide creek has just as much potential as a big creek for producing that 5 pounder and many under that size.

Theres a creek just out of town here thats a minimum flow creek and youd say the only fish in that creek is chubs and minnows. Over the years I’ve heard many stories of 5 pounders being caught, most people just laugh but its true, Ive caught some nice ones in that creek myself.

Creeks and very small rivers are such an overlooked fishing resource that if more people knew of the fish that swim in them they would be there more often. I’ve been on these creeks and seen a few walking them but more often then not I have the whole stretch to myself. So few people fish creeks that Its a good bet you’ll have the whole creek to yourself on both days of the weekend.

When it turns hot out, and the shades a nice place to be, get out your ultralight and a pair of tennis shoes and walk the shaded creeks in your area. Beings cool air falls and is heavier the shaded creek bottoms usualy are much cooler in the mid summer heat, a nice place to be.

Beings the fishing pressure is much less then in a river a persons expectations rise quite a bit about the size of fish he can catch. Undercut banks, gravel bars, sand drop offs that are in mid creek are all hangouts for feeding smallmouths. The creeks around here have an average size of 12″ to 17″ with 20″ plus fish coming in every year. Smallmouth fishing is the closest thing to walking a stream fishing for trout that I know of. You never know whats around the corner back in an undercut bank or laying on a gravel bar waiting for minnows or frogs.

Every spring runoff water levels make new changes to the creeks, some are barely changed, some quite a bit. Where last year there was 50′ of undercut bank with a nice dead fall in the middle of the creek right next to it, its now 100′ of really nice undercut bank and a much deeper hole and that deadfalls still there. When a person sees this for the first time since last year he looks over the depth of the undercut, the length and any deep water between the bank and the deadfall in the middle of the creek.

After he sees potential casting spots he looks up and sees branches over the water 15′ and knows he will have to rifleshot his lure under the branches to this undercut bank. You get into position by walking softly as not to stir up the bottom, tie on your favorite pop-r and make that first cast right to the upper end of the under cut bank. You let it sit for 10 seconds then begin to move it and wham! you didn’t even get to see how big the smallie was. 4 minutes and many rod bends later you put you fingers through the gills of a nice 3 pounder, and thats only the first cast on a solid 20 cast bank.

If your looking for some place new to fish you might not have to go far for a new fishing experience, try fishing those small creeks for smallmouths and catfish in the holes, Its a good place to be right now and staying cool all the way through the summer heat. You should go try one and enjoy yourself, I know I do.

Thanks guys for ALL the insights shared here. You all have shared another avenue of fishing with us. With gas prices out of sight I think we will see alot more people buying smaller vehicles, smaller boats, and also see more and more anglers getting back more towards the basics to get in some fishing outtings without breaking the bank. I am one of those guys who loves to fish from a boat. But this shows us how we can fish even more often by trying this style of fishing along with shore fishing to get more outtings in between the trips to the water with the boat.
Thanks, Bill