Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs.
I am haunted by waters.”
― Norman Maclean

I must say, I'm a bit of a Redeye freak myself. My favorite Bass, at the very least.

Very cool....Great pics!

Interesting. I am interested and probably know where you're talking about. They are definitely not native to the TN River drainage, but I do know that they are there unfortunately. One of these days fisherman will hopefully understand the impacts of moving fish to places where they don't belong.

I'd love to see a pic of it. Just out of curiosity. I suspect many fish that were over 1.5lbs are hybrids with Alabama bass. The state record redeye is almost certainly a hybrid. Not saying yours is, but I'd love to be proven otherwise. I fin clip and test a lot of the fish I catch, which has lead to the research I am now doing which is the first substantial research we have done on this fish in this state. I am very curious to see what we find!

Creek fishing has been on my brain pretty hard lately, this post is probably going to tip me over the edge and I'm gonna have to try to go this weekend. Haven't done it in a while but man I sure do love it. I just wish I could use a fly rod without making a mess.

Same here brother. 'Cept for me it'll be on a 'yak and tossing a little beetlespin on an UL.

It's about time for the wife and I to start canoeing the Cahaba.

I fish out of my kayak a lot as well, but there's just something special about wading small creeks to see what you can pull out of them.

Don't worry, what you don't see in this posts is all the trees I caught. All the line wrapped around my paddle and my kayak in knots that know champion knot-tier could tie. All the fits I threw because of the two pervious things that almost saw me Bo Jackson my fly rod over my knee.

It can be extremely frustrating fly fishing, and reach nuclear levels trying to do it out of a kayak. For me, the reward outweighs the annoying parts, so I keep on trucking and occasionally it all works out!

x2

Yep and I really enjoyed it.

Thanks for taking the time to share all of this. I enjoyed your book and those pictures were great. I look forward to hearing about your research.

I've never caught a red-eye that would weigh over a pound, and can't imagine a 3 pounder, but I have fished the smaller waters that would not produce the biggest fish. Most of the creeks I have fished also have spotted bass, so I was surprised to read that hybridization is such a threat to the red-eye. I have caught red-eye, spots, and largemouth on the same trip many times, but I've never seen evidence of them crossing. I guess it has something to do with moving them out of their natural habitat?

Those pictures make me wanna go wade fishing.

That's a really interesting question and nobody knows right now. In cases where Alabama Bass have been introduced outside of their native range (ie. - Savannah R/Chattahoochee R) into native Redeye Bass waters, that is often the case. Widespread hybridization has resulted in extirpation everywhere except the really high tributary streams in those rivers. The interesting thing is that we have "a lot" of hybrids between Alabama Bass and Redeye Bass in the Mobile Basin streams/rivers. They are both native there, and unfortunately it has never before been investigated, so there are no historical data which is why I put "a lot" in quotes because we don't have a comparison. I will be establishing a baseline or where we are currently with my work, but until then we really can only look at anecdotal evidence of lots of hybrids documented between the two, confirmed both morphologically and genetically.

We do need to go wade fishing so we can talk turkey.

Wow! Gorgeous scenery Troutbum. I really loved your whole post. It took me back to a simpler time.

Great post

You got a link to the book you wrote? Really cool that you are folowing your passion. JUST AWESOME!