Where to catch your fill of brown bass
As many of my readers already know, I grew-up fishing for smallmouth bass in the crystal clear Ozark Mountain streams of southeast Missouri. Wading those creeks are some of the best memories of my youth. And the bronze bass still ranks among the top three fish species on my "favorites" list.
With that being said, imagine my excitement when mutual friend Bob Park introduced me to a guy who also grew up on small streams chasing smallmouth. Even better, John Graham stills spends dozens of days a year floating and wading for his favorite fish, the brown bass.
John and I met up recently to double-team some bronzebacks on his home water, which is a stretch of the Vermillion River near Pontiac. He and I "clicked" immediately and shared several hours of stories, advice and caught about 20 smallmouth along the way.
John Graham grew up along the banks of the Rock River in northern Illinois. He started fishing with his dad in farm ponds and then about 30 years ago he caught his first smallmouth bass in a small creek and he was instantly obsessed with the brown bass.
Since then Graham has traveled the Midwest seeking out and finding every spot that holds smallmouth bass. He is a wealth of knowledge and a genuinely nice guy. He is proficient with both spinning gear and the fly rod. He even chases musky in the fall with flies. But that is a story all in its own. He considers the Vermillion River his home away from home.
Graham is a teacher in his real life and that ability spills over into his fishing. He was quick to advise me on where fish might be hiding and what to cast at them. Both his knowledge and advice were spot-on.
We began our float/wading trip at around 6 a.m. John uses a canoe with comfortable, backed seats. His process is designed so that the only time you have to get out of the canoe is to wade and fish special spots.
The Vermillion River smallmouth had been hammering topwater baits for a couple of weeks according to my partner. That is how we both began our day. I started with a small, frog colored Whopper Plopper and John tied on a white buzzbait. He drew first blood. Now the game was on.
We pretty much took turns catching short smallies for the first hour. I also managed to catch the Vermillion River game fish trifecta in the first hour - those being largemouth, smallmouth and rock bass (rock bass are what I called goggle-eye in my Missouri youth).
I worried that as the sun got high in the sky that we would lose the bite. Graham assured me that would not be the case.
"The fish hit in this river all day long," he told me. "Quite often the smallies do not get turned on til after 9 a.m."
Man, was he right!? The longer we fished the bigger the smallmouth got, inch-by-inch. Around 8:30 I caught a decent smallie, about 13 inches. For my first attempt on this river I was OK with that.
I had to cut this trip short because of prior commitments, but we were catching bass right up to the time we took out. It is an amazing little fishery that took me back to the days of my youth. I promised John the next time I come I will spend the day.
John continued to fish, and he texted me that he caught a 17-incher about 9:40 a.m.
The very best part of this article is that you too can fish the Vermillion River with John Graham. Call him at (309) 922-4423 or go to his website, john-graham.squarespace.com.</group>