08-18-2003, 05:31 PM
Favorite places for catching small mouths would be Apache lake arizona, Bartlet lake arizona, Lake pleasant Arizona, comming in at the top of my list would be the Black River on the Apache Indian reservation on the Arizona New Mexico boarder that is were this guy come from. nineteen and a half inches. only 3.25 inches short of the state record and its weight was up therein the six pound range.
Black river is great it is a clear cold moderate flow river waste deep in most locations but the holes behind the boulders can run up to twelve feet deep. We will generally fish this river with spinner baits , catch live helgramites (up to three inches here), or use one inch crawfish we also catch here. This guy was caught on a small 1/4 ounce yellow feather crappie jig.
Favorite spinners for this location are red sonic rooster tails, White sonic rooster tails, Black mepps with copper colored blades, and Black panther martis with yellow spots and copper colored blades.
Fishing the back river is costly and you need to either find somone who fishes it to give you good directions or find a local guide there are no acurate maps. You also need to aquire land use permits Check with ron at Water Dog Willys in Tempe arizona on baseline they can point you in the right dirrection and tell you the current conditions of the river.
It takes about eight hours from Phoenix to get there. Four hours of which is done by four wheel drive. On this drip with the uploaded photos the mud was up half way on my tires, we tore a rear shock mount right of the axle and blew a tire.
Also bring an extra ten Gallons of gas or you will not make it to the better fishin grounds and back.
Here is a picture of the fish and a picture of the river. These are both from last year wish they were this year neeed to put my cash elsewere being I will be a dad in december.
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Black river is great it is a clear cold moderate flow river waste deep in most locations but the holes behind the boulders can run up to twelve feet deep. We will generally fish this river with spinner baits , catch live helgramites (up to three inches here), or use one inch crawfish we also catch here. This guy was caught on a small 1/4 ounce yellow feather crappie jig.
Favorite spinners for this location are red sonic rooster tails, White sonic rooster tails, Black mepps with copper colored blades, and Black panther martis with yellow spots and copper colored blades.
Fishing the back river is costly and you need to either find somone who fishes it to give you good directions or find a local guide there are no acurate maps. You also need to aquire land use permits Check with ron at Water Dog Willys in Tempe arizona on baseline they can point you in the right dirrection and tell you the current conditions of the river.
It takes about eight hours from Phoenix to get there. Four hours of which is done by four wheel drive. On this drip with the uploaded photos the mud was up half way on my tires, we tore a rear shock mount right of the axle and blew a tire.
Also bring an extra ten Gallons of gas or you will not make it to the better fishin grounds and back.
Here is a picture of the fish and a picture of the river. These are both from last year wish they were this year neeed to put my cash elsewere being I will be a dad in december.
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