A stream I fish in Virginia seems dominated by Fallfish and it's 95% of what I catch even though even though it has LM and SM bass, bluegill and rainbow trout. I would think it has crappie as they are very common in other waters around here but never caught one. I'm wondering if the Fallfish are eating up all the other species eggs/fry and is why they are all I seem to catch.

 

The stream has the potential to be a bit of a honey hole as access is very difficult and the limited number of landowners rarely fish it. I get into it using a difficult method of launching and recovering my kayak and I've never seen anybody else fish it. It is the upper reach of a small river where a dam creates a deeper and slower moving stretch about a mile long before it turns into an unfishable creek. The stream is dominated by shallow stretches of 2 to 5 feet and then several deep bends of 10 to 20 feet. The shallow stretches have a good bit of fallen trees so it looks fishy as heck.

 

In 15 trips I have only caught a few bass, rainbow trout I think swim down from the far upper reaches of the feeder creeks and then lots and lots of Fallfish. They are fun and I'm thankful for the pullage but I want bass when I'm targeting bass. I throw a lot of usuals like jerk baits, grubs, plastic worms, jigged spoons in the deeper water, spinner baits, etc.

 

I keep telling myself the bass are here but the bite is so dang slow when focusing on them until I use small enough lures these Fallfish can get in their mouth (their favorite seems to be a 3" curly tail grub - they are aggressive as heck). Think they are pushing out the bass?

 

With the prevalence of fallfish, maybe the bass are so full of fallfish that they see no point in going after artificials.

No, small streams this time of year around here are loaded with fallfish, not sure what they do in warmer months, but I hardly see any then.

16 minutes ago, Will Ketchum said:

With the prevalence of fallfish, maybe the bass are so full of fallfish that they see no point in going after artificials.

Good point. I'll throw some larger plastics that might look like Fallfish.

It is a prey specie to both LM and SM. Maybe consider that when choosing a bass bait. Looks like a cool spot.