Fishing small streams

I live in a "water poor" part of the state - yeah - Mn has 10,000 or
so lakes, but my county doesn't lay claim to single one. Note to
self: the next time you move, move somewhere that has a lake or
two or 50 to fish!

Anyway, when time is short, and with the price of gas, you need
to make do, so I've been hitting the local small streams, mainly
fishing pools formed by road bridge crossings - The land is privately
owned on all of these, and No Trespass signs abound. All of the
streams in my area are slow, warm water streams - so panfish, LM bass,
carp and NP are the usual.

Yesterday morning I hit one such pool. This particular pool sometimes
holds LM and NP. In the past I used bait (most often sucker minnows
or crawlers), but lately I've been throwing SW's.

Yesterday morning, it was overcast, and I had a hit on the 2nd cast,
on the 3rd, I hooked it - a 18" NP. Not big, but it hit hard. So went
my 2 hours, ended up w/ 14 NP (all released with the exception of
two which took the hook deep and got torn gills and 1 more to
make enough for lunch), and no bass. This pool seemed to be full of
them - but it was alot of fun. The skirt of my SW is shredded.

Last night I checked out two other pools, these both a bit larger -
big enough I can't cast across them them. Several hits on my
SW, hooked one NP, might have gone 26-28", but I slipped
and fell on the creek bank, trying to reach for my net, and the
fish tore free. Switched to a buzz bait as it got darker, got two top
water hits, but both missed - hitting the blade. Both of these hits
were solid strikes, but I couldn't see what they were by. My final
action of the night was a another small NP. I did see one bass come
out of the water (chasing minnows), but it was out of my casting range
(the road right of way is the limiting factor for movement on the
banks).

The really nice thing about fishing this way is the lightness -
one or two lures, rod and landing net. You get a change of
scenery w/ every pool, and you never know what is going to
be on the end of the line.

Jim