Smallmouth again

First fish of the day - a scrappy smallmouth caught on top

 

My good buddy Mike and I haven't had much time to fish together the last couple years.  They had a little girl 3 years ago and my wife and I had our little boy a year ago so needless to say kitchen passes have been scarce lately.  Well we both had one for all day Sunday so we headed out to a smallmouth river that he'd been on only once and I'd never been on.  We had wanted to fish this stream for years ever since we saw old photos of long stringers of big smallmouth from this stream in an old country store nearby.

He promised beautiful scenery and if it was anything like he remembered there would be plenty of smallmouth to cast our lures and flies to.  Whether or not we caught any was not guaranteed of course, but it never is.  And that's why I've always enjoyed fishing (and hunting) with Mike.  He's not one to get bent out of shape if we don't catch anything or if things don't go as planned.  I've fished with guys like that before.  I try not to but somehow every once in a while I do.  I always wondered why those guys fished in the first place.  I figure if you're going to get pissy about your recreational activity not going right you might as well have a hobby that's worth getting pissy about when it doesn't go as planned... like skydiving for instance.

We wanted to take only one truck so we got a local canoe rental company to shuttle our vehicle.  We couldn't get them to shuttle the truck until after 9:00AM, a little late for starting a fishing trip especially this time of year.  They obviously weren't as excited about our kitchen passes as we were.  But the weather was actually very pleasant... high's were in the low 80's and off and on overcast.  My thermometer showed the water was a cool 76-78 degrees depending on how close to one of the many springs we were standing.  Can't ask for more than that in early September around here.

The river was full of these crayfish

Mike was right.  It was one of the most beautiful streams I've been on in middle Tennessee.  And it was the PERFECT smallmouth river.  It had clear, cool water full of crayfish, and goodlooking runs, riffles, and deep holes one after another.  I don't think anyone could have made a better smallmouth stream from their imagination. 

 

Most of my fish were smallmouth just like this one

I started out on top water with a foam gurgler type fly.  Did OK with it for a while but we started getting into deeper runs and I wanted to get down to the fish so I switched to a cayfish pattern with heavy dumbbell eyes.  That fly fished well until I lost it on a log across a section of stream that was too dangerous to cross.  It's funny how you contimplate those things.  You start looking at all the ways to get your fly back, most involve dangerous and crazy stunts.  Then finally you come to your senses (sometimes) and remember, it's just 2 dollars for crying out loud!  Let it go!  So I did... and tied on a slumpbuster in colors as closly matching the crayfish in that river as I could.  Caught a few but ended up going back to the crayfish pattern that worked well earlier.  Thankfully I had more than one with me.

 

This was my best fish of the day - It doesn't look it in the picture but it was almost as big as Mikes... No really, it was.

 

Towards the evening the fishing started heating up again.   We found a long, wide stretch of shallow riffle water where fish were feeding.  As we canoed through we could see smallmouth dart from out in front of the boat.  We anchored, got out and started fishing.  Mike found a small deep impression along the bank.  Didn't look like much but evidently the fish liked it.  I don't remember how many redeye and smallmouth he pulled out of that one small spot but it was a lot; including one nice smallmouth that had his ultralight spinning rod bent almost double.

We timed the trip just right and got to the take out at just about dark.  I threw a few "last" casts right there where we were taking out and was able to pull one more smallie out of the river.   We didn't exactly slay 'em but as always we had a great time.  It was an awesome day on a beautiful smallmouth river with a great buddy.

  

 

Mike with the best fish of the day

Smallies on the long rod

I love catching smallmouth bass on the fly rod. They hit the fly HARD, fight better than any largemouth ever thought about, and will jump like wild rainbows. Growing up in Florida I'd never caught a smallmouth until after I moved up here. The first one I caught was almost an accident. I'd been catching a mix of small largemouth, redeye, and bluegill then all the sudden I had what I thought was a nice largemouth... 2-3 pounds maybe. What I found when I finally got it in was about one pound, maybe less, smallmouth bass. I've been in love ever since.

Over the last three or four years I've been trying to do more smallmouth fishing; trying to learn more about where, when, and how to catch them with the fly rod. It's been a fun learning experience. And this past Sunday was REALLY fun.

Woody and I motored up the mouth of a small creek he's fished for years. We motored past all the deeper slower water and past all the largemouth fishermen in their bassboats that I have no doubt cost 20 times what Woody paid for his 70's vintage 12' john boat and 7 & 1/2 horse motor. We motored up until we could motor up no more. Then we dragged the boat over a shallow shoal and beached it on an island. Then we started fishing. And boy was the fishing good.

Right off the bat I caught a small smallmouth. Then Woody hooked into and lost two, one right after the other, smallies that looked like they would have been 2 pounds or better. I was fishing a green and white gurgler and he was fishing a streamer. It didn't take me long to switch to a streamer. I tied on a pattern that he tied up derived from a red faced dace and a crystal bugger put together. It was fantastic! We started catching (and losing) smallmouth after smallmouth, running the streamers right along the weed line where there was current and in the deeper runs right below shoals and riffles. It seemed that everywhere you thought a smallmouth should be, they were there.

I was fishing a particular run and Woody was just up stream fishing another when all the sudden I heard him whooping and hollering that he had a BIG one. I looked up just in time to see his 6 weight rod bent way over and then suddenly go straight. I thought he was going to cry right there on the stream bank. Woody's not one to exaggerate and he's caught plenty of fish from his bass tournament days that he knows how to estimate weight. He said it would have gone 3 pounds, maybe more and I believe him. I've seen him lose a number of fish and I've never seen him that upset about losing one before. But I guess if we landed every fish we hooked into it wouldn't be as exciting and we wouldn't keep coming back.

We continued to fish up stream a ways and we both caught some really nice fish as far as I'm concerned. In one run alone we caught about 7 or 8 fish. I caught what was probably my best smallmouth yet which we guessed at little more than 2 pounds.

After wading back down to the boat and eating lunch, we put the boat back in the water and drifted back down stream. We fished the slower water and threw our flies to all the submerged trees and structure that might hold largemouth and caught a good number of them. I even managed to land a nice largemouth... and all I could think was, "if that largemouth would have been a smallmouth, that would have been one hell of a fight!"