Almost every day I either take other people fishing or talk about fishing while working at the fly shop so it was very good to actually go fishing the last couple of days. Yesterday I fished my local smallmouth stream at what can only be described as the last place you would choose to fish this stream. I was in the middle of town, surrounded by construction and traffic but I had the stream to myself and the fishing turned out to be exceptional.
As I’ve mentioned over and over again in the stream reports, the water is way low. Finding fish is the key and presentation also seems to be important at the moment. I’ve stuck with flies that are natural “match the hatch” types. Yesterday I manged a lot of small fish and two about 14 inches. Today I fished a different location, one I usually pass up because it gets loads of pressure from all sorts of anglers.
The day was long. I fished about 3 hours with nothing but chubs and a couple of missed opportunities. At about the time I was ready to head for my porch and a cold beer I decided to fish a deep hole at the bridge that the bait anglers hit pretty hard. The friend I was fishing with had hooked and almost landed a nice carp there earlier in the day so I thought I at least had a chance at a carp. I went deep, fishing the Whit’s Hellgramite with two BB split shot to get it down. I felt a subtle take and hooked up to the fish in the picture. The deep bellied 16″ smallmouth fought hard, tail-walked briefly and managed one nice jump before coming to hand. The lesson learned the past few days… Get out of the fishing comfort zone and fish places you might otherwise pass up.
