Late summer this year (the time stamp on the pic says mid Sept. )I manage to target smallies for the first time in my life with a fly rod...pretty sad me thinks - been a fisherman all my life who will fish for anything by any method, but the last 10 years have been solely been with a fly rod only after trout. I've always heard about the bronzebacks' trout like qualities and there's no shortage of smallie water around here - I can be on prime stretches within 20 min in either direction, but I've always found myself hoofin' it to trout water. Guess I'm just a bad creature of habit or is that a creature of bad habits?
'Course it is that familiarity which breeds content when dyed in the wool trouters begin to sample the warm riverine appetizers on the piscatorial menu - smallmouth bass can become the main course. If you've never done it , I suggest it whole heartedly. I can remember catching them by "accident" on the Little River when fishing as a beginner for stockers below the Y. Got so mad at those stinkin' smallies 'cause here I thought I had a monster trout pulling me all over the river, and it turned out to be this little smallmouth bass. Boy, If I had only known then....
Anyhow, I managed a trip to a water I can't really say where exactly other that its in Tenn....I can't even really tell you what we used to catch 'em other that its a wooly booger variation...my buddy Rusty is basically out scouting for prospective places to take clients so, mums the word....
Anyow, I was amazed how hard these fish smacked that streamer. The small ones hit like a ton of bricks...the bigger ones made your heart pound. I had a couple of break offs and who knows what kind of shoulders those brutes had. I managed a half a dozen or so when the fishing kinda slowed down toward mid afternoon. I was at the head at a really deep, swift run and decided to high stick to get my fly under that surging current - lot like hitting pocket water in the Park - I had lost my got to fly on a larger unseen fish earlier and so tied on a weighted black wooly booger. I pitched it in the seam left of the heavy current and the fly drifted only a second or so before the the line twitched and it was fish on...it was a
good one. I wrestled as hard as my pulse was racin' as fast as that fish had me all over that pool...I finally beached that bronze bullet (shaped more like a howitzer round) as it was my best smallie to date and my biggest of the trip. The picture really doesn't do it justice, being a camera phone snapshot and all, but its still documentation.Later on that week I noticed post on other boards how smallmouth fishing was at a standstill on area waters - the late summer blues...not on this water- and there was a reason for it that I can't divulge...but rest assure I ended up with plenty of action, a dozen fish of to hand, and a few more which I never got to see...I was told that this wasn't even considered a good day for these guys and just wait and see when it's primetime....man,...stinkin' smallies....
