17: lukewarm bronze

Aug1

We can endeavor for hot, but sometimes you’ve got to take what nature gives you. I fished the TMA from 5pm-8:45pm last night, dedicated to the smallmouth cause. I started off with a white/chartreuse conehead bugger in a mix of sun and shadows and caught a bazillion smallies from 4-6″. That was fun, but it really wasn’t why I was there. So I headed to another spot that would be completely in the shade.

This second run was a bona fide honey hole for me last summer, with plentiful bass, and some pushing the foot-long mark. On this evening, it was a bittersweet reminder that every year is different. One dink was all I could manage.

In fact, it took a while for things to get going. The best fishing really didn’t happen until full dusk, with the typical it’s-dark-now shutoff. The big one eluded me, but I took several fish that pushed 12″. Most of the smallies were keyed on emergers, and unlike last year there were stretches where they ignored the streamer. (And several instances where they pile-drived the bug the moment it hit the water.)

And you can’t make this up: around 7:30pm, I was swinging a Zoo Cougar through a pocketed run. Bump….BUMP. Fish on. As I was stripping it in, I said out loud, “You think you’ve got an 18″ brown, but it’s really an 8″ smallie.” A few moments later, I realized that it was a trout — a big old rainbow. Once I knew what I had hooked, I hauled it in quick. The fish was in great shape, high teens, fat, intact fins, deep pink band. I was going to take a photo, then thought better of it, and released the fish, which swam off in seemingly great spirits.

Water was 296cfs and 69 degrees. No white flies yet.

Handsome fish. This guy took the bug on the dangle near the surface, and treated me to several frantic aerials. I like the translucency of the pectoral fin.

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Are you ready for some summer smallies? Read “Hot Bronze” in the August 2017 issue of Field & Stream.

Jul25

“Hot Bronze” is a primer on summer smallmouth on the fly. It’s my second piece for Field & Stream, and you can read it in the August 2017 issue, on newsstands right now.

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Housy Smallmouth Report: And then there were none

Sep4

That inflammatory title doesn’t refer to the fish — plenty of Micropterus dolomieu to go around — but rather to the number of big, classic Connecticut fly fishing rivers currently with flows in the triple digits of cfs.

While neither extreme is preferable, I really don’t enjoy fishing in low water. Like the Farmington, the Hous (96cfs, 75 degrees) is rapidly becoming a featureless rock garden. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like Hermine is going to give us even a temporary respite (I understand that going back to 2015, our state is at a 14-inch rain deficit). And so we carry on.

But enough of the negative waves.

Yesterday was a good day for a little father-sons wet-wading fly fishing for smallies expedition. Here are a few shots from Dad’s brag book.

Cam’s on! Cam says: “These things fight like little steelhead.”

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Gordo’s on! Gordo says: “Why do they keep jumping out of the water?” This smallie gave us two spectacular aerials.

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Today’s special: Crayfish. Half-off.

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The best streamers for smallmouth bass are…

Aug7

If you do a search for “best” or “top ten” streamers for smallmouth bass, you are presented with an eclectic mix of patterns, typically opaque, with big googly eyes and using all kinds of new-agey materials — often accompanied by seductive promises of fish-catchess prowess. And oh, by the way, you can’t have the recipe, but here’s where you may purchase the wonder fly.

Ahem.

I can’t claim to be an expert on the lesser pie-holed cousins of the bucketmouth, but when I sat down at the vice this weekend to tie some smallmouth streamers I kept things pretty basic. I have a strong suspicion this selection will be met with approval by the target audience — the key word being selection. Some will ride topwater. Some will swim just below the surface. Some will plumb the depths and jig on the retrieve. They feature colors that range from earth-tones to fluorescents. You know the drill: give the fish a choice.

Now, I just gotta get them wet.

Clockwise from bottom left: Gartside Gurgler variants (size 2), three sets of Woolly Bugger variants (sizes 4-6), Deep Threat variants (sizes 4-6), and in the center, some neutral buoyancy thingy I tied on a whim.

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