Still summer

Hi Folks, Been out and about guiding the last few days.  Spent Sunday morning in the boat chasing smallmouth bass in really clear water and the afternoon casting flies to river smallies.  Today, small streaming it for brook trout.  Been hot and humid with big damn sun.  Did cloud up this afternoon and it is supposedly going to rain.  We really need it!  The surface temperature of the lake I fished was 73 degrees at 6:30am and the bass river was 75 degrees at 4pm.  The trout stream I visited today was a warm 65 degrees. Pretty warm for this brook.  Incredible how low the water is in our streams.   Not very hard to locate the fish, but man can they be spooky.  Been using trout tactics to catch smallmouth in our rivers.  A #10 olive/tan grasshopper worked really well Sunday night.   Slight twitches with the rod tip during the drift prompted some big strikes.  We 5 bass on the hopper pattern.  Also, dead drifted a #8 olive tungsten bead head leech pattern under a white indicator.  Caught 4 smallmouth with this tactic and missed a few.  Pretty interesting to see the subtle takes from a big bass.  The lake fishing was a morning of covering water.  We drummed up 7 smallmouth fishing the top with a slider fly and then spin fished with olive/red flake 4" Senkos on red hooks off the bottom.  All of the bass were holding in deeper water off large points and deep milfoil beds.  Pretty interesting in clear water how often you see a big smallmouth just cruising along or have one come to the boat on a fly or lure and turn off.  Trout fishing this afternoon was pretty good.  We landed 4 7" to 9" brook trout on a 2wt. with a #10 royal rubber legged stimulator.  Probably missed 8 fish.  The water is incredibly low and clear and 1 bad false cast sends a trout scurrying for cover.  Stealth like the great blue heron is important.  Hope for rain and cooler weather.  Remember to clean your gear and keep the non-native species at home.  Have Fun, Willy