Hi Folks, Kept busy yesterday on the water guiding in the morning and afternoon. Chased smallmouth with the fly rods in the morning and river trout with the fly in the afternoon. Great time of the year to pursue a wide variety of species and lots of options. Nice cool morning yesterday with a slight swirling breeze. Nice over cast skies and the top water bite was on for the bass. We landed 21 smallmouth. The bass are in full on pre spawn mode and pretty easy pickings right now. The fish were located in less than 5' of water over gravel and broken up rocky shorelines. The takes were pretty subtle as the fish just came up and down on the fly. It took some patience on the hook set as we did prematurely remove the fly a few times before the bass were stuck. Pretty easy to do when you are getting lots of action. In the afternoon I took two beginner fly anglers to fish a tail water where they happen to have some property. The flow was low and the water temperature was 51 degrees. Not much for hatching bugs and the gravel in riffles was pretty devoid of life. This is due in large part to the flow regimes of this particular river which is an all or nothing release. We dead drifted #10 heavily weighted olive/black wooly bugger under indicators. We landed 1 solid 14" brown trout and lost the fish of the day if not the spring. A very large brown trout that I would have estimated to be in the 20" plus class. The large trout tossed the fly when it came out of the water. Sounded like a beaver tail slapping the water when the fish jumped. So bugs to look for currently are #10/#12 Mach Browns, #16 olive bodied caddis and , #14/#16 Grey Fox Variants. I am off to run the boat for bass. Remember to clean your gear and keep the non-native species at home. Have Fun, Willy
