much needed rain and spawning bass

Hi Folks, Ran the boat yesterday afternoon on a local lake with a fly client for smallmouth bass.  Nice day after several days of rain.  All of our rivers are now above seasonal average flow and are slowly but surely dropping in level.  The Lamoille and Winooski are still a day or two away from being manageable to fish.  All of the tributaries are in great shape.  Along with the rain came a big cold front which dropped air temperatures and water temperatures significantly.  Bodes well for river fishing for trout for the next couple of weeks.  On the lake yesterday the water temperature was 66 degrees on the surface with a slight west breeze.  The water clarity was good as we could sight a lot of the smallmouth coming to eat our surface presentations.  There were a percentage of male bass protecting spawning beds and we made an effort to not fish these bass.  These bass will take your fly really gently and subtly and move it off the bed and spit it out.  Pretty interesting to see and you would not know what happened if you did not see the fish move the fly.  The fish we caught were all post spawn and slammed the fly very aggressively.  Good fun watching them rise from 10' of water to eat andthen get air time.  We landed 5 smallmouth with a #2 white rubber legged slider fly.  Probably missed and lost another 10 fish.  Pretty steady action.  I am off to chase landlocked salmon today with the fly rods.  Remember to clean your gear and keep the non-native species at home.  Have Fun, Willy