Hi Folks, Ran the boat all day yesterday with fly fishing clients chasing smallmouth on the first day of Autumn. Still feels like summer out there to me. Cool morning with fog, but once it burned off we had big blue bird sunny skies. Surface temperature of the lake was 66 degrees at 8:00am and warmed to 70 degrees by days end. Yes, we still still need rain and a cool down. However, as the weather stays consistent like this the smallie fishing will continue to be excellent. Very little wind yesterday with a slight south breeze. We surface fished for most of the day using big deer hair bugs, old school. The lake we fished was off color and is dirty looking most of the time. We used bright colored deer hair flies in red and white and chartreuse and red. Both bugs had inverted hooks so you could cast them up on to weed beds and drag them off. Deer hair is a bit more wind resistant than the traditional cork and plastic poppers I like to use for smallmouth. Hauling is important in casting them. We found pods of aggressive fish and then we would fish areas that were like the dead sea. The common characteristic of each productive spot was sharp drop offs from 5' to 20' with rock shoreline and good over hanging tree cover. We landed 8 bass between 12" and 19". Probably missed or lost twice that amount. To all of you trout fisherman, when bass fishing you need to really stick the fish. Big hook sets, especially since you are casting a 12lb. to 16lb. tippet. It was fun watching the smallmouth and largemouth chase down the fly. Good strong fighting fish. I am off to chase river bass today. Remember to clean your gear and keep the non-native species at home. Have Fun, Willy
