Smallmouth, Topwaters and T-Storms...

Jarret and I got an early start to the weekend on Thursday night by taking an after work smallie trip. To be quite honest, I can't think of a better way to unwind from a day of work than wet wading in sandals and shorts and having smallies blast topwaters!
Though Thursday was a blast, it was a merely a quick fix. The real excitement would happen on Saturday, when Josh, Kurt and I were planning a 14 mile float on the Yough. This would be the longest float we have ever done and we were all very excited to say the least.We got off to an early start and had the boat in the water by 7. By 7:02 there were fish cartwheeling though the air and pulling our lines tight. Not a bad start for sure...

We had planned on trying to keep track of just how many fish were being caught, but it just became too much of a chore. All I can say is that this river has a very healthy population of smallmouths that are more than eager to eat flies...including some real tanks. The highlight of the day came with the biggest smallmouth I've ever come across blasting a Gurgler and pulling line like a steelhead.
I returned home around 9:30 in time to shower and clean the boat up for yet another float on Sunday.

Sunday came and I hit the river with Meg and her Dad. Thankfully, this would be a bit shorter float. My hands looked and felt like ground meat from rowing a few too many miles and getting spined and jabbed with hooks while unhooking fish on Saturday. What a terrible problem to have huh?

Anyway, the day proved to be a memorable one with Meg and Tom getting a bit more comfortable on the oars, catching a good number of fish on gurglers (even doubling up at one point) and laughing with me as we got completely soaked in a thunderstorm that popped up about 1 mile from our takeout.

This wasn't your average thunderstorm. This was one of those Forrest Gump "it even rained upside down" kind of storms that blew in so fast that we would have barely had the chance to get our rain jackets on...if we had them. Needless to say, everyone took it in stride and had a good laugh about just how much water could fall in such a short time.

Smallmouth season is definitely going well and I'm extremely excited about searching for some more big fish, but talk of two-handed rods and big, bright chrome fish is becoming more common in my circle of friends. It won't be long, I just hope we can all hold out long enough for the fish to arrive before we all lose it...