Transcript: Southwest Virginia Fishing Report with Matt Reilly
Transcript
Marvin:
[0:04] Hey folks, it's Marvin Cash, the host of the Articulate Fly, and we're back with another Southwest Virginia fishing report with Matt Reilly. How you doing, Matt?
Matt:
[0:12] I'm doing great, Marvin. How are you?
Marvin:
[0:14] As always, I'm just trying to stay out of trouble. And we were talking before we started recording, and I mean, you know, basically in the mid-Atlantic, we got a decent amount of rain, particularly if you're on the east side of the mountains, Memorial Day weekend, and things have been pretty cool.
What's that translating to on the water in your neck of the woods?
Matt:
[0:33] Yeah, we got pounded the last couple of days, I'll say, let's see if we're recording this on Monday, Saturday night and Sunday, it pretty much rained nonstop.
So I think we got pretty close to an inch and a half, and that is very, it's being represented very well on our streamflow graphs right now.
Pretty much all the gauges on the New River spiked quite a bit.
Last I looked at it, Radford was sitting at like 24,000, which is pretty high.
You know, catastrophic flood level, but still, you know, not fishable and way up there.
The trout streams are likely very full.
The South Fork gauge was showing about 250 cubic feet, which I would still wade in some places, but it's definitely getting tricky and heavy.
But that will, everything's pretty much crested already because it came through pretty quick.
So we'll, on the trout front, we'll definitely be sensible in the next couple of days and recovering every day.
Smallmouth deal might be a little bit longer.
Marvin:
[1:59] Yeah. And so when the smallmouth water recovers, because we were also talking before we started recording that it's been kind of cool and cloudy, which is not exactly where we would expect this time of year.
So the top water bite's probably been a little off schedule.
Matt:
[2:14] Yeah, we've had some good topwater fishing this spring, especially when we've had some warm days, some bright days on clear water.
But yeah, like you said, last day I was out, we had a pretty cold overnight for this time of year. It was in the mid to upper 40s overnight, and then no sun.
So when you get those water temp drops and then no kind of upward swing due to light penetration, it definitely makes things tough kind of across the board.
But generally, you're not going to get them to move super far for a topwater offering.
So in those situations, you're usually doing a little bit more screamer fishing.
Not expecting a super hot bite in the morning and, you know, skewing our efforts towards the afternoon.
But, you know, the smallmouth rivers being where they are right now, by the time they come back down, I think topwater will probably be an option again, just because we're going to be back in the mid-70s to 80-degree range as high as in the afternoon.
Marvin:
[3:37] Yeah, and so when it's cool like that and you've got to go fish streamers instead of top water stuff for them, Do you generally try to slow your retrieve down a little bit too, or they still pretty chasey.
Matt:
[3:49] You know, I'll experiment with it. There's two kinds of thought processes there.
If you're faced with a tough bite, it's caused by a, you know, something like that. Some kind of cold fire or snap or something like that.
You can, you know, usually what I try to do is just slow things down because part of my personality is just wanting to catch every fish in the river.
So I have a hard time passing spots that I know have good fish in them or numbers of fish.
So I try to really milk things and try to make things happen that way.
[4:34] The other approach that works sometimes is just trying to kind of trigger reactions from fish, especially if you know, you know, if you have some productive areas in mind, you can go in and fish fairly aggressively and try to, you know, basically see who comes out swinging.
And if people, if people, if fish aren't doing that, then, you know, you can keep riding that and see what happens.
Otherwise, yeah, I'm usually just gonna slow it down As you're fishing that way, you can interpret from the takes that you're getting how the fish need to be presented to.
If they're coming at flies pretty high, then you can afford to speed things up.
Likely, you'll see a progression like that throughout the day too, even without the sun, as things warm up a little bit.
Marvin:
[5:28] Got an interesting question for you from Brenner, and I think it's maybe a touch early, but still a good question. He wanted to get your thoughts on how to fish a mouse pattern properly.
Matt:
[5:41] Yeah, that's a good question.
Might be better suited for my buddy Ellis down the road, because I know he does a lot of that for trout.
I do not, in particular, imitate mice very often, smallmouth fishing.
I'll do it on the brown trout front when I get the opportunity.
Usually, spring to early fall or so, though I'm sure it can work year round.
But in the past, the way that I've done that um, is either.
Either basically in a kind of prospecting mindset where you're moving down the river, you're imitating a mouse, it's a very accidental food source for a trout in the sense that they're not, you know, they don't live in the water, they're not seeing them all the time, you know, if they encounter one it's because that animal made a mistake and ended up in the river.
So you want to get your fly pretty close to cover.
[6:58] I don't think I've ever fished a mouse fly very hard or very intentionally during the day.
It'll all be dusk to dawn, basically, and it's creating some commotion on the surface, so slapping it down and kind of wiggling it out of cover.
You can do that on anchor or on a, you know, if somebody's on the oars and they're back rowing so that you're basically swinging flies and you're creating kind of a constant bowline tension where the fly is being moved away from the bank by the current and the static length of your fly line.
And you can animate it with some rod tip wiggles, etc., but you're basically just creating a wake and kind of imitating basically all rodents when they swim, if you look at them from above and below very generally, they pretty much just swim straight, they get their feet kicking, and there's just kind of a view wave coming off of the back of them.
So So that wake is important.
Some impact when it hits the water is important. And then.
[8:21] Again, if you're swinging or sitting on anchor, et cetera, you always want to keep in mind that those fish are going to be slashing at the flies, and so you're going to need to allow them to grab onto them and basically chew on them for a second.
So hook sets, especially rod sets, right off the bat on a take, a lot of times pull flies out of fish's mouths.
I tend to basically just let that bowline tension kind of tighten between the fish and in your rod tip. And then once you feel that heavy tension, you can kind of dig into them a little bit.
If you're floating, again, I still try to maintain some kind of swing.
[9:16] But otherwise, you're just kind of wiggling or two-hand retrieving or pulling your fly back to the boat.
And I mean, just like with a lot of topwater stuff, you want to try to avoid reacting as soon as you're aware of a take.
I got to give them a second to kind of close their mouth and golf it, you know, turn head down, get some mass behind it and then, and then give it a hook set.
So that would be my, uh, those, my kind of quick tips on that.
Um, again, I don't, I don't do that a ton for anything other than brown trout, really. Yeah.
Marvin:
[9:54] And I guess, you know, since it's highly unlikely that, you know, the mouse or the bowl or whatever is going to have enough energy to swim upstream, all this stuff to your point, you're putting a bow and you're really going to probably want to animate that fly downstream, right?
Matt:
[10:08] Yeah, absolutely. I would say, you know, if we're, We are talking, you know, for the merits of imitating a food source naturally, that's absolutely the case.
I would never say that a fish would not eat a fly that's being retrieved upstream, because, you know, at the end of the day, you've got predators kind of out on the hunt in their environment, you know, in the dark, where they feel most comfortable.
Things are probably going to happen, but certainly that kind of downstream and across is going to be a lot more productive.
Marvin:
[10:48] Yeah, and I know too, brown trout are known to sometimes take two passes, right? They whack it to stun it and then they come back and eat it.
Matt:
[10:56] Yeah, and that's, you know, again where that feeling the weight comes into play, and again, not rod setting, because one of the large disadvantages of setting with the rod when you're fishing for, any kind of predatory fish like that is that sometimes they do take swipes, they try to stun things, or else they, you know, don't get hooks and then they come back and they take another whack.
So if you set with the rod and you pull the fly, you know, 60 feet out of the zone, and then you're pretty much done. If you just wait or maybe give it a short, quick, you know, script, you're still out there.
Marvin:
[11:41] Yeah. Well, there you go, Brenner. I hope that helps. And, you know, folks, we love questions at the Articulate Fly. You can email them to us.
You can DM us on social media, whatever's easiest for you.
And if we use your question, I will send you some Articulate Fly swag.
And we're gonna draw for something cool from Matt at the end of the season.
And, you know, Matt, before I let you go, I know your summer's pretty crowded and you're sort of starting to look at fall fishing, you want to let folks know maybe what you have available and how to reach out and get in touch with you and get on the books?
Yeah, absolutely.
Matt:
[12:11] Spring and, or spring, well, yeah, spring, summer, early fall, it's pretty much all booked, but we're starting to look at, you know, kind of those last fall smallmouth trips, mid to late October, And then the musky and brown trout stuff popping up.
So it's never too early to start thinking about that stuff, especially if you want some prime moon days or prime portions of the season.
Definitely reach out. However you feel best, all my info is on my website, which is mattreillyflyfishing.com.
And I look forward to hearing from you.
Marvin:
[12:59] Well, there you go. Well, listen, folks, you owe it to yourself to get out there and catch a few. Tight lines, everybody. Tight lines, Matt.
Matt:
[13:06] Thanks, Marvin.