Transcript: Central VA Fishing Report with TaleTellers Fly Shop
Transcript
Marvin:
[0:04] Hey folks, it's Marvin Cash, the host of the Articulate Fly and we're back with another Central Virginia Fishing Report with Ethan Martin of Telltale's Fly Shop. How you doing, Ethan?
Ethan:
[0:13] I'm doing good today. How are you doing?
Marvin:
[0:15] As always, I'm just trying to stay out of trouble and I would imagine it's probably pretty dry in your neck of the woods.
Ethan:
[0:22] Yeah, it's getting there. I mean, for sure. The bigger rivers, like the James, are definitely getting towards their summertime flows, and then our trout streams are pretty low, same thing with small streams.
What's been odd for this time of the year is the temps have been more cool, so it's made trout fishing still an option, which a lot of times, by this time of the year, it's dried up and heated up.
Um, so yeah, it's definitely been a, an interesting little season here.
Marvin:
[0:55] Yeah. So I guess if you want to do trout while, uh, there's still a little bit of water left, it's probably dry flies and anything yellow or orange, right?
Ethan:
[1:03] Pretty much. Yeah. I mean, the, uh, I fished on a local river the other day and, uh, it was interesting because, you know, typically you would assume if you should throw something yellow or something orange, uh, on the nymph range, it's going to be just as fine, but I had to go with a tiny little pheasant tail.
I had a size 18 on, which is typical of low water, and that's what it took to finally get some trout to commit.
That wasn't a small stream. That was a little bit bigger delayed harvest water.
There may be instances where you have to go a little bit more natural, especially if you're fishing those pressured waters, but if you're going to a small stream in our area, then Yeah. Bright colors are going to be what they're after.
Um, the other thing too, to keep in mind is if you go to one of those delayed harvest dreams, uh, at this time of the year, you're going to catch a ton of other species of fish, not just trout.
So, uh, when that happens, don't get too, too frustrated. Cause that's just part of playing the game this time of year.
Marvin:
[2:07] Yeah. Although those horny heads are pretty ugly.
Ethan:
[2:10] Yeah, they are. It's like a star Wars animal, you know?
Marvin:
[2:14] Yeah. It's pretty creepy. And so what are your friends seeing on the smallmouth water?
Ethan:
[2:19] Smallmouth's been pretty decent. The temps have made it just a touch squirrely, but topwater bite's been heating up.
Almost everybody that I know that's been out has been finding some success on topwater, but still baitfish are going to be a great thing this time of the year, too.
I would say if you are in the Lynchburg area and you want to give it a go, come to downtown Lynchburg and you can wade fish all around.
The flows are just fine for it, and there's been a ton of fish.
And this year seems to be a lot of fish in that like 15 to 13 inch age category.
So, you know, that's pretty cool just being able to see that age class of fish that's made it and progressively getting bigger.
Because all those fish one day are gonna be our 20 inch fish if they can make it that far. So, yeah, it's encouraging.
Marvin:
[3:14] Yeah, for sure. And I mean, it's one of those interesting things.
I was talking to someone else this week and, you know, after several consecutive years of just scouring flows during spawn, I mean, I would say probably what out of the last five years, we've probably had three or four relatively decent spawns for small mouth.
Ethan:
[3:33] Yep, and you know that the smallmouth numbers issue on the James has been something that, everybody is complaining about, you know, or was complaining about and was pointing fingers at everything possible, you know, it's anglers, it's this type of angler, it's, you know, lack of food, it's flatheads, it's, you know, fill in blank here.
But I think kind of what we're seeing is ultimately it had to have just been the spawns.
And so I'm sure that there are other factors that could decrease numbers like catfish or whatever it may be.
But I think ultimately at the end of the day, us getting those good years of spawns has played a huge factor in that.
So that's something encouraging, but that's just also a part of life.
Can't really control when it's going to monsoon rain for three years in a row.
So, and then not for a couple more.
Marvin:
[4:31] Yeah, absolutely. And we've got a question from our old reliable Brenner.
Um, small, yeah, small mouth question. And he wanted, you know, we're getting ready to head into low water and hot days, and so he wanted to get your thoughts on, you know, how you target small mouth, you know, in the mornings and the evenings.
Ethan:
[4:48] Yeah, well, I'd start first with saying mornings and evenings are the time to go if you've only got a little bit of time because you definitely will see increased activity around those timeframes.
So, say most people tend to go towards the evening if they're wade fishing just because they want to get up later.
But if you want to go early, you've got to be out early. And so, if that's sunrise or touch before, but a lot of people don't want to do that in the summer, because when the sun rises, you're talking like six o'clock, you're out there.
[5:22] But if I'm doing that, then for sure I'm going to be fishing areas where fish are going to be feeding aggressively.
So a lot of times what that means I'm looking for is like riffled areas or areas that have a little bit more oxygenated water and increased food supply that then are going to dump into some sort of deeper water area, which would be safety.
Those fish will definitely sit there and congregate in that style of water because they can go up really quickly, munch on some food, and then as soon as that sun gets out and they want to go hide in the shade or in deeper water, they can quickly go and do that.
So for me, a lot of it this time of the year is going to focus on where I'm fishing, not necessarily the fly, but the fly will play an impact.
So if you go out and you start to throw in topwater and you're not seeing any action, then switch to something that sinks medium range, a woolly bugger or something basic.
If nothing's eaten that, then go to something that's going to go even deeper.
If you don't get anything on that, then you know you fished that whole water column, so move somewhere else, basically.
That's typically my strategy year-round, but where you're fishing this time of the year will play a pretty big part in whether or not you find success or not.
Marvin:
[6:41] Yeah, and that being said, right, even with low water, you know, in hot days, you know, you can still be productive in the middle of the day.
You just have to kind of have to understand that, you know, that heat, I mean, it's unpleasant, right?
Because the fish are in the shade and we're in the sun, but, but that hard shade line on, you know, on the shorelines, particularly when the bugs start really kicking is basically like that'll put fish on structure, right?
And yeah, yeah. And so that shade is a place to go.
Again, it's unpleasant because you're in the sun and they're in the shade, but it's going to push them to the banks and you want to fish poppers and things like that.
Ethan:
[7:16] You get a nice tan line that time of year too.
Marvin:
[7:19] Yeah, well I've gotten a new appreciation for like 50 SPF hoodies.
Ethan:
[7:25] Yeah, I think if anybody saw me out on the water, they probably wouldn't recognize me because that's, I keep on like the long quick dry pants and all of the SPF hoodies and all that jazz.
So, I don't like getting sunburned or, you know, I don't really want to have some sort of long-term effect from my fishing.
Marvin:
[7:44] So, You don't want to be like the old timers these days that are telling you that they've had like 40 skin cancers taken off their head and their hands.
Ethan:
[7:51] Yeah. I, and, you know, we see people like that in the shop, uh, particularly like farmers and that sort of stuff that frequently will come in that they're like, yeah, I never wore sunscreen once in my life.
And you're like, that's why your face looks like the green Canyon.
I mean, that's, I don't like, uh, being rude in that sense, but, um, you know, we, we have new understandings, so definitely take care of yourselves.
You know, we want to be efficient as long as we can. So less time in a hospital, if we can make that happen.
Marvin:
[8:18] So, Yeah, it's funny you say that I my appreciation for hoodies really came last summer fishing and at high altitude in Colorado Like I after being out there for a few days.
I completely understood why people were You know basically huddling up like Kenny on South Park Yeah So well, you know folks look we love questions on the articulate fly.
You can email them to us You can DM and whatever is easiest for you And if we use your question I'll send you some articulate fly swag and we're in your drawing with something cool from the shop at the end of the season and Ethan, before I let you go, you wanna let folks know any special events, shop hours, location, and all that kind of good stuff?
Ethan:
[8:55] Yeah, so you can find us in downtown Lynchburg, Virginia. We're on Main Street, and we're open.
We're gonna continue on with our Tuesday through Saturday timeframe for right now.
And if you can't make it through the store, then of course we have everything that you can find online. So we've got a couple of classes and stuff that are gonna be coming up here soon.
So some fun, exciting stuff.
And yeah, looking forward to meeting you guys and seeing anybody.
Marvin:
[9:22] 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, Ethan.
Ethan:
[9:28] Tight lines.