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 good, Marvin. How are you?
Marvin:
[0:14] As always, I'm just trying to stay out of trouble, and I don't know if you got as much rain on your side of the mountains, but we've been getting washed away here in Charlotte.
Matt:
[0:24] Yeah, we've had a fair bit. I'd say the last couple of weeks it's rained just about every other day, at least.
And we've got rain in the forecast for the next week.
So things are full and rising in places, but it hadn't been a washout, but things are definitely on the high side, particularly up on the new.
And they'll be dropping, but depending on how much rain we have in the next week, they'll probably stay in that full to slightly high range for at least the next couple of days.
Marvin:
[1:02] Yeah, so you know with all that water moving through the system, how do you have to change your smallmouth tactics to get to the fish when there's that much water in the river?
Matt:
[1:14] Well, it depends on the river and how the precipitation hits it.
That's one of the good things about having streamflow gauges.
And I use a website to, I believe, I should know what it's called, but I believe it's associated with NOAA, but it's basically a historical rainfall amount map, so you can go on and retroactively see how much rain fell where and in different watersheds and stuff like that.
You can play that game, you know, if there's just a real quick burst, you know, you definitely want to go higher up in the system if it's a freestone river, and, you know, try to find some lower, clearer water, because at least that's what I'm trying to find in the summertime for top water fishing and bigger fish a lot of the times.
The New River is a little bit of a different beast just because you have a bunch of dams in the system and particularly the dam at Radford fluctuates sometimes preemptively, you know, kind of.
[2:35] Moving water around from Quater Lake to provide for some more room for water coming downriver into the lake.
So sometimes you'll have higher water down low for longer, or sometimes you'll have higher water on the upper river than there is on the lower river, just because they've kind of already run a bunch of water out of the lake, and now they're slowing the generation down so that the water can get absorbed by the lake.
But just paying attention to those stream flow gauges and on the new, you know, again, being a little bit different beast, that upper river is really where you're going to run into the clarity issues most of the time.
[3:22] Because all those dams, they don't impound a lot of water. They're real small, short reservoirs, and the river just tends to run right through them.
The lower river, even though the flow may come up to 7,000, 8,000, 9,000 cubic feet, it's primarily just pulling lake water, so it tends to be pretty clear.
What you would need to look for there is, and thankfully there's a few streamflow gauges on the tributaries, the big ones like Little River and Radford, Wolf Creek and Narrows and Walker Creek, around Parrisburg, that's where the dirty water on the lower is going to come from, unless there's just a massive, massive flooding event and we get up into of that like 20 to 100,000 cubic foot range.
[4:21] So, just kind of using that data to find your best condition set.
And then, you know, it sounds pretty basic, but if you've got high rising water, you're usually going to stick to the banks and probably...
You can catch fish on top waterflies in that higher water, particularly if it's fairly clear, particularly if it's a little bit brighter, sunnier day.
But if you've got some color, you know, I fish streamers a lot in the summertime.
It's not an exclusively topwater game.
So, you know, just kind of fish your conditions and be aware that even though, you know, I say a lot of times that I think topwater fishing, particularly bug fishing, is the best tactic for large fish in the summertime.
Not every day is going to be a fantastic, you know, topwater bugging day.
You've got to reach your conditions and you've got to fish to those conditions.
Not every fish is going to be a great big fish day, but you've got to do what's going to work for you the best and take what comes. So that's what I would say about that.
Marvin:
[5:41] Yeah, you can't win if you don't play. I guess if the water is up and stained and you're fishing streamers, are you looking for a fly color with contrast, maybe flash and maybe a rattle too?
Matt:
[5:55] Yes, those are all great things. You're looking for softer water.
They're generally not going to hang and smallmouth are just lazy, lazy food, especially when We get these big rainfall events, and we certainly have, this time, big water temp drop.
Or at least it doesn't fluctuate a lot over the course of the day because we've had cloudy weather and cooler weather, so you're not getting the sun on the water.
They're going to be fairly lazy fish, so you're looking for slack water, soft water, bright stuff, chartreuse, Um, contrasty stuff, black and blue, black and purple, um, darker, you know, in dirty water, flash colors alike, um, copper, red, blue, um, purple, that kind of stuff, um, whatever you think is going to show up, rattle never hurts.
Um, I don't, frankly, I don't face a whole lot of rattles on my small mouth flies, but, um, can't hurt one bit. Yeah.
Marvin:
[7:12] Well, there you go. Well, there you go. I've got an interesting question for you too.
This came in and the listener wanted to know kind of your thoughts on preferred casting angles when you're fishing topwater flies from a boat for smallmouth.
Matt:
[7:31] Yeah, as you were reciting the question, I was thinking about differences between wade fishing and boat fishing, so I'm glad he said boat fishing, because that makes it easy.
The answer is almost always gonna be downstream to some degree.
When I have two people on my boat, usually, especially if they can cast well, I'm going to keep, especially in low water situations or average streamflow situations, I'm going to keep the boat a good ways from the bank because.
[8:15] Particularly in low or average stream flow situations, those fish could be right on the bank in the shade line, two inches from a root rod, but they could be cruising out in the middle of the river or on the edge of a shelf or something like that.
Cruising further off the bank just grants a little more stealth and spooks fewer fish, you're hanging further off the bank.
It's better for everybody because, you know, if there are fish hanging further off the bank and you're floating 40 feet from the bank, then the guy in the back of the boat is basically getting nothing.
And even if they are on the bank, then, you know, the guy in the front's pounding the bank and the guy in the back's not getting anything.
So what I usually try to enforce is having the guy in the front of the boat, making long, like 45 degree downstream casts to usually I'll have that person fishing off the bank, off of the first shelf or any kind of interesting structure that's coming up kind of in line with the boat, straight downstream ahead of the boat's perfect.
[9:37] If you have a good target if you can, you know, cast well and not hit the other people on the boat.
Um, if there's significant, you know, structural elements or cover, you know, if I'm running the boat, I'm either going to pull the boat further off the bank.
So you don't have to push straight downstream to hit that stuff or in a smaller river, you can turn the boat sideways and fish two people straight downstream and then the guy in the back of the boat, I usually have still fish in that kind of 45 downstream degree angle, but maybe not quite as steep, maybe kind of more in line with the oar or slightly ahead, um, and, and going deep.
Um, that way the guy in the front is picking off, you know, what you might spook out near the boat before you get there.
And the guy in the back is getting the stuff, uh, that's right up on the bank that the guy in the front's not hitting and that you're hopefully not spooking with the boat, but still, you know, downstream angle, you're still hopefully getting there before, you're getting there with your fly before the boat, and the kind of sphere of of awareness that comes with it is getting to the fish.
[10:54] And I say it's... The answer is almost always downstream. It also is...
The answer is downstream. If you're fishing any kind of like waking or diving topwater fly, like a frog or a wiggle minnow or topwater Creolex, anything like that, I'm usually gonna be fishing in a little bit more current, particularly this ladder too.
And I'm usually going to be trying to row the boat a little bit slower than the current speed so that there's some kind of swing going on and that will help that bowline tension, particularly if you're fishing with a floating curving leader, is gonna help drag those flies subsurface and keep it tighter to them for hook sets and takes because if you're fishing a waking fly that you're you know, potentially moving the rod tip and doing all kinds of things to animate slack in the system is going to cost you some fish.
So that bowline tension in that situation is important and, you know, a downstream cast is certainly important to initiate that whole sequence.
So, that would be my semi-quick and semi-simple answer to that.
Marvin:
[12:18] Almost in a nutshell. But I think one of the really important things is, you know, a lot of what you said is really independent of smallmouth fishing, because I think one of the biggest things that I see a lot, uh, fishing from a drift boat is the person, the bow is not fishing far enough in front of the boat, right?
Matt:
[12:35] Exactly. And that's, I mean, I, I, I have this, I don't want to call it a fight, but it might get there sometime with people a lot.
If you're gonna be in the front of the boat and not cast way downstream in front of the boat, you're kind of wasting your spot because that's 80% of the advantage of being in the front is just you're in the stealthiest spot, you get the biggest advantage.
And when things get technical and fish get cagey, that makes a huge difference.
There's some days where even when both dudes are fishing perfectly, you know, down ahead of the boat, the guy in the front still picking up 75% of the fish.
And if you're not doing that, you might not, the whole boat might not be catching anything, you know, so it, it does make a huge difference.
Marvin:
[13:26] Yeah. And also not only you're missing an opportunity, you're screwing your fishing buddy in the back, right?
Matt:
[13:33] And it's getting pretty tense. I've seen some, I haven't seen any fistfights, but I've seen some brotherly disputes and, things born of that whole thing. So it's a...
Frankly, if any, like you said, any time you're fishing out of a boat, moving water or not moving water, basically, the number one rule is don't hit the other people in the boat and cast in front of the boat.
Marvin:
[14:04] Yeah, yeah, 100%. And I mean, it's just, it's just, and the great, the other thing too is it's so important for the anglers to remember that because a lot of times guides will not referee that in their boat.
Matt:
[14:19] That's true, and they may referee it, and they may get tired of saying it after about 100 times too.
So, if it's 2 o'clock in the afternoon, and you're thinking that the fishing's slow, and your guide told you 200 times in the morning to cast ahead of the boat, but he's gone pretty quiet recently, that might be something to try.
Marvin:
[14:44] There you there you go. 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 is easiest for you if we use your question I will send you some articulate fly swag We are in a drawing for something cool for Matt at the end of the season and Matt I know you're well booked into the summer and you know, you're running out of real estate in the in the fall as well You won't let folks know how they can reach out and talk to you and get on your guidebook Yeah, sure.
Matt:
[15:12] I Like I said before, fall and winter are kind of open season on a lot of different things.
Summer's totally booked. There's still some room for some early to, well, I guess mid to late fall smallmouth fishing.
Started to book some, the biggest probably premium on dates is going to be new moon period muskies.
They tend to go the quickest. And I'll start doing that sometime in October.
I think the first new moon in October, or the new moon in October this year is pretty early.
So that's, I started to book a lot of those.
If you wanna go look for some big brownfowl, smallmouth, muskies, October to February or so is when I'll be working on that.
And just reach out however you feel best. Website's mattreillyflyfishing.com and all the contact info's on there.
Marvin:
[16:18] 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. Thanks, Byron.