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. Just get back from a long day.
Marvin:
[0:17] There you go. And it's funny because I always give you grief about how I don't believe it's significantly cooler where you are, but I think we're going to be pretty close to hitting 100 a couple times this week in Charlotte, so I looked at your weather and I think I'd rather have yours than mine.
Matt:
[0:31] Yeah, dude, I'm telling you, it's uh, we've been really pretty, I hesitate to say unseasonably cool, but it definitely, you know, it happened hot.
Um, we've had some fairly cool weather and uh, but we, I guess, I guess I should say we're getting significantly warmer this week and we're going to be consistently, you know, bounce around highs between like upper 70s and upper 80s.
So that's what we're looking at. We really haven't had a whole lot of 90, 95 this summer.
It's been pretty cool, which is a double-edged sword when it comes to the fishing, but looking forward to this week for sure.
Marvin:
[1:16] Yeah, good for the rower, bad for the fishermen.
Matt:
[1:21] Yeah, I mean, heck, it's bad for the rower, but if you want the fishing to be good this time of year, I like to see warm water temps to put them on the bug pattern, pretty heavy.
And we haven't quite been there consistently yet, and some people might kind of scoff at me saying that.
It's not that they won't and haven't eaten bugs and top water flies, it's It's just that for that pattern to be kind of the reigning pattern, the water needs to get pretty warm, and what that does is it just forces particularly the biggest fish in the river to be very efficient in how they feed.
They have to have a strategy for surviving and keeping weight on when the water temps peak, and the bugs are kind of that...
They fill in that mix. So when it's...
Water temps are bouncing around in the low to mid 70s, they'll definitely eat topwater stuff, but.
[2:29] You know, I really prefer to see like 76, 78 to like 82, 83.
Those are the days primarily where, you know, you can put a bug on in the morning and just roll all day and do pretty well. So I think we're going to get into that this week for sure.
[2:53] Just because we've got those warmer days. We've got some of the pretty consistent rain we've had in the forecast the last month or so in the rear view.
And then, yeah, we're going to be hitting those 85, 89 degree days. So that's a thing for us.
Marvin:
[3:12] Yeah. And so, you know, how did you have to kind of change things up?
Up? Were you fishing like more active topwater patterns like frogs and minnows?
Or were you having to kind of fish mid-column?
How did you kind of adapt to kind of being a little bit behind on the bugs?
Matt:
[3:29] That's a great question and I might not have as technical an answer as people are looking for on that.
I will still fish the wheels off bugs because they will eat them and you will get big fish on them and you'll get some cool takes, experiences.
When it comes to putting numbers in the boat, you will probably need to drop down and maybe do some streamer fishing and do a little bit more, I guess you say, searching, especially if the water's up a a little bit more and cooler and, you know, pulling fish out of some moving water pockets and stuff like that, they, you know, again, it's not that they won't eat the bugs.
I mean, I've had most of my days in the last several weeks, you've been doing a lot of that kind of fishing, but, you know, when you're on the water every day, you just notice a difference between when the majority of the population is on a pattern and that's what's happening and when, you know, it'll work and it is working and you can have good days on it, but, it's not kind of at its fullest potential.
And that's kind of where we've been at the last two, three weeks or so. Yeah.
Marvin:
[4:53] It sounds like kind of unlike it is here. Like, I mean, gosh, I mean, by seven o'clock in the morning, you can hear the cicadas going.
So, uh, you know, the dinner bell. Yeah, the dinner bell's ringing.
I imagine on lower James, it's probably like that that as well.
Matt:
[5:10] Yeah, I can't speak to that. I know, like I said, you catch them on top like that, it's about everywhere right now.
Frankly, I will dedicate myself to that most days because now is the time for that and most of my clients and myself want to do that right now.
So that's what we're going to do and we'll find success doing that.
But it's just interesting to see, we were talking before we started recording, I was looking at my logs from the last couple of years, and we have been in general been four or five degrees cooler in the last month than we were the last couple of years this same time.
This has been a little bit different. I think we're a couple of weeks behind and good things to come.
Hoping that means that we have a pretty dry, warm, late August, September, and we get some rock solid bug fishing in then, and then maybe that cooler, wetter pattern will take over for us in the fall, and we'll get some good streamer fishing, and maybe an early jump on some musky fishing too.
Marvin:
[6:28] Yeah, there you go. And you know, folks, we love questions on the Articulate Fly.
You can email them to us or DM us on social media, whatever is easiest for you.
And if we use your question, I will send you some articulate fly swag.
We're here in drawing for some cool stuff from Matt at the end of the season.
And Matt, I think the last time I spoke to you, you weren't really trying to book into 2024, cause you were had people that hadn't fished with you yet this season, uh, that you wanted to leave some, uh, some space for them, but, uh, what does your guide calendar look like?
Matt:
[6:56] Um, it's a good question.
Starting, I mean, not starting, still pretty actively booking fall and winter, muskie, smallmouth, brown trout, et cetera, stuff.
That's wide open. A lot of those kind of prime moon phase timeframes on the muskie front are going pretty quick.
I've started booking some stuff for 2024 on a small mouth front, spring and summer.
So yeah, I might hold off on booking some stuff, but you know, as always, if people are interested, it's always good to kind of open a line of communication, figure out, wow, the schedule is still pretty open, you know, what you want to do, what you want to get out of a day, when we can kind of target certain, certain.
Patterns and in specific seasons and try to make stuff happen.
So Always feel free to reach out and as you know, you know website is Matt Riley fly fishing and all my Contact info is on there. So feel free to reach out.
Marvin:
[8:12] However, you prefer Yeah, absolutely and I know you know all my other fly fishing friends are kind of noodling on any kind of show talking gigs in the early part of 2024. Have you gotten that far? Are you still kind of trying to figure that out?
Matt:
[8:29] Yeah, so I'll be honest.
I may have booked myself out of a couple, but I may be doing one in Cincinnati this year.
Jerry's still out on Richmond. I'm not sure if I'm doing that one or not.
Skid show, I just have a lot booked around that late January timeframe.
So, yeah, it's still kind of on the horizon. Right now it's pedal to the metal time and got a baby at home and lots of stuff in the works. So it's kind of in the very back of my brain.
Marvin:
[9:12] Yeah, well then I won't hold your feet to the fire until the next time we talk about that.
Matt:
[9:18] Yeah, give me another month and I'll have it all figured out.
Marvin:
[9:21] Have it all figured out. Well, listen folks, you owe it to yourself to get out there and catch a few.
Tight lines, everybody. Tight lines, Matt. Thanks, man.