Hot Gulping July
7/29/24
It’s been a hot and humid couple of weeks. Earlier in the month it rained almost every day and we felt like we were in the rain forest. The past couple of weeks it’s been so hot and humid that we felt like we were in the Sahara desert. There’s no doubt the Pennsylvania weather is unpredictable but this is ridiculous! The camper thermostat averaged around 84º even with the fan going. The humidity has been unbearable inside and almost outside the camper. This morning it was 74º by 10:00 and I couldn’t wait any longer to float the river for smallmouth after breakfast.
Outside there wasn’t anything I could actually call a breeze. It’s been so hot the tree limbs bowed downward as if they didn’t have enough strength to keep their wilted leaves up from the lack of water. The forest floor was bone dry and the smaller animals evidently were staying in their burrows underground or hidden in tree trunks keeping out of the sun. Birds were the only vocal noise almost if they were disgusted of the heat. I loaded up the float tube with my fly fishing gear and headed up river to put in.
On the tailgate I assembled my 6 weight Winston Boron rod and attached an orange popper. At the water I put on my flippers and waded the float tube out from the stony shallows. Once I sat down in the float tube the water was cooler but still much like bath water without the bubbles. At least I was partially wet and my lower body was out of the direct sunlight that was rising behind me. Floating it wasn’t long before I felt the direct heat of the sun rays upon my back.
For about an hour I couldn’t raise a fish to my poppers but I was determined to stick with surface poppers and not fish underneath. The water level had been pretty low and clear so I was staying along the banks casting in front of me and in back eddy pools and near tree debris. Occasionally I’d cast out towards the middle of the river but I was convinced, unless the water looked pretty deep, the fish wouldn’t be out in the hot sun sunbathing.
I made a few casts out from a sunken tree log and limbs. A fish rose and gulped at my popper and I reared the rod up and back once he went under and not seeing my popper. As the line tightened I was pretty sure I had hooked him. I felt him swim into the log jam and all line motion stopped. Somehow the fish dislodged the hook and the hook snagged on a limb beneath. I had to flipper my way to the hazard and it took awhile to get my popper back but I managed. I nipped off the frayed looking line near the popper and retied on.
Floating down further I casted along the banks casting in under a shade tree. I watched as the popper fell to the surface in the shade of the tree. A fish surfaced and gulped the popper as soon as it hit the water. It was if he was a butcher’s dog waiting for a scrap of meat to fall off the butcher block. He went under and I waited and then set the hook. He wasn’t a big bass but put up a good short battle.
I looked at my phone and it was nearing 2:00. The sun was well above shining down on the surface water like a stove top light on a smooth glass top range. It was heating things up and so was the fishing. I’m not sure if the smallies all of a sudden got hungry or they were just snacking. It wasn’t as if they were rising out of the water at my poppers but just surface gulping with one inhale. Maybe the heat was effecting their motivation also until they felt the piercing of their lips or tongue?
~doubletaper
