Evening Smallmouth

Evening Smallmouth

9/16/25. 

 After dinner I decided to fish for smallmouth. The river water has been very low for lack of rain. I figured the bass may have been staying in the deepest water during the hot sunny days or holding under the canopy of leafy tree limbs that overhung the far bank. I thought maybe, around sundown, the smallmouth might come out of their hiding places and look for crawfish in the shallow water. After dinner I knotted on a brown Woolly Bugger and walked across the road to the river with my 6 weight fly rod.

 At the river I looked around at the evening sky and water. Gray clouds, not rain clouds, filled the sky looking like left over smoke from a passed steam engine. The sun was well hidden but it was easily determined which way the false steam engine was heading. 

 The river water looked like the wrinkled sheets on the king size bed in the camper. Images of the trees, that stood tall along the river, threw dark shadows along the banks. Mid river their was the mirror image of the sky above. The air was much cooler than the hot sunny day temperature earlier. 

 I stood in ankle deep water and was pulling line out of the spool for my first cast. I looped line forward, only about two rods length, getting ready to make an overhand cast out into the river. All of a sudden I felt the line pulling! I looked and saw the straightening line pulling out from the tip top. I tightened my fingers on the line between the reel and first guide and felt the tugging of the line. A fish had grabbed the brown bugger in no more than shin deep water and was struggling to take it out in the main body as if that’s where it will decide to eat its catch. I got the frantic pulling fish under control and brought him to the net. A nice size smallmouth laid in the net. I guess I was right about the smallmouth looking for food in the shallow waters along the banks!  

 After spilling him out of the net I took more line off the spool and casted along the shallow waters up and downriver a bit. I was hoping to hook another smallie that might be in the shallows looking for food. Well, I didn’t get any takers and started casting out out in the main body of water before wading out in deeper waters.

 I happen to be slowly stripping in the Woolly Bugger, after I let it swing down stream, when I felt a bump. The weighted bugger may have tapped a rock beneath the surface in the shallows or a fish missed a full mouthful of the bugger. I casted out the same distance and let the bugger swing as before. Once I felt it swing into the shallow water I raised the rod some to prevent the bugger from dragging the bottom. Instantly, this time, I felt a stronger tug and reared back the 9’ fly rod. I felt the top section bow and the line tightened. My second smallmouth was on the end of the line trying to get loose. He wasn’t all that big but he was a smallmouth. 

 Every once in awhile the slow moving clouds would expose the sun and brighten up the evening. It was if the mirror image, on the river water surface and beneath, took a different presentation. The surface water became more colorful and the riverbed was more visible. 

 Slowly I continued wading down river and out as far as I could wade till I was about thigh high deep. I would cast as far as I could, towards the far bank. Sometimes down and across or straight across the river water. 

 One cast dropped my bugger in a slow pool of water near the far bank. Something grabbed the bugger just after it hit the water and started to sink. I noticed the dropped line pull quickly so I pulled the slack line back and yanked the rod high behind me. The slack line rose up from the water and tightened. I had another fish on the other end. It felt much stronger than the last and swam and fought well. I took my time bringing it to the net. 

 Downriver I was just about going to call it quits. The air turned much cooler. I was in the mood of ‘just one more catch’ and I’d call it quits. Most of the time it never comes to be. 

 I made a cast long and across. The bugger swung down river and I started to slowly strip it towards me. Lo and behold I felt a take a reared the rod back. The line tightened and I had my last smallmouth fish swimming and fighting beneath the surface. I got it to me handily and netted him. 

 The water beyond widened and got shallower. I hooked the bugger to the hook keeper on the butt section and waded to the stoney bank. From there I walked my way to the path, up to the road and to my camper. It turned out to be a successful, short time spent, fishing the evening for smallmouth.

~doubletaper