Bronze Back

                                                                              Bronze Back

6/03/26 

  I waded out about half the distance of the river. I made a long cast across stream. The fly line looped the Woolly Bugger forward and it plopped in the water beyond without much slack line. I watched the floating fly line as it floated briefly. I saw the fly line dip beneath the surface and felt a bump. I raised the rod and yanked back the line. The line straightened, the rod bowed deep and the line took off down river with fish attached. It was obvious I had a weighty heavy fish. The fish continued to swim down river pulling line through the eyes as if dropping an roped anchor over the side of a drift boat not knowing the depth. He just kept swimming down river.

 I remember when I got my MoJo bass rod and called St. Croix and asked the representative what kind of reel and line should I get. He told me I wouldn’t need a reel that held a lot of backing because bass don’t run very far. Well, I had a feeling I had a smallmouth but he was running like an escaped prisoner with bloodhounds tracking him.      

 I pinched the fly line some to slow him down. He turned and strained to take more line. The 5 weight G2 Scott rod was arced more than I would have liked but I had to slow the fish down. He tugged and slowly swam back upriver a little further out than the path he used to swim downriver keeping his distance as if trying to fool the bloodhounds.

 Normally when I’m fishing for smallies in the river I use a 6 weight but lately I’ve been keying on trout with dry flies, wet flies and buggers. I wasn’t expecting to hook into a challenging big smallmouth.

 He was pretty much across from me with long hard tugs between pauses. I had the rod up and switched hands pinching the line against the cork grip with my left hand. I started reeling in the slack line laying on the water around me while the fish tugged. Once I got the slack line on the spool I was ready for a fight. I moved the rod back putting more side pressure on him. He turned all right and 180’d back down river. I couldn’t hold him from leaving and line shot through the rod guide again and through the eyes of the arcing fly rod. The G2, being more of a medium action rod, doesn’t have the backbone of a fast action rod. When I felt the rod wanting to pull my wrist down I knew the rod was straining so I had to let the fish take line. Downriver he was feeling the resistance though. He turned and started to swim in a side to side motion. I slowly started to wind in the tightened line as the arced rod flexed with the defiant fish swimming and tugging as I was getting him towards me from downriver. He was swimming upstream with the tensioned line and arcing rod but still keeping his distance. He held steady across from me and I brought the rod downstream and trying to get him to swim closer to me. It was if I was pulling a heavy twisted limb through the current. In the process he turned and started swimming downriver again. This time the pressure of the bowed rod was to much for him to swim too far. We battled back and forth with me shortening the line between us. Finally I got him within sight and slowly maneuvered him to the net. Wow, I would say he’s one of the top 5 biggest smallies I’ve ever caught in the river. A great looking bronze-back. 

 I continued fishing. There were only a few risers within distance. I tried for them with dry flies but they wouldn’t bite. I decided to knot on a pair of wet flies and cast them out. I ended up catching two brown trout and one rainbow on the wet flies. Switching over to a Woolly Bugger I caught one more smallie.    

  The sun was high above but it felt like it was not much higher than an umbrella the way the heat felt on my body. Around 4:00 I called it quits and headed to the truck and back to the camper. 

 An ice cooler full of beer sounded great to cool off!

~doubletaper