Late August and already some color on the leaves. What a great morning.
(Click on image for larger view.)
The flows have been low and the clarity excellent since early July. A lack of rain will do that to the Lake Erie tributaries. After receiving some rain the flow was up marginally but the water had a slight stain. In fact, unless my eyes were playing a trick on me the water actually looked like it had a greenish stain. I’ve heard that when a trib has that look the fishing could be very good. After a slow start I wasn’t sure about that.
Water had a slight stain. The fish were not in shallow, close to the bank.
The last time I fished this stretch it was a shallow water bite, either in a run, or near the bank in less than 2’ of water. They weren’t there today, as I couldn’t buy a hit any place shallow. I had to go deeper. There are several deep pools where stripping or swinging a woolly bugger will normally produces a fish or two. Today even these pools were dry... or so I thought.
Swinging a fly through this deep pool usually works. Today the fish were
even deeper, and an upstream, dead drift cast was the right strategy.
When fishing is slow I’ll try a different tactic hoping to induce a take. In an attempt to get deeper in the water column I abandoned my down and across cast for an upstream cast to dead drift the woolly bugger. That change produced instant success as a smallmouth sucked in the fly on the second drift. In the next 20 minutes four more fish were pulled from of the pool.
These smallmouth bass fell for a dead drift woolly bugger.
Keepemwet.
So, if you get to your stream and its changed, even slightly, chances are it will fish differently. If you are striking out, change things up. It just might pay off.
Go out and fool a fish!
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