7/3 Trip
Hit one of my favorite small flows yesterday with a big group of friends. Most of the crew was floating and drinking, but I was fishing as usual. I got ahead of my group while they were running shuttles so I could take my time.
I was catching decent numbers of dinks up to about 12". The water was gin clear and running below normal for this time of year. just about all of the fish I caught were in moving water and/or eddys.
About 1/2 way into the trip I came around a bend and stuck myself in a eddy where a bolder split the river into two flows. I was throwing a chartruse fat albert single tail grub. On my 2nd or 3rd cast as I was just about to pull the grub out of the water this nice 18"+ smallmouth comes up and destroys the grub! I was fishing with a 4ft8 ultralight with 6lb floro. She hit the drag and made at least 4 nice runs before I finally netted her. It probably took close to 5 minutes because each run she'd go about 15 feet.
Got some pictures, and released her. This was my biggest of the year so far and was happy to get her to the boat.
A fish this size is very rare in this small flow. I probably ended up with 20+ for the day, but the next closest was about 13 inches.
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