The brown autumn sedge can provide some wonderful fly fishing in September. This is a caddis hatch in the fall with the emergence taking place at night and in the afternoon. From late afternoon until dark, watch the tails of the pools for rising trout and go one on one when you see rising trout. A Brown Elk Hair Caddis and a Mr. Rapidan Delta Wing Caddis are very effective here.
The trout often feed on the emerging caddis pupa just below the surface. An effective tactic is to fish a Mr. Rapidan Brown Soft Hackle size 10 on a 2ft 6X dropper below the dry fly.
I like to fish this combo upstream dead drift or with a slight twitching action. This is very exciting fishing because often some of the largest trout in the pool lie in the tails of the pools to feed on caddis. Listen to the rest of my podcast.
Fly Fishing for Smallmouth Bass
The smallmouth bass feed heavily on the minnows in the shallow tails of the pools in the cool rivers. Several years ago I developed the Floating Minnows to take advantage of this exciting action. Frequently the water is only one or two feet deep in the tails of these pools. I can see the wake of the bass coming from 5-6 feet away to grab the minnows. I cast my floating minnow out in front of the basses wake and strip it across in front of him.
If I do not see any bass chasing minnows, I fan my cast over the shallow pool tails and use a slow strip-pause-strip retrieve. This is very rewarding and exciting smallmouth fishing.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed
Subscribe: RSS
You must be logged in to post a comment.