Smallmouth Bass
The smallmouth fishing was great in Virginia in 2010. Although we fished many streams the North and South Forks of the Shenandoah River produced such great action we spent most of our time here, within 20 minutes of our fly shop. For example, I had a friend visiting in June and in one afternoon he caught well over 50 smallmouth bass, some of which were quite large.
The action stated earlier (March) and lasting longer (November) than we usually have, and we normally fished 4-5 days each week. This gave us time to experiment with our New Scott Switch Rods (which are great for bass) and the new bass flies we were designing. I’m very excited about the 5 new flies I’ve added to our Magnum Series designed to catch large bass. By fall the new Floating Chub Minnows and Floating Dace Minnows had become our favorites because of the large numbers of bass these caught. Seeing the wale of a bass coming from 10 feet away to take a Floating Chub Minnow is a very exciting game. The hexagenia hatch was so heavy and the fishing was so fast that I fished the river almost every evening in September by dancing the Mr. Rapidan Skaters over rising bass.
Many of the students in our “Smallmouth On The Stream Schools” caught so many bass in 2 days that they were ready to fish for smallmouth anywhere, even on their own.
We caught more large Carp this year than we ever have prompting us to put our 2 new carp flies into our line. Be sure to have plenty of backing on your reel because a 20lb. carp can make powerfully long runs.
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