<\/a>The hotter the better.\u00a0 We get our share of cold around here, so you\u2019re not likely me to complain about it being too hot.\u00a0 Besides, the hottest days on the water\u00a0are usually great days for catching, especially on The River.\u00a0 And it doesn\u2019t get much hotter than Saturday.\u00a0 So why the heck weren\u2019t the smallies chompin\u2019?\u00a0 The water was at a good flow, and the clarity was just right, about 2 feet.\u00a0 I suspect the fact that The River came down about 4 inches overnight had a lot to do with their funk.\u00a0 For once I was glad to NOT be guiding, as it would have been quite a grind.\u00a0 Oh I caught my share on crankbaits of course, and I missed a couple of really nice ones on a Dahlberg Diver.\u00a0 The most consistent producer for me though was my favorite baitfish imitation, the Stay Hungry Streamer.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

I got a half dozen or so on it, and it definitely out produced a couple of different craw patterns I tried. I was using an eight weight rod with a sink tip line, and a short heavy leader with a 10 lb. tippet.\u00a0 When using a sink tip line on The River, realize and keep in mind that you are not trying to catch fish that are on the bank.\u00a0 And I think it is safe to say that\u00a0if you have busted out the sink tip,\u00a0 that you have already been beating the bank without much success.\u00a0 When fishing a popper or diver, yeah you want it right up there, but when using a subsurface fly, especially with a sink tip, do what you can to keep the fly in a deeper zone.\u00a0 When using a sink tip, my boat is often in about five feet of water, and I cast up to about two or three feet.\u00a0Trying to land your\u00a0weighted fly on the bank will result in many, many snags. You will lose flies no matter what, but pay attention, and try to visualize where your fly is at all times to minimize snags and down time spent re-rigging.\u00a0\u00a0Not the most fun way to fish,\u00a0but when the bite is slow this can always be counted on to produce. Not just smallies, either\u2014walleyes, channel cats, pike and carp are all willing players as well.<\/p>\n

Here’s a video of a couple of the fish from the other day https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=ykPQ35cNamM&feature=youtu.be<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The hotter the better.\u00a0 We get our share of cold around here, so you\u2019re not likely me to complain about it being too hot.\u00a0 Besides, the hottest days on the water\u00a0are usually great days for catching, especially on The River.\u00a0 And it doesn\u2019t get much hotter than Saturday.\u00a0 So why the heck weren\u2019t the smallies […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[21,25,17],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wildsmallie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wildsmallie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wildsmallie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wildsmallie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wildsmallie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=498"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/wildsmallie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":504,"href":"http:\/\/wildsmallie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498\/revisions\/504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wildsmallie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wildsmallie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wildsmallie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}