What I Did On My Summer Vacation....So Far

Fly fished then Black River Crossing area on the White Mountain Apache Reservation. Caught 10 smallmouth bass and bluegills on an olive woolly bugger.

Joe W.
Tucson, AZ

Bluegill On A Fly

Spent the day fly fishing the lower Black River near Black River Crossing in Arizona. Caught a bunch of smallmouth bass and this hefty bluegill on green and yellow woolly buggers.

Dan W.
Irvine, CA

on the good days it does.

There are probably things that I should tell you. There are also probably things that you would want to hear, that I can't say, won't tell you, or don't know. Not for sure.

We took a trip to a new place. A place where you could probably get down the hill with two wheel drive, but you better hope that transfer case engages if you want to get your ass home.

A place where the end of the road is your only hope and you don't have to walk quite so far to feel like you are truly out of the world...

...and it was good:


The What:

I love poppers... so did they.

The Where:

Sweet Panorama-ness

More sweet panorama-ness

The good water is easy to spot if you know what to look for.

Lucky.

The very end of the road ended up being the only place where we could camp with river access. If someone had been here, I probably would not have been able to turn around and would have had to back the fully loaded truck up a nasty hill a long, long way. Needless to say I am glad there was no one around.

Other Shenanigans:

get your lounge on.

Aaron enjoying smoked space-monsters... good call.

Aaron peed this just for you.

It just looks like you don't want any, but you really do. I promise.

Breakfast of champions.

Dinner of champions.

-Alex who likes getting lucky.

employing your vision

It is always the same when I close my eyes:

The popper bounces along.

chug.

The sun is bright in the southern sky and I can feel my skin burning an outline around my sunglasses. The line feels thick and heavy, tacky between my fingers.

chug.

There should be fish here. There should be fish everywhere and maybe I have caught a few but maybe I have just arrived. I can't be sure.

chug.

I don't hear wind, breathing, water, birds. All is silent. There is no soundtrack, no special effects, no foley.

chug.

Sometimes I manifest a take, a splash, a tight line that sends little diamond sparkles when it stretches taught away from the surface.

Other times I don't and the popper just floats, over and over through the same ripples and the same dancing sunlight through the same three of four seconds of river. Three or four seconds is not a lot of river when you think about it. It would be asking quite a bit for a willing fish to reside in those seconds. But all it takes is one. One second of flowing water to make a difference. Sometimes you wait days, months, years for that one second.

Sometimes it never comes. But on the good days it does.

chug.

Spring Creek near Rapid City, SD

August 16, 2010
Fished Spring Creek below Sheridan Lake in Pennington County near Hill City in the Black Hills from 7:30 AM to noon. Overcast all morning. There is easy access at several locations along the creek.
Flies: #16 green scud 18" below indicator produced four 12" rainbows and #14 Royal Stimulator hooked up and landed two at 10".
As a side note I must have caught 30 or more 2" to 6" small mouth bass, at least that's what they looked like. Obviously the National Forest service is not managing this nice creek for trout.

Great Smoky Mountain Fly Fishing Report **August 14, 2010**

Been another hot week, we are all sick of hearing about how hot it is but we have had 57 days this year over 90 degrees that breaks an all time record! Fishing is solid early, despite the heat the mountain streams are shaded in most spots by thick overhanging canopy so water at lower elevations is in the 72 degree range high but not worrying to bad yet!! The highcountry streams are best, anything above the 3,000 foot range is fishing well!  Terrestrials( Ants, Inchworms, Beetles, hoppers), Stimulators and use a dropper rig with a size 16, 18 Pheasant Tail Nymph or Hares Ear! Smallmouth Action is good on the Litttle River and Pigeon River with most being caught early and late on poppers and buggers!  Dead drifting the riffles with big damsel fly nymphs or buggers are producing as well!! Looks like next week we will start seeing a break in heat with lows of 50 degrees in the mountains, so get ready because fall is on its way to southern Appalachia and we are booking fast so give us a call and let Smoky Mountain Troutfitters show you an awesome day on the water in one of the most spectacular settings in the world!!!

Sean McKay

Smoky Mountain Troutfitters

http://www.smokymountaintroutfitters.com