Late Summer Smallmouth Tips, with Colby Trow
Podcast Transcript:
Tom: Hi. And welcome to the "Orvis Fly Fishing Podcast." This is your host Tom Rosenbauer. And this week my guest is Colby Trow of Mossy Creek Fly Fishing. And we're gonna be talking about late summer, early fall, smallmouth bass fishing, some of the most exciting fishing that you can do in freshwater this time of year. And the good news is that a lot of it is surface fishing. This is a great time to get out there with a hair bug or a popping bug and catch smallmouth. And Colby does a lot of it and he catches a lot of big ones. So, I'm sure we're all gonna get some great tips in this podcast. I hope you enjoy it. Let's answer a few questions first on the fly box. And if you have a question for the fly box, you can send to me at
So, anyway, let's go to our first question which is an email from Tom from Connecticut. "In your last podcast, a self-proclaimed novice posted a comment about an email from a previous podcast. The comment this person made was somewhat judgmental about an angler who had mentioned that he had fished a 2-weight with 6X and caught fish up to 22 inches. The novice angler was venting that such a practice would exhaust the fish and should not be done. I eagerly awaited your response. However, it was the complete opposite of what I thought you would say. You agreed that such a practice is really not a good idea. So, I will come to the defense of the angler in question. I know this is not news to you, but I just wanna put it out there. This practice in my experience causes less stress on the fish and allows me to get my fish in very quickly. The angler was discussing how hetight line nymph and then switch to dry dropper. He fished dry dropper with the entire line off the water. Both of these techniques put you within 20 feet of the fish in most cases. These techniques will often be done with a 10-foot or longer rod, a 10-foot 2-weight is a giant shock absorber that allows you to put more pressure on a fish without the fear of breaking off. It is not the same as hooking a 20-inch fish 60 feet away on a 5-weight. In that scenario, you must play a fish much more with the same 6X tippet to avoid being broken off. With tight line or line off the water dry dropper, most of my fish are in the net in less than 20 seconds. And as the barbless hook slides out of their mouth, they're on their way at the most 10 seconds later. Honestly, I don't know of a better technique to cause less harm while fly fishing. Except maybe one that doesn't catch fish. I think Jesse will have my back on this one. Thanks."
Well, Tom, you are right about a long year nymphing ride or, you know, a two-weight, in general, is a great fish fighting tool because you can put a lot of pressure on the fish. However, I guess what I was more referring to was the 6X tippet. Regardless of what rod you're using, it's a lot easier and quicker to land a fish on a 5X or a 4X tippet than it is 6X. There's quite a difference in brake strength between those tippets, especially between a 5X and a 6X. And yes, you can put more pressure on a fish with those 10-foot 2 weights, but you need to be, and I'm sure you are, you need to be an experienced angler and you need to know how to put pressure on a fish. Someone who hasn't done a lot of fish fighting gets a fish on a 2-weight with 6X or 5X or 4X and they're gonna be monkeying around with that fish for a long time because they just don't feel that they can put enough pressure on it. But if you watch a really good angler using a Euro nymphing rod, you are absolutely right, they can put a ton of pressure on a fish and get it in very quickly because that rod does act as a shock absorber. So, you're absolutely right in the case of the rod, but where tippet is concerned, especially with the kind of warm waters that we've been having this summer in North America, I think that most people are better off going to a slightly heavier tip. It may not be quite as effective in catching fish, but you have to maybe pass up a few fish in order to get those fish in quickly in a 5X tippet or a 4X tippet is you're gonna be able to get that fishing without breaking it off a lot quicker. So, yes, on the soft rod, but I'm standing my ground on the tippet part of it.
Here's an email from Dave from North Carolina. "Love the podcast. I've been fly fishing for carp for many years in and around Smith Mountain Lake, Virginia. Typically, I catch 8 to 10-pound fish that are feeding in the flats and shallows and the backhoe coves or off points. After a lot of observation, I'm convinced that larger fish are to be had a little deeper than what I typically fish. The problem I face is not being able to see the fish take the fly in order to get a good hook set at these depths, three-plus feet. In your experience, have you ever used a small indicator on the leader to help determine if a take is happening when you cannot necessarily see the fish? If so, what size and style indicator do you recommend? Would this also work for dirty water situations where you can see a fish mudding but the clarity or surface chop prevents you from seeing the fish well? On a side note, I bought the Orvis carp fishing guide several years ago and it has been a great resource in understanding this all too often overlooked and underappreciated fishery."
Thank you, Dave. And Dave is referring to the "Orvis Guide to Carp Fishing" by my buddy, Kirk Deeter. So, Dave, yeah, I have experimented with that. Sometimes you'll find carp suspended in deeper water kind of milling around and they're not actively feeding. They're not as easy to catch when they're suspended because they're just kind of hanging out usually. It's much better off finding them in the shallows where they're mudding or tailing or whatever because those fish, you know, are eating. But it does work. And I have... I typically don't use an indicator. I just use a dry dropper. I just pull out a foam grasshopper or something and use that as my indicator. I don't know why an indicator would work just as well. But yeah, you could use an indicator. It's still gonna be tough because as you know to get a carp to take a flight, you really have to have it right in front of them, and not knowing exactly where their head is. Sometimes you just have to throw it out there on an indicator and let the fly hang there and hope that a carp comes along and takes it. This might be a good place for something like a balanced fly, a very tiny balanced leech. I've also had good luck on this technique fishing a worm fly suspended on an indicator. I don't do it often because I find it's a pain and it doesn't result in as many strikes. I'd just as soon go find fish in the shallows. But if you wanna try it, it will work. And I'd advise you to do some experimentation and see what you come up with.
Dan: Hi, Tom. This is Dan from Montana. I've been recently listening to some of your past podcasts and something that stuck with me about trout fishing with temperatures high and low is one of the nice parts about living here in Montana is my buddies and I get to go out pretty much anywhere to these cold clear streams up in the mountains. We could fish pretty much year-round. But with this current heatwave in most of America right now, it made me wonder... My question really is, even though that these higher mountain streams are cool enough to fish, you know, you're sitting pretty low temperatures, do I have to worry about those fish traveling to lower levels into warmer climates and so, therefore, I shouldn't fish these higher mountain streams or...since for the most part, these fish don't travel to too far up and down that I can still fish those colder streams without having to worry too much. Thank you for everything that you do in this community and hope to hear this on the podcast.
Tom: Dan, if you're in a high mountain stream, the water should be cool enough. I mean, obviously, take a thermometer and then take the temperature. But typically those high mountain streams don't suffer from the same water temperature problems as streams down in the valley do. So, you're probably gonna be okay. And those fish are not going to... If they're in a high mountain stream, they're not gonna move down into warmer water anytime soon. In fact, if anything, they'll probably move up into the watercourse either to get to even cooler water or in the case of brown trout, they're gonna be maybe moving up further into the small stream to spawn in the fall. So, yeah, I wouldn't worry about it. As long as the water is cool enough in those small mountain streams, you're gonna be fine. As always, you know, handle the fish as little as possible and get them in as quick as possible, but don't need to worry as much about warm water temperatures in those kinds of streams.
Here's an email from Connor from Missouri. "There's a bit of discussion in Missouri right now about banning treble hooks in the trophy section of Lake Taneycomo. Are treble hooks, specifically, are jerkbaits bad for trout? A lot of gear guys use them on our blue-ribbon waters here in Missouri and I personally would like to see the state go to barbless single hooks all around. Do you have any thoughts on this? Thanks for all the insight. Tight lines." Yeah, Conor. There's quite a bit of research out there and scientific studies showing that the treble hooks can be more dangerous to fish. It just makes sense you often hook a fish in two places. They usually have barbs on them. And it takes longer to get two barbs out of a fish than it does to get a single barb out. And it's just the fact that handling time is longer and generally there's kind of damage to the fish's mouth. So, yeah. They're not as good as a barbless single hook. And a lot of really good conventional anglers or gear guys, gear gals, whatever, that fishing catch and release stretches do replace their treble hooks with single barbless hook, which is not that hard to do. And I don't think it's any less effective than a treble hook. Treble hooks are kind of standard on those lures, but there's no reason that they couldn't be converted to single barbless hook.
Here's an email from John from Appleton, Wisconsin. "Thanks for the many hours of entertainment and education this podcast has provided me. I have a question regarding hook removal. Often when fishing hopper patterns, I find that trout tend to inhale the fly rather deep making hook removal quite difficult and sometimes a little more time-consuming despite fishing with barbless flies. Do you have any strategies to deal with this? I'd like to get the fish back in the stream safely and quickly. I've heard it's okay to simply cut the line with the fly still in the fish's mouth, but I'm not sure if that's true or not." Oh, John. Yeah. Certain flies like hoppers or some other dry flies fish, sometimes small midges, fish do often take deep. And you're probably better off just cutting the line as close to the fly as you can get your snips in there rather than poking around inside of fish's gullet and its gills. You're better off just cutting off the fly. If it's a barbless hook, it's gonna get out of there quite quickly. I've seen studies that indicate that it's minutes rather than hours that a fish can get rid of a barbless hook, it'll slide out quite easily. One thing you might wanna try is the catch and release tool. What I generally do is if I've got a deeply hooked fish on a barbless hook, I'll use either forceps or the catch and release tool and I'll try one attempt to get the hook out. And if I can't get the hook out with one attempt, I'm not gonna mess around with it. I will just cut the tippet as close to the fly as possible, release the fish quickly, and they should get rid of the fly fairly soon. So, that's probably the best practice.
Here's an email from Matt from Northeast Ohio. "Thank you for the podcast. It is my favorite thing to listen to in the car and I learn new things every time I listen. I have two questions. The first one regarding clear water smallies. Me and my brother, we just got into fly fishing. We have been targeting smallmouth in the rivers in the area. But as of July, it has been really hard to entice the fish to bite. Water levels have either been extremely high or low and the clear water is the most troubling. We try everything from small sparsely-tied closers on the bottom to using poly-liters with neutrally buoyant streamers to topwater patterns. We have been snorkeling and see plenty of fish including some really good-sized fish. I even tried pulling out the indicator rig with nymphs and the fish had zero interest. We go all times of the day including evenings. How can we catch fish? I had no problem in spring when using closers and poppers. The second question is regarding a new seven-weight switch rod. I see many two-handed rod users choose to use a click and pawl for steelhead and salmon because it is more classic and can be more interesting. I'm thinking of buying an old vintage one off eBay that I would refinish, but I'm also looking at the Battenkill. Do you think the largest Battenkill would be able to be paired with the seven-weight switch rod or is it too small? Thank you for your answers."
Matt, regarding your first question, man, I feel your pain. I know one stream in Vermont that has extremely clear water and I can see these big smallmouth in there and they are just... They seem to be just uncatchable sometimes. And it sounds like you've tried everything. The only thing... I mean, you've already tried nymphs with an indicator which is kind of what I would do. The only thing I can suggest is try the smallest crayfish pattern that you can find with a fairly light tippet. Maybe go down as light as 3X on your tippet, 3X fluorocarbon. But, you know, bass, in general, are moody and they seem to be affected by the weather more so than any other fish. And I think if you just keep trying, eventually, you'll find them in a taking mood, but, you know, it's tough and it sounds like you've done everything right. And I don't have a really good answer. You can listen to the rest of the podcast and see if you can get something from what Colby says about summer smallmouth, but that's a tough one. Regarding your switch reel, one thing you might consider is the Battenkill spey reel. It sounds like click and pawl and it's bigger and heavier and it has large capacity and is made for two-handed rods. But I think you could also use the largest Battenkill and pair that with your seven-weight switch and it would be fine. It depends on how fussy you are about the balance. But take a look at that Battenkill spey reel. That's my favorite reel on those two-handed rods.
Jamie: Hey, Tom. This is Jamie from Charlotte. I've been listening to you since your very first podcast and I was curious, how many phone calls and emails does the podcast get every week? It seems like you always have a lot of questions. I've never known that. And is there one tip that you've taken from your callers and your emails that you continue to use to this day when you're on the water? Anyway, you know, I'm a big fan. And I hope to hear my question on your podcast. Thank you.
Tom: Well, Jamie, you know, it varies depending on... Of course, during COVID there weren't as many phone calls and questions because people weren't commuting as much. So, they weren't in the car as much. I don't think people were listening to podcasts as much. But I would say... God, I've never counted them. I would say I get around 30 valid questions per week and about maybe 5% to 10% of them are calls and the rest are emails. It's tough to count because there's so much spam and so much junk that comes into the podcast folder, the podcast mailbox that I have to go through and delete a lot of emails. But I'd say roughly 30 would be probably the number I get per week. And so, obviously, I can't answer them all and some of them I don't because I just answered them a week before or maybe sometimes on the telephone calls, the caller drones on and on and on and I just... Good tip. Keep your phone calls under two minutes, please, because if they're longer than that, I may not play them. And a single question on your phone calls also helps.
And then the tip that I have taken. One tip that I've taken from my callers. There's a lot of tips I've gotten from my callers, a lot of fly tying tips. And I guess the one tip that I've taken from my caller... Actually, it wasn't from a caller. It was from a review on iTunes, which I occasionally go through and read. And some iTune reviewer complained that I sounded bored and distracted or something. And that shocked me. And I certainly am never bored answering these calls and I'm never distracted. These are always fun and I enjoy these questions so much and enjoy sharing, you know, what I can with listeners. So, I guess that was the one takeaway. Never sound bored or never sound distracted when you're doing these calls. But other than that, I've learned so much from the questions. I mean, I've learned a lot about what we need to do better as an industry in educating people. So, I guess, you know, that's the other big takeaway is I get a really good sense for where we're falling down in explaining how to use gear, how to select gear, and so on. So, Jamie, you put me on the spot. That's the best I can do. And for those of you who don't know, Jamie is my producer and editor of these podcasts. He's been a wise ass.
Here is an email from Barbara from Boise. "I always remove my reel and break down my rod between trips to fish. At the end of the season, I remove all the lines that are from my reel and store it loosely for the offseason. How do people store their tippet and leader between trips? I wrap mine on my reel. I don't change either. Except when they become too short, or heaven forbid, knotted. And I'm still new to fly fishing and learning as I go. I like to keep it simple and enjoy the journey. I really appreciate your podcast. I always learned something new. And that keeps me coming back to listen over and over." Well, Barbara, yeah, I do the same thing as you do. I just reel my leader up on my reel during the season. And the one thing you wanna be careful of is not to store nylon leaders in the sun because UV light can break them down. So, if you do start on your reel, put your reel in a... If you are leaving in your car or outside, put a reel case on there so that the leader doesn't break down. And it should be good for the entire season. And then, you know, honestly, at the end of the season, I just throw away all my old leaders that I've used and start with fresh leaders the next season unless I get really lazy and don't. But usually, I do try to start with fresh leaders in the spring, but you can use that same leader all season long as long as you don't leave it in the sun for a long time. Hope that helps.
Here's a tip from Sam who is the fishing manager at Orvis Houston. "My quick tip for my Houston anglers. Houston has had a ton of rain in these past weeks. With all that rain, the Colorado and Guadalupe are muddying up our North Texas-based systems. These past weeks I've been fishing a popper dropper rig. I've had great success with this rig. I began throwing a normal bass popper with a UV shrimp below. After seeing success, I have been experimenting with different rigs. I'm now throwing a foam indicator and dropping various shrimp and minnows below. I hope to see you, anglers, soon. Also, Texas specs had a hard winter. We lost many trout during our freeze. Let's try our best to give them a break. Please pay attention to the emergency fishing game regulation changes. Follow Orvis Houston on Instagram for local updates." Well, thank you, Sam. Thank you for those tips and thank you for the update.
Here's an email from Landon from Montana. "I have two questions about fly tying. First, I wanna know all the reasons you would use a pedestal vise versus a C-clamp or vice versa. I also wanted to know how to choose what size of hair stacker to use. Is it by the length of the hair or the bulk or what? Thank you very much for what you do for fly fishing and tying." Well, Landon, I use a pedestal vise all the time because I'm constantly moving my vise around. I used to take it to work and tie at my desk on my lunch hour. But now that I'm working from home, I move it from my regular fly tying bench to where I do photography. And I like a pedestal because you can travel with it and you can put it just about anywhere. The only disadvantage... And also, you know, you can't always find the perfect table to put a C-clamp on, particularly, if you're traveling. You sometimes will have a desk or a table where you can't really attach your C-clamp very securely. So, when you have a pedestal, you know you can put it just about anywhere.
The one disadvantage of a pedestal is if you're doing a lot of work with deer hair or bigger streamers where you really have to put a lot of pressure on the fly, you know, a pedestal will sometimes lift off the table. If you're pulling up really hard on some deer hair, you have to hold your hand down on it, or sometimes they'll move around a little bit on the table. But that's a minor inconvenience. A C-clamp just stays put a little bit better, but I don't have a problem with it, so I personally use a pedestal all the time. Regarding hair stackers, it's both the length and the bulk. So, you need that stacker to be wide enough so you can easily slip whatever size bunch of hair you have into the stacker. So, I've got... And you don't want too much hair around the edges. You want it to kind of just easily slip into the stacker so that it barely touches the sides. So, if I'm tying a little tinyComparadun or Sparkle Dun and I only have a small amount of fine deer hair, I'll use a small stacker because I can keep it contained and it's gonna be easier to pull it out of that smaller stacker in one bunch, whereas in a big stacker it might get lost and it might actually tip over. On the other hand, if I'm tying a big deer hair bug or I wanna stack some bucktail, I need a big high stacker, you know, both for getting the width of that hair into the stacker. So, I guess width is the most important, but also the height. And usually, the wider ones are taller. If you find that more than half of the hair that you're stacking extends above the top of the stacker, that can be a problem because it can tip over the wrong way. So, a good practice there is just to trim it down on the butt ends too before you put it in the stacker. So, hope that helps.
Here's an email from Rich. "Thank you for all you and Orvis do to help novice fly fisherman step to the next level. My question is how to get nymphs and midges size 18 to 22 down to the bottom on a quick fast-moving run. The runs I have in question are between 4 and 8 feet deep. I use clear water 10-foot 4-weight with monoline, bi-color indicator, and 4 to 6 feet of fluorocarbon tippet to my 2 or 3 fly setup. I prefer not to use split shot if possible as it can and does cause tangles. I feel that without the split shot, my flies are drifting past me by the time they get close to the bottom. Am I missing a lot of possible fish because the flies are not deep enough? Thank you for all you do. Stay safe and hope to hear you reply."
Well, Rich, there's no easy answer to that one. To get a small fly like that down, there's only two ways to do it. One is by casting further upstream and casting straight upstream if you can instead of at an angle, which always causes a little bit of drag on your tippet. Casting straight upstream and casting farther will help your flies get down deep. But really, the only way to be sure of getting on the bottom when you have a fast-moving run and it's that deep is to use some kind of weight on your leader. You might wanna use a sacrificial large nymph and then hang your smaller nymphs on that as droppers. You probably won't...you won't get any fish on the bigger nymph, but who knows? Sometimes the fish even when they're eating size 18 to 22s might take a big stone fly. Probably not, but they might. But your other option is to use split shot. And other than using some kind of anchor to get those small flies down and casting more in an upstream direction and farther upstream, that's about all you could do. I don't know of any really clear-cut answer, but I hope that helps, anyway.
So, this is an email from Pam from Wisconsin. "My friend, Jane, and I were traveling back to Wisconsin from a Colorado fly fishing trip and listened to your podcast, "A Case for the Fly Fishing Life." In the fly box questions, a listener was using a 9.5-foot rod with 10-foot leaders in the driftless of Wisconsin. He was frustrated with hanging up the loop-to-loop connection in his tiptop. The Wisconsin driftless is a small stream fishing at its best, but a 10-foot leader can be way too long. My suggestion would be to try a 7.5-foot leader. Even with a two-fly rig, you can usually land fish without bringing in line into your tiptop. I also use an 8.5-foot rod for the small streams. Thanks for the podcast. Many miles of entertainment and trying to answer the fly box questions. I work in a fly shop and get lots of similar questions. So, thanks for the information."
Well, you're welcome, Pam. Yeah, the only... Seven and a half-foot leader is gonna help. The only time I wouldn't use that is if you've got a hatch and you're... I've never fished in driftless, but I've seen pictures of it. Some of those streams are fairly smooth and slow-moving and clear. And seven and a half-foot leader in that case especially if the fish are out in the open and feeding out of hatch, that might get your fly line a little bit too close to those feeding fish. So, there may be times in the driftless when you do want a longer leader like a 10-footer, but sounds like most of the time you can get away with a 7.5-footer, and that's a great tip. Thanks.
Here is an email from Evan from Spokane. "I'm 21 and just recently started fly fishing about a year ago. I love all that you guys do for the sport, making it easier for people like me who don't have someone in their lives to teach them the finer details to improve. When I started out fly fishing, I purchased a very cheap five-six-weight combo with everything I need just so I could see if I enjoyed it enough to invest more in it now. I now have two other much nicer combos and the cheaper one doesn't get much use. After watching one of your videos that involve fly lines, I realized that the line was quite poor quality on my five-six. I recently purchased a seven-weight sinking line for a different seven-weight rod with the intention of getting a separate reel for it. My question is, would putting the seven-weight line on a five/six rod be more of a hindrance to me than a crappy floating line that is the proper weight? I have plans to replace the rod and reel with nicer one, but I just recently purchased my seven-weight outfit and need to save up more before I can afford it. Thanks for taking the time to read my short novel."
Well, Evan, there've been lots longer novels in the podcast questions than yours. So, yeah, I would say that, particularly with sinking lines, you said you have a seven-weight sinking line and you wanna use that on your five-weight. I think that's gonna work okay. You're not gonna be able to cast too far, but, you know, let's face it, sinking lines, we're mainly lobbing them, anyway. And as long as you don't try to make a 60-foot cast with that 7-weight line that could break your 5-weight, 5/6 rod. But, you know, for shorter casts, you're lobbing it anyways, you can get away with a seven-weight sinking line on FIOA. However, I don't know many situations where you would use a five-weight line or you would want a full sinking line unless you're fishing in a lake. For most stream fishing, unless you're fishing streamers in really heavy water up, a full sinking line isn't of a much use. So, I would urge you to, first of all, clean that. You say that your crappy floating line. I don't know why you say it's crappy, but you know, it could work just fine. You might wanna try cleaning that line first. Take it inside, put some warm water and soap, dish soap, in a sink or a bucket and soak your line there for a couple minutes, then run it through a piece of paper towel or a soft cloth and then rinse it off with cold water. And sometimes just cleaning a line will make it perform better. So, try that first. And then, of course, you need a floating line. Get a new floating line, but I think you can use... If you wanna use a sinking line, I think you can use a sinking line, seven-weight on that five-weight.
Mike: Tom, Mike from Johnstown, Pennsylvania. I have two questions for you. So, the first is I am preparing a 10-weight fly reel for a trip to Alaska. And obviously, dealing with the larger salmon with the 10-weight. And I've never used the Bimini twist to connect the backing to the fly line. And I know one of your last podcast you had recommended that. In reading your book, I have the Orvis guide to leaders knots and tippets. You talk about how to tie it, and then you talk about Aaron Adams adding an extra trick to this. So, I was wondering if this additional part, basically, where you cut the knot in half and tie an additional knot, if this is something that you recommend for using for backing to fly line or if that's only if you're dealing with leader to fly line. So, if you could clear that up for me, I would appreciate it. Also, I just took up, last year I got introduced to euro nymphing and took up a long rod, 11-foot rod. I've been fishing three-weight. And just switched back... With dry fly season here, just switched back to my 9-foot 5-weight. And I noticed initially I was breaking a lot of fish off which... I've been fly fishing for many years and never really had this problem. I've seem to have straightened it out now, but I'm just curious, is that common perhaps when people are going from a rod-like the nymphing rod, the longer would be a rod that requires a little bit more oomph to set the hook versus going back to a shorter, stouter rod? Thanks, Tom.
Tom: So, Mike, that extra trick, which I'm not gonna go into here on the podcast because it's fairly complicated, but it kind of braids the double line in a Bimini and reduces air resistance. You don't need to do that with your backing because you're not casting that part and you don't need to worry about air resistance. So, I wouldn't worry about that extra... Just put a standard Bimini in your backing. And that's a good way to practice Bimini twist, actually, because they're a lot easier to tie in backing than they are in monofilament, which is a lot springier. So, you don't need to do the extra trick. Just do your standard Bimini and you'll be fine. And regarding breaking fish off, yeah, the Euro nymphing rods are very soft and you have to strike pretty hard to sink the hook in a fish and you get away with it because they're flexible. So, when you switch back to your 905, yeah, you're gonna have to adjust a little bit and try to hold yourself back because that 905 is gonna be quite a bit stiffer in the tip than Euro nymphing rod. So, it's common. You do need to adjust, but, you know, just you need to adjust when you're going from bass or pike fishing to trout fishing with 5 or 6X. And we go back and forth a lot if we fish with different species or use different techniques. So, just be careful.
All right. That is the fly box for this week. Thank you all for your terrific questions. It wouldn't be the same without you. And I learned so much from your questions and I really appreciate them. So, my guest today is Colby Trow. And Colby has been on the podcast before, Colby and his twin brother, Brian, who actually share the same birthday as me and we plan on taking a birthday trip some year, right? Some year we're gonna...
Colby: That's right.
Tom: ...take a birthday trip. Colby and his brother, Brian, own Mossy Creek Fly Fishing. Is that the official name?
Colby: Yeah.
Tom: Mossy Creek Fly Fishing in Harrisonville.
Colby: Harrisonburg.
Tom: Harrisonburg, Virginia. And it's a terrific shop. I've been there before and was lucky enough to do some presentations there at the shop and fish with you guys and we've...
Colby: Eat copious amounts of swine.
Tom: Yes, we ate a lot of swine. I remember. I'm still recovering. This is like four years later. I'm still recovering from all the swine I ate. So, anyway. But Colby did a podcast kind of a general early season podcast on smallmouth bass with me a number of years ago and it was a really, really popular podcast, a lot of downloads. So, I know that people were interested in that. So, we're going to do in this summer of heat and drought, we're gonna do a podcast on summer smallmouth fishing because it's a great alternative when trout streams are too warm. Smallmouth some... I don't know if smallmouths have an... They probably have an upper critical temperature limit, but I don't think... I think they're a lot tougher than trout. And I don't think... I've never seen any studies where we need to worry about high water temperatures with smallmouth.
Colby: It's funny you mentioned that. I tried to find some research on it that exact thing because I had a few customers and clients ask, and I said, you know, "It's not something I really ever considered." I've had days on some Virginia rivers. Of course, it was years ago when we had more weather like this, extended periods of 90s. We haven't had many... I don't even think we've had 100-degree day at this year, but I remember a decade ago fishing in 100-degree temperatures with heat indexes, you know, 110, 115 in very low water conditions on the James River and Scottsville, I've taken water temps midday at 90, 91 degrees. And the bass fishing was tremendous. A lot of the fish were in the shades, but you get in the water to try to get some relief from the heat and it felt like you're getting in a bathtub. Kind of gross almost, but the bass fishing was phenomenal. And never saw any mortality. So, I'd be curious if there is a threshold form.
Tom: Yeah. Well, anyway, we're probably safe to fish warm during hot weather. That seems to be the key. And those fish swam away fine when you released them? You didn't have to revive them or anything?
Colby: No. I mean, they fight just as hard, it seems like. Yeah. They fight... Smallmouth tend to fight. They're a little bit more lethargic, you know, in the wintertime or early season. You catch one in, you know, any water I would say like sub-55, you know, and they are still, of course, very strong, but you can get into the boat a whole heck of a lot faster than in the summertime on a topwater bug or something. They're very hateful.
Tom: Good. Good. So, we're in a period where we're well away from spawning season, so they're not post-spawn. They're not on the spawning beds. They're more in a, you know, predatory feeding mode. They're getting ready for winter. Let's talk about places you look for them, types of water, and then, obviously, flies and presentation for late summer, early fall smallmouths.
Colby: Sure. So, the wonderful thing about fishing smallmouth in the summer... And just for the viewers, you know, I'm in the Shenandoah Valley, so Mid-Atlantic, Virginia, you know, river systems. I'd like to think most of the rivers in the Mid-Atlantic fish the same, fish summer smallmouth, you know, all the way up to Maine found very similar, you know, kind of similar program as far as how we approached fish. But the beautiful thing about summertime is when you're floating and fishing a river, one that's got a, you know, what would be deemed a healthy population of fish, it seems like smallmouth bass are everywhere. You can float down the river and you could just fish the left bank or just fish the right bank, sometimes just fish the middle, and if you just keep floating and casting, you're gonna run into fish. Fishing the banks, fishing structure along the banks, rock ledges. I mean, that's the beautiful thing is you can right now on the South Fork River fishing, you know, 50, 100, 150 fish days are still pretty common.
Tom: Wow.
Colby: And a lot of those fish are small, you know, 8 to 10, 11 inches, but they're everywhere. And that's the beautiful thing. And you do not find that in the fall after a couple of cold fronts and they start to move to their winter kind of haunts. Same thing through the wintertime, you'll fish the same 8-mile section you fish in the summer. And you can look down and it looks like the river is completely lifeless. These fish find those big dominant ledges and hang out all winter. So, that's what makes summer fishing so awesome. Unless you have a big weather anomaly or something cold front, you can generally run into fish if you're targeting, you know, bank structure if it's a hot day. We can talk about, you know, shade lines, stuff like that.
Tom: Yeah. Let's talk about specific spots that are maybe better than others, particularly, for the larger specimens.
Colby: Yeah. So, what's interesting...We got a couple of different types of rivers here, the James River, for instance, you know, it's a lot of bank fishing. On certain sections of it, there'll be an undercut portion of the bank on these really hot days, 90... I think tomorrow we're gonna have in Central Virginia our first 100-degree day, potentially, and heat index of about 110. And so it can be a little oppressive to fish in that kind of heat. But floating down the river midday, what you'll find is those really burning hot days, the fish will really congregate in shade line. So, those big overhanging sycamore trees, silver maples, you know, that love the riverbank, that overhanging. You've got a barren, bright sunny bank and then all of a sudden you have this one big dark shady spot. That spot is worth a million bucks, you know, going down a river on a hot day because most of the fish will start to migrate towards that shade line. And as long as you keep your boat or if you're weight fishing your presentation well away from that shade line, you can plop a popper, a frog, you know, something like that down and you'll see fish track out a really long way, especially for topwater bugs like to fish this time of year. They'll hear that snack and just like a big brown trout, they'll come cruising over to inspect. They'll raise up nice and slow and just sip it in. And so, you know, shade lines, mid-afternoon, hot days, it can consolidate those fish and it can make your fishing a little bit easier. A blanket overcast day in the middle of summer, the fish feel kind of safe cruising just about anywhere. It can spread fish out. And that can be harder, you know, to get on a quality pattern. It's like you're fishing the bank, well, the fish doesn't necessarily need to be on the bank, you know, for that shade. It could be out mid-river somewhere behind a rock. So, your shady days can sometimes spread your fish out a little bit.
Tom: Unlike trouts, smallmouth will cruise around looking for optimum feeding plays, right? They're not drift feeders. They're not sitting in one place. They're gonna move around and find a good place. Okay.
Colby: Yeah. What's interesting about that, you see it, you know, the folks that know their smallmouth bass and know rivers like the New River, the James, the Rappahannock, the Shenandoah in our area know that, you know, there's historical spots, banks, holes, ledges that hold big fish. And smallmouth bass, especially large ones, occasionally, in our river systems will hang out in, you know, what we would call a wolf pack, you know, or a pot of similar-size fish. You go over, you know, a ledge or if you go over to a log jam where you got snagged and you'll push 3 20-inch fish out of that spot in summertime and go like, "Oh, my gosh, look at those things." And the most successful anglers are the ones that can go out, survey different sections of river. They're on the water the most. They can locate those big fish. And once you locate them, you kind of know their area, but they will... If you find fish like that, it's really awesome to observe. You'll find them... They'll kind of patrol an area. There might be an upper boundary or a lower boundary where you rarely find those fish. Sometimes they'll be, you know, 50 feet out from the bank. Sometimes they'll be right on the bank. But they're in very specific areas throughout the summer.
And whatever it is about that spot, you know, obviously, good amounts of food, a good sheltering line. Maybe if there's a flood or high water, there's a dominant kind of area that gives them some protection from that current and flood debris, stuff like that. But once you find those areas, the fish are always... As long as you've got good recruitment, you'll always find big fish in those same areas generally. So, it's interesting. It's very difficult to say that there's something specific, you know, to our rivers, for instance. It's like, there could be a dominant ledge, rock ledge with some deep water behind it where fish can seek shelter, but maybe they're not always there. Maybe they're on the bank in the shade on the hot days. They'll kind of cruise around, you know, obviously, browsing for anything that's available, crayfish, minnows, bugs plopping out of the trees, that kind of stuff. But, you know, fishing the same sections of a river for 20 years, it's like, "Okay. I see that little point out there. The bank below there, there's always three or four big ones. And it's like clockwork."
Some of, like, my mentor, Chuck Kraft, used to say... He would be at specific spots at a specific time of day. He said that those bass in certain areas, like you said, would work in area, you know, kind of on patrol and you could find fewer there too early, the sun hadn't come up all the way, and you still had blanket shade across the whole. You might not be able to target that fish as well. It's like you might wanna roll up on that spot at 3:00 where there's a real hard-to-find shade line. And if the fish is not in the shade line, you might be able to see him. But if you don't see him, he's likely in that shade line somewhere. So, if you find big fish and you'll notice how difficult they are to catch in the summertime, right? So, they had all spring, they've been caught 6000 times on every single soft plastic lure, every spinnerbait, every crankbait, every Whopper Plopper, and, frankly, every store-bought fly, you know, for months and months and now the water is low, it's clear, and the fish are very sensitive, they're very spooky. You and I both know big smallmouth bass are old fish and they're, you know, very discriminating fish when it comes to presentation and fly choice. So, they can be a challenge in summer, you know, late summer, early fall because of how spooky they can be.
Tom: So, how close can you get to a smallmouth in general? They're not quite as spooky as trout, are they, in clear rivers?
Colby: Our big ones in shallow water can be. What I noticed is when you spook a big smallmouth, they almost... Like, if you are floating down the river and you're fishing kind of in a direction downriver or towards a bank and you spook a big smallmouth bass, they almost always swim out towards your boat and out towards the middle of the river. It's like, oh. It's like they want you to get a good look at them and how big they are, kind of off out into the middle and they're gone. So, how close can you get? I will say that we tell all of our anglers that are going on guided trips with us, when our water gets down to base flow. So, we haven't had rain in a long period of time and essentially all that we have going into our river system would be groundwater. You're constantly spooking things away from a boat. Or if you're wade fishing, you're constantly spooking things away from you, right? So, you've got this like forcefield of death and terror around your boat or your person. If you're wade fishing and you can be very... You don't wanna push awake, you know, out over fish, of course. You don't wanna be splashing around and you don't wanna be crunching on the bottom.
Because you have a lower profile, you could likely get a little bit closer if you think like a blue heron and walk like a blue heron. You could probably get pretty close to one. In a boat, you just wanna be quiet. We fish rafts a lot in Virginia because our water does get low. We have a lot of rock shelves. Rafts can slide up on rocks kind of quietly. We carpet the floors of our boats. So, if you drop something that's...you're not gonna have a big loud clunk or bang. Try to keep your oars off the rocks. And if you drop an anchor, drop it, you know, slowly so you're not banging around. A 35 to 40-foot cast at a good angle, you know, 45 kind of downstream, I would say, is gonna be necessary.
Tom: Okay. Yep.
Colby: Anything inside that... We see fish-spooking sunfish bait fish suckers, that kind of stuff. They're spooking away from the boat and they're gonna be spooking 25, 30, 35 feet out downstream. They don't usually stop. And so folks that struggle to make, you know, a quality 45-foot cast at a minimum, they could have a tougher time catching the larger fish in the summertime. Fifty, 55-foot casts will help. We can downsize tackle six weights, you know, size for cork-popping bugs, swim frogs, those kinds of things are fun to fish. Tippet size. Those big fish will come up a lot of times and put their nose right on a bug or right on a frog or something like that on the surface. And you will get refusals from drag. You'll get refusals a lot of times if your tippet is too big or shiny. So, you can always just like trout fishing, you can downsize your fly, you can downsize your tippet. I would not... Especially, if there's big fish around, I would never recommend maybe fishing something smaller than 3X. I mean, if you're fishing a size six cork popping bug maybe in really spooky conditions, go to 3X. I still like to fish 1 or 2X, you know, when it comes to kind of tackling rigging.
I don't know if you do this, Tom. I do this a lot. I'll use a nylon leader, tapered leader. So, let's say like a 9-foot 0X. And then I'll actually add a couple of feet of floor carbon tippet. Even if I'm using a floating fly like a cork bug, I think that it helps, again, if water is super low or super clear and actually doesn't have a lot of flow. I think that sometimes it helps if that tippet is just slightly... Like, I'll make a cast, splat my bug down. And then I'll either mend or I'll strip to eliminate a little bit of slack in the line, for instance. And usually, that pool or that men will be enough to sink your tippet just below the surface, so maybe it's not gonna be as bright or shiny on the surface. The other thing too is I like the floor carbon sinks a little bit for diving flies like this swim frogs or swimming minnows or something like that, it'll help actually pull the fly down and have them swim a little bit more effectively the nylon on the surface, and you get a little added abrasion resistance, stuff like that, if one of those fish goes right into a log or over a rock ledge, something like that.
Tom: You guys use tippet rings to attach your fluorocarbon to your nylon?
Colby: So, I have not. I don't think... I don't know a lot of folks that do around here anyway. I would say that the... The one thing I would be careful of is algae grass pulling that over log if you're using a weedless fly, you know, when you, like, throwing it into the wood. If you're using a tippet ring, I'd make really clean knots. I'd maybe use some knot sensor, some glue or something that tag ends or, you know, they're wretched even on little filaments of algae, stuff like that, and grab it. Most of our rivers are fairly clean, but you'll always get that if you're throwing to the bank, something like that.
Tom: Yeah. So, don't bite your tippet like I do because it leaves longer tag ends. Use your snips and cut them clean, right?
Colby: Yeah, cut them clean. It's better you know a lot of rivers in the summertime, especially, when the water gets very low and warm, you'll have stagnant areas, you'll have some algae, you'll have... You might wanna throw on the other side of a grass bed. Right? Grass beds are a little, you know, food traps. Dragonflies and damselflies all day long. This solitary stick in the middle of the river or a little mat of grass. And if you've got a bug, you know, you wanna throw it over. You wanna have a clean system. A lot of folks like to tie their own leaders to turn things over. Bass fishing in certain conditions, it can just be rough because you can end up catching a lot of stuff on knots.
Tom: So, just one knot if you can help it.
Colby: Yep.
Tom: Now let's talk about...let's first talk about poppers fishing service, and what size, color you like, how to retrieve them. It sounds like you dead drift your poppers a lot. Is that correct?
Colby: So, we do. When what we call bug fishing is good, you can slam the buck down and you can dead drift it drag-free. A lot of times on the shade lines or along the banks, you know, in 1 to 4 feet of water fish will come up in a lot deeper water for a bug, for sure. Fish will ledge out in the middle of the river nine feet, smack a buck down, and you'll see a, you know, big brown blob come up off the bottom for it because they know what it is. Topwater bugs for us, anyway, down here in the south, it's the one kind of piece of kryptonite, I would say, we have against large smallmouth. Again, a spin fishermen will complain they see big smallmouth and they're throwing a, you know, five-inch cinco, you know, soft plastic worm or a jig and I'm like, "They've eaten that thing for the last five or six months in relatively dingy water." Now they can see it, you know, and they'll track it, they'll look at it, they might put their nose on it. But we can always get them to eat bugs.
And I've seen fish track over 20 feet off the bank for a bug. You'll smack the bug down, you're kind of looking around it to see if there's any wake commotion movement, or if you're not on the shade line, you know, just looking for that fish. Peel off a bank, come out and inspect. You'll get that slow kind of triangular rise that's just so beautiful. And sometimes you'll get a refusal, right, that they'll see something they don't like and they'll start to turn away. A second they turn away, I wouldn't say that you pop your bug. I use the term nudge. Give it a nudge, which you put a little wake off of it, it wiggles. It lets that fish know, "Oh, that thing is alive. Maybe it's not just a weird leaf or stick that just fell in." And that can generate... You might have to play cat and mouse with them a little bit at that point. But you get them to turn again and they'll sometimes come back and eat it.
Now, when the bug fishing, when that type of...when that style fishing is slow or it's not generating a lot of action, a lot of times what we'll do is put on a bullet-shaped fly like a Sneaky Pete or any type of kind of sliding cork bug. You can cast that to the bank and then you can pull it kind of quietly a foot or two, and then let it rest, and then maybe pull it another foot or two. So, now you can cover water. You're not just fishing the bank or, you know, just that kind of area where the bug plops down and drifts. You can cover a little bit more water. That's why I really love fishing deer hair flies whether they're divers or, you know, kind of your standard deer hair popper head, you know, things that look like frogs because you can swim them. You can still have that visual topwater experience, which you can cover more water than you can with just a traditional dead draft. So, if you're fishing a cork bug, it's like fishing a hopper in a drift boat out west. Smack it down, kind of let it ride drag free. Let it go as long as you're comfortable. Pick it up, bash it down again. Make sure it's not gonna do drag. Float and kind of keep your rod pointed at it and wait for fish to rise to it. But with the frogs, you can fish it out.
Sometimes you'll see a fish track, you can stop it, you can let them catch up to it. Sometimes they'll sip it. Sometimes they'll eat it voraciously. But it'll allow you to kind of understand the temperament of the fish on that specific day that you're fishing. A lot of times in the summer, if I have two anglers in the boat, the guy in the front, a lot of times I'll have with a bug, cork popping bug. And then the guy in the back, angler in the back, you know, frog or maybe a baitfish pattern or a crayfish or helgramite pattern, something like that and just kind of see how it goes. Sometimes the bug will catch more fish because it's just the lead angler. Sometimes the bug will just reign supreme and you can crush them and some days they just won't fully commit to that surface bite.
Tom: How big can you go in your surface bugs? How big of a frog or a popper can you go before the fish start thinking that's too much?
Colby: That's a good question because I've made some pretty large bugs. Let me step to the dark side of the conventional world real quick. And, you know, some of these soft plastic frogs that we throw, you know, are four or five inches long and a couple inches around. Now, they get voracious strikes from fish. You can cast them a long distance and you can kind of slow roll them and their legs will kind of chop up the surface. And I had a couple of hours to kill with my brother one day. We were on a long section river, so he was rolling about as fast as he could to put some water behind us. So, I had a big caster and one of those frogs and I do what I call speed fishing. Just hit the bank, rip it off the bank four or five feet, get it back to the boat, do it again. It's about all you can do. You don't fish. You put your feet up and drink a beer while you put the water behind you. And I was getting a bite on almost every cast. Now, most of those fish were sub, you know, 12 inches or less, so they couldn't actually get the entire frog into their mouth or get hooked. It's gonna require a 16-inch fish or bigger to grab it.
So, to get back to your original question, you know, a two [inaudible 01:08:00] diving frog is a common-size fly that we'll throw. And so, you know, some of the larger varieties or the swimming minnows or, like, dalberg divers style flies. But some of the larger ones, you know, that are... Think about a murder tremendo. It's a long fly. It's pretty sparse, but if you look at it, you know, they're four or five inches long. Think about the soft plastics anglers used for bass, 5, 6, 7 inches long, and the 7-inch bass, you know, smallmouth can still cram that 7-inch worm, you know, into its mouth. But when it comes to cork bugs, number twos, number fours, number six are standard. I mean, we have dragonflies, damselflies, you know, our annual cicadas, insects like that that the fish are seeing on a regular basis. So, those tend to work the best. In that regard, you can fish a mouse pattern, you can fish a frog pattern. In those... What you're gonna find in a standard fly shop, you can grab the biggest ones, and still the smallest fish will still eat it.
Tom: Okay.
Colby: Yeah.
Tom: Do you have any particular colors that you like and do you have any rules that you follow or guidelines for picking color?
Colby: Man, it's funny, right? So, you take notes. You can keep a journal and after 20 years, you know, your data seems to just contradict itself some days. I'll kind of do the same thing that I'll do when I'm trout fishing. And obviously, if you have two anglers in the boat with you, you can cycle through colors and sizes a little bit more rapidly than if you're fishing by yourself. But you might go out on a bright sunny day and fish. We love chartreuse in black. So, a chartreuse bug on the surface. And usually, Tom like you probably do with bonefish, like, I'll wait for, like, a refusal or two. Fish will hear the bug smack, they'll swim over, they'll look at it, and they'll either spook away from it or they just won't eat it. And the first couple I'll write off. And then after that, I'm starting to... I'm gonna change. Maybe go from chartreuse to olive, you know, maybe to black or blue, or you can also downsize. So, I'll generally start with a larger size fly just for a larger splat, larger profile easier to see on the surface. Kind of makes... It's just common sense. But if I'm getting fish coming over and looking at it, maybe even picking out a leg, but not taking the fly, you can, if you're fishing a two, maybe try a four.
Tom: Yeah. Yeah.
Colby: Check your tippet. If you're using 0X, maybe go to the next size smaller fly and maybe drop down to 2X or something and see if that improves things. If it doesn't, then start cycling through colors.
Tom: Okay.
Colby: Blue is popular down here for us. Most of our damselflies, I would say, majority of the species we have are blue. We've got gray and red...I mean, every color known to man, but the predominant color is blue. And so the smallmouth in our rivers recognize blue. But shade lines, stuff like that, we got any number of bugs fallen in. So, black, moss or olive, green, blue chartreuse, white, orange. I mean, have them all in your arsenal, for sure.
Tom: Do you ever fish...
Colby: Some days it won't matter. They'll eat anything, any color, but some days, man, they're super-specific.
Tom: Have you ever fished a more specific damselfly like a Gibson damselfly or something for smallmouth, you know, more of an almost exact imitation of a damsel?
Colby: Natural?
Tom: Yeah.
Colby: Yep. The only problem is they don't plot very well.
Tom: Yeah. They land light.
Colby: They land light. And so getting the attention of the fish, I think, is the only issue. And then the other thing too is they get torn apart.
Tom: Yeah. Yeah, they do.
Colby: That and also the sunfish in our river systems are voracious. And a lot of those patterns are extremely effective, but you're gonna be going through them, cycling through them a lot faster than a cork bug, for sure. Yep.
Tom: Okay. And how about subsurface flies?
Colby: So, it's awesome. This time of year right now, you know, we're not...my guides are not complaining about low water at all coming off of, you know, five, six years of epic, biblical rainfall.
Tom: Yeah. Yeah.
Colby: But we're in a situation where, again, we discuss spooky conditions, so very low, very clear water. So, that four rock CK baitfish that we like throwing in pre-spawn periods when the river is at, you know, 10 times the water volume that we have now, they can see it, they can feel it moving through. It's a bit obtrusive. And so we go with more... Just like your damselfly discussion there. We will actually go a little bit more all-natural. So, more traditional style, streamers, hair, and feather style streamers, you know, some are wit lux, shad patterns, minnow patterns. He's got patterns with dumbbell eyes, and then he's got some with, you know, no weight at all and some with deer hair heads. But something that lands very light still has a decent profile, but looks more natural, right? So, there's a couple of patterns that we use. And even a lot of these patterns are actually saltwater patterns, but virtually weightless, just the weight of the hook, two to three inches long, but very sparsely tied. And so you can make a presentation on 2X, you know, maybe a 10 or 11-foot leader. The fish doesn't even know that it's in the water. It just kind of melts in it. But then once you let it sink a few inches and strip it once or twice, they'll see a little bit of that silhouette and they'll come over. And they don't seem to be as hesitant to eat that fly as they would, you know, something that, again, you know, an early season, you know, solid color, very solid.
It's the same thing I was discussing with, you know, soft plastics and stuff. It's almost, they can see it too well and they know what it is and they'll investigate. They'll track it, but they'll turn away from it. The smaller, more sparse, realistic flies for us, especially, in our large fish, the only downfall is that the smaller bodyguards, the 8, 9, 10-inch fish if they can get to it first, they will and it's hard to keep them off of it. Just like our crayfish flies, instead of throwing the big number twos right now or even number fours, we're in six territory. And again, if it looks like a crayfish, if it looks like a helgramite, those big fish will be less hesitant on the finesse side of things to eat that smaller fly, but you're going to hook a lot more small fish, maybe more rock bass if they're in your system. Our redbreast sunfish in our rivers have really big mouths. They can eat larger flies than what you find in most, you know, bluegill and ponds. And they love... They tear up crayfish and helgramites all day long. So, you might have to sacrifice, you know, a few big fish catching the bodyguards, but it will improve your hookup ratio. A big giant number two fly in two feet of crystal clear barely move in water, you'll probably do more damage and spook more fish.
Tom: Do you guys have a favorite crayfish imitation?
Colby: Well, it's always the claw dad, you know, Chuck, my mentor, and he passed last year. Kind of a sad thing. Right after...
Tom: Yeah, sorry about that.
Colby: Yeah. Right after "Somerset" pretty much, actually, the show. But that fly you can tie very sparse if you want. You can put fewer rubber legs on it. You can put some squirrel on it, do a couple of different things to make it look a little bit more natural. Those old, like, near-enough crayfish are great flies as well. It's a great carp pattern. That's something too. It's interesting, this time of year as you downsize your helgramites, your crayfish flies, you're right in the realm almost of, you know, you can cross. So, you got a 6-weight, you got a 10-foot leader going down to like 2X floro, and, you know, you're fishing for smallmouth but if you see a carp, you're armed and ready, you know, with the perfect weapon for that fish as well.
Tom: Is that... Are those patterns online, the claw dad and the near-enough crayfish? Can people find those patterns online if they wanna time?
Colby: Yeah. The claw dads are. And also the tying materials, you know, the tails are made out of ultrasuede. And so they're very... I mean, they're pretty much boom-proof. I've never had one of those tails actually tear on me before. But you can make them in an infinite... It's rubber legs, chanel, and ultrasuede. So, you can match them to the exact color of the crayfish or helgramites or whatever bugs live in your water. And you can time with B chain eyes or dumbbells, big or little, you can weight them, peel them differently to swim differently, but, you know, just super, super-effective pattern.
Tom: And I know you happen to have the pre-cut claw dad tails in your shop, don't you?
Colby: We do. All of that, you know, the curly tails, the bait fishtails, the crayfish tails, the popper tails. Yeah. Smallmouth bass arsenal. And it's been so effective. And the fun thing is about tying those patterns from topwater to sub-surface is you can get so creative and size and color and... I mean, it's an infinite opportunity to get creative.
Tom: Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. I still haven't found the perfect crayfish invitation. I'm still looking.
Colby: Yeah. They're really, really hard. And there's a lot of folks out there doing a lot of research because, you know, crayfish in a defensive stance, right, or a crayfish that's swimming. You can make that... You can make a fly that looks... The more realistic the pattern, I think the worst they fish. You know what I mean?
Tom: Yeah. Yeah.
Colby: You try to make these things with like... And another thing too, you can do a lot of research, you know, from the conventional world and how baits are made. The larger the claw, a lot of times, you're gonna miss fish. They're either, A, not gonna eat it or, B, they're gonna inhale it and then spit it out because they don't wanna get pinched. And one of the concepts around the claw dad was the tails, each side actually represents a claw that's closed rather than, like, open in a defensive posture. And they're unobtrusive. Again, you can make a big fly, but not with large claws, and so the fish is more reluctant to just try to suck it in and swallow it, rather than stun it. You can YouTube smallmouth bass eating crayfish and you'll see them a lot of times, they'll suck it and spit it out. Sometimes they'll do that two or three times before they actually eat the thing.
Tom: I've seen trout do that too.
Colby: Yeah, exactly. And the jig fishermen, you know, they'll feel tick and they'll set the hook and they'll miss it. Well, that was the fish, you know, sucking and spitting it out real quick. And sometimes you have to wait for that second tick and then set the hook.
Tom: What kind of retrieve do you use on your subsurface flies? Or what kind of retrieves do you cycle through? Right? Because you probably try a bunch.
Colby: Yeah. Same thing I do with trout fishing. And it was kind of my common-sense approach, but if you... A lot of your listeners would do well, you know, going to the dark side and listening to guys like Kevin VanDam from the conventional world on tactics from bass because you can learn so much from the conventional world and then apply it into the fly world.
Tom: Yeah. Yeah.
Colby: But I always like to fish as aggressively as possible because, again, you can cover more water by moving the fly through the water more rapidly and then also, generally, you can get a more aggressive response from a faster-moving fly. So, the fish sees it...
Tom: Hang on a second. [inaudible 01:23:52] We'll put an edit in here.
Colby: Yeah, no worries.
Tom: I keep forgetting to turn this phone off. It's the house phone. It's probably a robocall. All right. We're good. Sorry. Continue.
Colby: So, on the retrieve, I like to, you know, fish those streamers... Not a crayfish. Let's just talk bait fish minnows. I like to fish them as aggressively as I can. Swimming them off the bank, swimming them, you know, through or an undercut or through a shade line or something because you can always slow down. You can cover more water more rapidly with a faster retrieve. And, again, sometimes you can trigger that more aggressive eat with a more aggressive retrieve. If you find fish coming after your fly tracking it, they're not catching up to it, I always say kill the fly. So, throw a mend. Do something because the bigger the bass, I think I said this in our last podcast, you have to out-slow sometimes angler before you. A lot of those big fish will eat stuff right off the bottom. So, if they're tracking your fly, but they're not gaining distance, you know, not gaining on your fly, a lot of times I'll throw a mend and I'll let it start to sink. And as they catch up, sometimes they'll track it down to the bottom. And sometimes, right, when that fly hits the bottom, they'll either suck it up or they'll turn away. And that's when you'll jerk the fly again, boom, and make it look like it's injured or struggling, and then you can kind of play cat and mouse. And you'll just have to remember, you know, what triggered that eat. You can always slow down. It's hard to fish... I hate starting to fish really slow because you're not covering as much water, you're not presenting that fly to as many opportunities as you can. So, I feel like it's better to start faster and then slow down because I think you can crack the code more efficiently in that regard.
Tom: Okay.
Colby: Now, crayfish patterns and helgramites, stuff that live on the bottom, you're gonna cast to a spot. You're likely gonna have to mend to get your fly to go down. You want it to make contact with the bottom because that's usually where it gets eaten. And then depending on the current, I'll usually mend my line whether it's up or down depending on the current. And that mend will usually hop or move my fly. Right?
Tom: Yep.
Colby: And when you mend, it'll... In the process of mending, you will move your fly, and then at the end of your mend, your slack has been carrying downstream of the current your fly is dead on the bottom. So, you're always watching the tip of your fly line or in the conditions... Well, if you're in the shade, you're gonna watch your fly line. If it's clear, you're gonna be watching fish track out and pick up your fly. And then you can, you know, watch him eat it and set the hook. But if you throw a crayfish fly to the bank and strip it erratically, you know, through the upper water column, you're probably not gonna do too well. And I think that most people find that crayfish patterns don't fish well for them because they're not actually fishing them in a... Well, they're just not fishing them correctly.
Tom: Okay. Yeah.
Colby: Yep. So, slower with your, you know, obviously, your crayfish and helgramites because they are on the bottom and they're trying to find hiding places on the bottom. And drag can be a killer too. If the bass is tracking you and you think he's gonna eat it, make sure you stop that. Just like a bonefish. When do bonefish eat your fly? Generally when you stop.
Tom: Right.
Colby: And it's on the bottom, they're gonna go down and pick it up. So, give that a try.
Tom: Okay. Now, maybe lastly, time of day, this time of year. And I guess it probably depends on what the weather is. But what do you find the most productive times a day?
Colby: So, day in day out, you can have a good fun topwater bite at daylight, right, and also in the evening hours. Those can be fun times to fish, although those windows are finite. We find that after the sun comes up and after that initial early morning bite window, you know, for us, anyway, there's an adjustment period, it is 7:30 to, you know, 9:30, 10:00, can actually be relatively slow fishing. What we notice and a lot of times when we're putting on the river, everybody's instantly observing. They're looking downriver, everybody is excited. But if you don't see any fish jumping or actively eating on the surface, the guy in the front might be fishing, you know, baitfish pattern, an angler in the back might be fishing a crayfish pattern, again, because you don't want the big heavy crayfish upfront and then the less obtrusive bait fish in the back. Or if you're just fishing solo, maybe try that baitfish. You can cover more water. You can, you know, fish it just about minnows or everywhere on the river, you know, from the banks to the middle. Try covering some water, see how your action is.
Usually, for us, in the summertime by 11:30 the sun is on the water, it's warming up, and we start to see insect activity. Once your damselflies and dragonflies are the most abundant in the heat of the afternoon, you'll usually look downriver and you'll start to see fish jumping out of the water for those things. That's a great time to put your bug on.
And a lot of times you can fish a bug like that, you know, the rest... If it's working, you can fish it the rest of the day. Not saying that anytime you put on, you can... I would start... Tomorrow's gonna be 100 degrees. I think I get to fish with my brother if everything goes well. We'll probably both start fishing bugs. And maybe if I'm rolling, he'll throw a bug and I'll throw a frog. So, he can throw the less obtrusive bug outfront, let it dead-drift, and I'll throw it to the bank, you know, and fish it back and cover a little bit more water with a little bit more obnoxious fly. And we'll kind of go that route and just see how the fish are reacting. But generally, if you've got nuclear hot weather and it's still in calm, it's not a bad idea to just go with topwater. If it's not working especially in productive water that you know is productive, maybe go with the baitfish and then slow it all the way down to a crayfish or a helgramite or something like that if you have to.
Tom: Okay. Okay.
Colby: That's kind of how we cycle through. And for any drift boaters, I just thought of this kind of, like, the scenario of me and my brother. The angler and the... If you're fishing down and you're fishing a bank, for instance, I like the angler in the front to be fishing maybe the outer edge of a shade line or 10, 15, 20 feet off the bank. So, their line is more steep-angled downstream. So, when the fly hits a fish that's left or right 10 feet either side, you know, they might just see the splat they're gonna come... They're not gonna see fly line at an angle at a perpendicular angle going across them. Like a lot of people will fish straight at the banks. And you need to angle downstream for a better angle. The smallmouth bass can see really well left to right. And then the person in the back that's fishing can fish at a 45 downstream right at the bank.
Tom: Okay.
Colby: So, the person in the back should be on the bank. The angler in the front should be off the bank to even straight 12:00 down in front because if the angler in the front is throwing all the way to the bank, the angler in the back has got virtually nothing to fish.
Tom: Yeah. The fish have been lined.
Colby: That's right. That fly line forcefield at that 45 to a bank is just killing everything except for those little micro-windows along the bank that the front angler has not touched. And so that's a... It's just something to think about when anglers are fishing. And even if you're fishing out of a kayak where there's two or three of you all fishing down the same side of the river, the lead angler needs to be outside and, frankly, a lot of times they'll catch just as many big ones on that outer shade line as the folks fishing right on the bank.
Tom: Okay.
Colby: Yep.
Tom: Good point. Good tip. And how about right at dusk or right at dark? Is there a peak and feeding activity then?
Colby: You'll see it. So, last year when COVID was, you know, kind of full-tilt, my wife would call me or text me at 3:00, "Hey, I've got off work. I'm headed home. Let's go hit the river." And so she would get some food and snacks and get the boys ready. And if I could cut out an hour early, I would, but we spent three or four days every single week in the summer last summer fishing from 6:00 until dark. We ate dinner on the boat and we fished till dark, and the kids fell asleep on the way home. It was awesome. And there were nights where, you know, right before dark, you had some really fun, topwater action. But I would say it was, you know, conducive to the day that we were fishing. If the fishing was good... If the fishing was generally good, it stayed good all the way till dark. The slower days were kind of the same. Very rarely did we have a slow day like a slow period from, you know, 7:00 till 8:30, and then all of a sudden it was like a strike on every cast from 8:30 till 9:30 when it got pitch black.
Tom: Yeah.
Colby: What we did find was later in the year we have some migratory dragonflies that come down those big... I can't remember the name of the species, but it's a... I mean, massive black and chartreuse. They're such awesome insects.
Tom: Oh, I've seen those. Yeah, I've seen though.
Colby: Yeah. So, we get them, like, the end of August in the September timeframe. And we always saw them more active at dusk flying around. Those things were like B52s and maybe, you know, my son, Axel, would get in the front of the boat right when the sun would go down, he'd always say, "It's Whopper Plopper time." He'd take out his spin rod because he could throw that thing across the river, you know, and he seemed like he get a strike every single cast. Of course, if he was fishing that earlier in, you know, 6:00 might have had the same action, but it's a lot of fun fishing those little light time periods. The topwater fishing can be a lot of fun. But what we've found was generally days when the fishing was just good, it stayed good all the way until dark.
Tom: Okay. All right, Colby. Well, you have certainly got me excited about going smallmouth fishing this week. I think I might do that. And I'm sure other people have gotten some confidence on new things to try.
Colby: You bring up an excellent point. And I would like to dive into the psychology of folks that don't... And I don't... I mean, everybody's got their opinions on things, but I have so many anglers that have zero interest in catching smallmouth, like, floating a river and casting flies and catching smallmouth. And I'm curious as to... Is it because they're bass and not trout? I'm really curious. I'd like to do a survey just to see the understanding so I can help educate maybe some folks as to why it's so awesome. I love trout fishing. I absolutely love it. But floating in sight fishing big smallmouth bass, it's just as awesome.
Tom: Yeah, absolutely.
Colby: It's not more awesome when you're catching potentially larger fish. You're using bigger rods, stronger fish, older fish, even more discriminating fish. If you like technical fishing, it's about as technical as it gets outside of carp stuff, you know, for the very big ones. They're the perfect sportfish.
Tom: Yeah. Yeah, they are.
Colby: Maybe we can do that sometimes, Tom. I'd love to see what your listeners would like to say that have no interest in catching smallmouth just like carp.
Tom: Well, I do have a podcast mailbox. And if you are reluctant to go fishing for smallmouth, why don't you drop me an email at
Colby: I'm just... I'm really curious to see the responses.
Tom: Yeah. Yeah.
Colby: Yeah. I just like to understand better more than anything.
Tom: Well, I think a lot of people do it because in the polls that we've taken smallmouth bass are the second most popular to trout in the species pursuit. So, there's lots of people that do it, but there's lots of people that aren't that interested too. So, maybe we'll find out something.
Colby: Yeah. Wonderful.
Tom: Good idea.
Colby: Then we'll touch on carp sometime.
Tom: Oh, yeah. Well, we just did a carp podcast.
Colby: That's right.
Tom: Yeah. But we have to do another one because you and I both love carp fishing.
Colby: Yeah, absolutely.
Tom: All right, Colby. Well, thank you so much for taking us through that. That was some great stuff. And I really appreciate you taking the time to talk to us today.
Colby: Always a pleasure.
Tom: Thanks for listening to the "Orvis Fly Fishing Podcast" with Tom Rosenbauer. You can be a part of the show. Have a question or a comment? Send it to us at