On Friday I had a couple clients scheduled for a fishing trip on my favorite trout stream, the Smith River, so thought I had better stick my toe in the water on Thursday to see how the bite was going.
The afternoon generation schedule of 10am to 1pm allowed me to mow the lawn at my "get away" cabin before heading for the lower end of the Special Regulation Section. When I pulled into the Rosemont Road parking area I discovered I was not the only one with fishing on their mind. One vehicle was already there and two more pulled in by the time I had pulled my waders on. Turns out I was good friends with one, knew another and as soon as I was introduced to the third knew who he was - all three are strong advocates of the community and the river. They all reported good sulfur hatches in the past few days and hoped to experience more of the same as soon as the water calmed down from the generation surge. They entered the river almost opposite the parking area while I wished them luck and headed up the railroad tracks to the bend in the river to the area known to the railroad folks as Jondee.
I hardly had the kinks worked out of my line before connecting with my first brown trout. Very pretty, but small, which is typical of the Smith.
This continued on with a fish here and another fish there up through the big pool in the curve of the river. One brown put a very serious bend in my rod and required extra care in beaching for a photo. I could stretch him and say he was pushing the sixteen inch mark but have caught enough to know that when you lay a tape along side the fish he would more likely measure 13-14 inches. Still a good fish and lately I have been hearing of many more like him being caught.
When I arrived at the point where the river entered the pool with a short riffle area I observed a lot of surface activity and some light colored insects, which I took to be sulfurs coming off the water. With all that top water action going on even a died in the wool nymph fishermen such as myself would be a fool not to cut off his beadhead nymph and try to "match the hatch". I didn't have any sulfurs but did have several #16 Yellow Sallies which are easy for my color blind eyes to see. I tied one on and started casting just upsteam of each rise form. For about 10-15 minutes I experienced a strike on every other cast. At least half the strikes missed the hook but I did manage to connect with several fish, all of which were smaller then those I had been catching with my nymph. Small, "yes", but still a delight to catch.
The top water action stopped abruptly. It was fun but short lived. After giving the area a good look at my dry fly without another hit I returned to doing what I do best which is fish a nymph under a strike indicator, and caught a few more. All the fish caught on Thursday were browns with the exception of one rainbow which must have made a long swim from where he had been stocked. As I exited the river I snapped a photo of one of the many Special Regulation signs that now hang at riverside and at the entrance of many of the "fishermen's paths". Hopefully these signs will counter the claim of "I didn't know" when someone is encountered using bait or with stringers of fish along the Special Regulations Section of the river.
I talked with the other three fishermen who were still at the pool opposite the Rosemont parking area. They had all caught a few during the brief sulfur hatch. One who had fished the same area the day before consoled everyone with the famous fisherman's saying of "You should have been here yesterday". Such is the nature of hatches on the Smith - if you hit it right you will have a ball, but if you want to catch fish on a regular basis you had better learn how to fish a nymph or soft hackle.
The following day the generation schedule threw us a curve ball. The announcement (call 276-629-2432) on Thursday evening said they would shut down at 1pm on Friday. They changed that to 2pm sometime after I checked. I discovered this the following morning but was not able to contact my clients who were to meet me at the Mirror Factory at 1pm. (Our plan was to fish up near the dam for about an hour, then move downstream with the falling water). Not to fear, the objective of this trip was to learn the river so we piled into their SUV with map in hand and while I acted as tour guide we drove back through Bassett and beyond showing them many of the access points, parking areas and commentary on various aspects of the stream. One of them said, "This is perfect, we would have never found these spots on our own".
We arrived at the upper end of the dam section just about the time they shut off the generators and were in the water as soon as it became safe to wade. This section is fairly shallow and is currently experiencing a lot of string-like weed growth but holds a respectable amount of fish. The bottom has been scoured down to bedrock which makes for slippery wading.
Both clients were accomplished fly fishers but had not picked up the long rod for several years. The Smith River is the closest trout water to their current home in central Virginia. Neither had fished nymphs with a strike indicator before. It took awhile but while my attention was on one, I heard a joyous shout from the other and saw a bent rod. She soon had a nice brown trout in hand. She was all smiles and said, "that indicator went down just like you said it would".
As soon as an appropriate time had passed we moved downstream to the lower end of the Special Regulations Section. I had planned to put them in the water just under the Hwy 666 bridge but even though the surge had passed and the water was falling, I did not feel comfortable exposing two guests with limited wading experience to still moving water. We once again piled back into vehicles and moved further upstream to the Rosemont Road area.
The head or riffle section of the "Poachers Pool" yielded two fish in a row and would have produced several more hook-ups if you stood in place and worked the fast water coming into the pool.
Up to this point half the team had gone fishless, (Several hits but no hook-up's), so they swapped spots and within two or three casts all was right with the world.
Up to this point we had been fishing with nymphs because there was very little surface activity. However, just about the time my guests had to depart for a three hour drive home, a hatch of sulfurs started to come off. As tempting as it was to stay, they had several dogs and horses depending on them for their evening meal. Both declared they would return soon. After seeing them off, I grabbed my 4wt rod, tied on a Yellow Sally and returned to the same pool where I caught a mixed bag of rainbows and browns that were dancing to the tune of a sulfur hatch.