Pure Bronze Fun

2017 has brought with it a lot of memorable moments on the water.  Friday's outing for small stream smallmouth bass was the most enjoyable and fun half day of fishing I have had this year.  Earlier this summer, I fished a new-to-me stretch of water under less than ideal conditions.  I still caught fish, but most importantly, I found some incredible looking water that I'm sure receives very little traffic and I knew should house some good fish.  Seeing a good window of opportunity to hit this stretch again, I took Friday off and hoped the brown bass would have the feed bags on.  A lengthy hike down the railroad tracks took me most of the way.

My high hopes were raised even higher when I laid eyes on the water.  It was absolutely gorgeous.  Very clean with a slower flow than the last outing on this stream.  I continued down to the lowest point I planned to hike so that I could begin fishing upstream in search of smallies.  In this smaller water, smallmouth typically run in the 8-10" range, with my best fish being about 16" in this general area.   

Thoughts of how aggressive the fish were going to be that morning went away quickly.  On the first cast, I had multiple strikes and misses.  On the second cast, I hooked a small but feisty bronzeback.  The fish were hungry and I was feeding them what they wanted.

Not far from where I began fishing, I came to a spot with some deep water, current, and cover.  It had the look of a spot that should hold multiple good fish, and it did not disappoint.  A miss on the first cast to the juicy water was followed by a hookup on the next cast.

Moving very slightly to fish a different current seam in the same location, I found a better fish.  Most of the larger fish I caught on the day had clearly been feeding a lot.  Their guts were getting full and they had been packing on the weight with the cooler weather coming.

As I continued upstream, I cam to a location I had seen on the hike down that looked incredible.  Once again, a combination of depth, current, and cover.  A large log lay against the bank on a deep cut with current flowing right into it.  Casts off the log yielded no strikes, but on the first cast tight to the log I came tight to the best fish of the day.  This fish was about 15.5" in my measure net.

Continuing upstream, I came to some water I had fished in the past and thought it would be great popper water.  Stretches I love to work with a topwater are long, slow moving pools with some depth and no real obvious mid-stream structure or current breaks.  I like "searching" and fan casting these areas with a popper, and the popper produced almost immediately.

Having caught a few fish on a foam popper with a Double Barrel head, I decided to take the silly up a notch and see if I could pop a decent fish on a small deer hair popper.  Another stretch of popper water was coming up, and I had the deer hair bug ready to get blasted.

What would transpire was one of the most bizarre interactions I have seen from a smallmouth with a topwater fly.  On the first cast into a shaded bank with some deep rock, I gave the fly a hard pop and watched the fish come up quickly to the fly, rejecting it, and heading back down.  The fish came so hard at the fly that the water boiled under it.  I gave a quick twitch, and the fish again came up and refused the fly, returning to the deep water.  One more twitch, and the fish came back a third time, and almost without dimpling the water, sipped the popper like a trout carefully eating a mayfly dun.

The 15" popper fish capped off what was a really enjoyable day on the water.  Temperatures were cool in the morning but not hot later in the day, the water felt great for wet wading, I had the stream to myself, and the bass had the feed bags on.  My glass 3wt rod was bent all morning.  I have had outings with bigger fish caught this year, and more fish caught, but this was the best outing of my year...so far.