This past spring, I spent several days with guide Mike Rennie of Blue Mountain Drift (circle back to these posts HERE and HERE) and our conversations touched enough times on his summertime smallmouth floats where fish slurp topwater flies through the heat of the day that we put a couple of days on the books for late July. Mike has an obvious obsession with guiding and fishing for smallmouth and since our friend Danny is absolutely gluttonous for them. This was going to be fun.
As the trip neared, a heatwave was continuing with days in the mid to high 90’s and humid but more importantly, the water was clearing up after nearly constant heavy rains the weeks before. The smallmouth were looking up. Rennie was excited for a couple of days with us and gave us a full rundown of what to expect the night before our first float at the small house Airbnb that Danny had found for us.
The next morning we made a longish drive after a gas station breakfast and as soon as flies hit the water, smallmouth were rising for them. It was a day of steady rises and good to great fish in the net. As morning was turning into afternoon, we used the excuse of Danny catching a larger smallmouth as a reason to pull the raft over, get out, and take a few photographs followed by a needed soak in the river to cool down. We followed this with another swim an hour or so later while enjoying lunch in the shade. I’m not sure a chicken salad sandwich (on lightly toasted bread) could have tasted better than sitting chest deep in the river.
afternoon. We ended the day with Danny going two slurps for two hook sets on brute smallmouth that were sitting right where you’d expect and hope them to be. The first, the larger of the two, was at the hard shadow edge of a concrete bridge base and the second came out from under a mess of structure from a downed tree. Of course both of these fish gave us good reason to get
out of the boat for a swim and a stellar way to end the day. I couldn’t have had more fun than to set backseat watching it all go down with my camera in hand.
If you find yourself anywhere nearby, book a day or several with Mike Rennie of Blue Mountain Drift. You won’t disappointed and expect to hear a loud raspy shout of SET!!! if you’re not watching your fly. Don’t ask Danny and I how we both know…
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