Latest / The Articulate Fly / S6, Ep 112: Smallmouth Transitions and Musky Prep: Matt Reilly's Southwest VA Update

Transcript

S6, Ep 112: Smallmouth Transitions and Musky Prep: Matt Reilly's Southwest VA Update · The Articulate Fly

• 0:03
  Marvin: Hey folks, it's Marvin Cash, the host of the Articulate Fly.
• 0:06
  Marvin: We're back with another Southwest Virginia Fishing Report with Matt Riley. Matt, how are you?
• 0:12
  Matt: I'm doing all right, man. I'm recovering from a baby-born illness I've been
• 0:16
  Matt: struggling with for the last week or so.
• 0:18
  Matt: But we're staying out there.
• 0:22
  Marvin: Yeah, I mean, kudos for not missing any days on the water.
• 0:25
  Marvin: It's kind of amazing. When you told me that, it made me think about when we,
• 0:29
  Marvin: when our boys were little and they first started to go into daycare and they
• 0:32
  Marvin: would bring home this like little house on the prairie plague and they would
• 0:35
  Marvin: like spit up a tablespoon and then you were in bed for like four days.
• 0:39
  Matt: Yeah, well, it's a funny story about that. Finnick had been not in daycare for
• 0:45
  Matt: quite a while and he just,
• 0:48
  Matt: he started like one day a week, a couple of weeks ago. I think we've been sick twice since then.
• 0:57
  Marvin: I will tell you it gets better.
• 1:00
  Matt: I'm sure I'm sure it does it was pretty good there for a little while I don't
• 1:05
  Matt: think I've been sick since Christmas.
• 1:09
  Marvin: Well don't jinx yourself it's interesting, we were talking before we started
• 1:13
  Marvin: recording you've got probably three more weeks on the Smalley train with a little
• 1:18
  Marvin: bit of fishing for yourself before you jump on the Muskie train but what are
• 1:22
  Marvin: you seeing out on the Smallmouth water.
• 1:25
  Matt: Um, we, we are fairly in transition.
• 1:30
  Matt: We're, we're getting into that, uh, kind of odd in between fall, late summer timeframe.
• 1:38
  Matt: Um, the, uh, water, water trips have been kind of all over the place in the
• 1:43
  Matt: last couple of weeks, you know, then all the way down to the like mid to upper
• 1:47
  Matt: sixties, mid to lower seventies, upper seventies.
• 1:52
  Matt: Um and what what that means is especially with uh we've had a couple shots of rain,
• 2:01
  Matt: um in the last couple weeks it brought the river
• 2:04
  Matt: up we had a big one a couple days ago um so
• 2:09
  Matt: it's brought some uh some kind of
• 2:11
  Matt: power fishing techniques back into into the arsenal um the fish have been a
• 2:18
  Matt: little more you know a little less buggy um particularly in the mornings and
• 2:22
  Matt: a little more willing to chase things fairly aggressively when the water temps
• 2:28
  Matt: have been kind of stably low.
• 2:31
  Matt: Especially with some little bit higher flows.
• 2:34
  Matt: But when we have those couple warm afternoons and lower water and a couple warm
• 2:43
  Matt: days in a row, the bug fishing has been pretty good too.
• 2:46
  Matt: So it's a real grab bag and you're just kind of reading the weather and conditions
• 2:51
  Matt: day to day like you always do.
• 2:53
  Matt: And in certain places, it kind of seems like we've been seeing some fish potted
• 2:57
  Matt: up like we will usually late September.
• 3:01
  Matt: And I mean, we're pretty close to late September.
• 3:05
  Matt: So, you know, things are definitely changing.
• 3:08
  Marvin: Yeah, it's interesting. I think Ellis screwed up the weather forecast again
• 3:11
  Marvin: because I looked at the weather and it's going to actually, you know,
• 3:14
  Marvin: warm up a decent amount kind of in this part of the world for the next week to 10 days.
• 3:19
  Matt: Yeah, that's on you for listening to him.
• 3:21
  Marvin: Well, I was just going to encourage people to bet on the under for whatever
• 3:25
  Marvin: his earliest snowfall date is.
• 3:27
  Matt: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 3:29
  Marvin: So as we kind of move deeper, you know, into fall and things start to kind of
• 3:34
  Marvin: more consistently cool off, right?
• 3:35
  Marvin: You mentioned the fish potting up. i also would imagine they're going to start
• 3:39
  Marvin: to kind of move kind of out of the riffley water and kind of move into the deeper
• 3:42
  Marvin: stuff and kind of get ready to kind of hunker down.
• 3:46
  Matt: Um i mean not necessarily there's a long ways between you know upper 60s low
• 3:53
  Matt: 70s and you know upper 40s 50s degree water temperatures they'll uh.
• 4:00
  Matt: Once things really start to cool down, they will feed fairly well for a couple
• 4:08
  Matt: of weeks in preparation for that cold weather that's coming.
• 4:15
  Matt: And that's still several weeks off.
• 4:18
  Matt: But, I mean, you know, we still got warm water and fish being,
• 4:24
  Matt: you know, riffly water smallmouths right now. So that's definitely still a thing.
• 4:30
  Matt: And particularly, you know, before this last shot of rain, things have been real low.
• 4:35
  Matt: And when that's the case, they do tend to hang out oftentimes in the upper and
• 4:43
  Matt: lower extensive of pools, you know, closer to the moving water,
• 4:47
  Matt: just where you have some decent current.
• 4:52
  Matt: Um so i wouldn't say that's
• 4:54
  Matt: changed a ton just yet um and
• 4:59
  Matt: you know we we uh i feel
• 5:02
  Matt: like i say this a lot but when when you're floating down the river just kind
• 5:05
  Matt: of pay attention to where you're seeing food too you know um if you're seeing
• 5:09
  Matt: still seeing minnows and sunfish and things you know right up against the bank
• 5:14
  Matt: and up in riffles and little eddie pockets and stuff then And,
• 5:17
  Matt: you know, you're still good to go.
• 5:20
  Marvin: Got it. And, you know, folks, we love questions on the Articulate Fly.
• 5:23
  Marvin: You can email them to us or DM me on social media.
• 5:26
  Marvin: And if we use your question, I will send you some Articulate Fly swag.
• 5:29
  Marvin: We're going to be drawing for some cool stuff from Matt at the end of the season.
• 5:32
  Marvin: And, you know, Matt, I think I saw an email blast from you, what,
• 5:34
  Marvin: maybe a week to 10 days ago, that was kind of giving people kind of an idea
• 5:40
  Marvin: of what you had left on your muskie calendar, right?
• 5:45
  Matt: Yes, probably. kind of a general update on everything but muskies are definitely kind of the,
• 5:53
  Matt: you know what's in the immediate uh headlights
• 5:57
  Matt: right now um i'll i'll start doing some trips there kind of mid to late october
• 6:04
  Matt: um i mean we we we can fish them now i mean i've been a couple of times toting
• 6:12
  Matt: some muskie gear along with us smallmouth fishing um,
• 6:17
  Matt: just to kind of poke around some some likely areas and and see what's up but,
• 6:22
  Matt: the uh they'll really start getting hot and heavy kind of late october,
• 6:27
  Matt: early november and and carry it through february early early early march um,
• 6:34
  Matt: And, uh, yeah, I mean, there's some, there's some pretty popular windows that
• 6:38
  Matt: have pretty much come offline at this point, but, um, certainly if you'd like
• 6:43
  Matt: to get out musky fishing this year, um, so I learned more about it. Just give me a shout.
• 6:48
  Matt: Um, looked a lot in that, you know, November, December timeframe, um, January.
• 6:55
  Matt: So, uh, but there's still, there's still plenty left and, and a couple of good,
• 6:59
  Matt: you know, I say good, but what most people would consider prime moon dates.
• 7:06
  Matt: Give me a shout if you're interested, for sure.
• 7:09
  Marvin: Yeah, and you also, if I remember correctly, you were teasing your striper program, right?
• 7:14
  Matt: Yeah, man. That's about halfway booked already, believe it or not.
• 7:19
  Matt: We'll be doing some spring spawn and run striper fishing for about three weeks
• 7:24
  Matt: after our smallmouths start spawning.
• 7:28
  Matt: And then, you know, middle April or so through early May is when we'll be striper fishing.
• 7:38
  Matt: That's a cool program. Something a little, you know, we've been working on it.
• 7:42
  Matt: It'll be new for me this year.
• 7:45
  Matt: Just a chance to kind of get out of town while our smallmouth are creating the
• 7:50
  Matt: next generation and take some pressure off of our smallmouth fisheries and do
• 7:56
  Matt: something that's firing pretty hot at that time.
• 8:00
  Marvin: Yeah, very, very cool. Well, listen, I want to let you rest your voice so that
• 8:05
  Marvin: you have an easier day on the boat tomorrow.
• 8:08
  Marvin: But, you know, as I always say, folks, you owe it yourself to get out there and catch a few.
• 8:12
  Marvin: Tight lines, everybody. Tight lines, Matt.
• 8:15
  Matt: Thanks, Marvin.