Latest / The Articulate Fly / S6, Ep 94: Weather Whiplash and Smallmouth Strategies in Southwest Virginia

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S6, Ep 94: Weather Whiplash and Smallmouth Strategies in Southwest Virginia · The Articulate Fly

• 0:03
  Marvin: Hey folks it's Marvin cash the host of the articulate fly we're back with another
• 0:07
  Marvin: Southwest Virginia fishing report with Matt Riley Matt how are you I'm.
• 0:12
  Matt: Doing great man how are you.
• 0:13
  Marvin: As always I'm just trying to stay out of trouble and it's kind of funny we were
• 0:18
  Marvin: kind of joking that you know maybe we've seen the last of the heat for this summer you.
• 0:23
  Matt: Have to check with the local weatherman Ellis word down in Tennessee on that
• 0:27
  Matt: front but I'm not I was really willing to stick my neck out there.
• 0:32
  Matt: But it sure seems, you know, if you look at the next couple weeks,
• 0:36
  Matt: I mean, for mid to late August, we're sitting pretty right now with temps in
• 0:43
  Matt: the, like, our morning temps have been in the 50s.
• 0:47
  Matt: I think we're going to have a couple of, like, high 40s.
• 0:50
  Matt: And then daytime in the 60s, 70s, getting back up into, like,
• 0:56
  Matt: the mid upper 80s next week. But, you know, for the late August,
• 1:01
  Matt: mid to upper 80s is pretty, pretty cool.
• 1:07
  Matt: And, you know, who knows what happens after that? We could have some 90 degree
• 1:11
  Matt: days in October for all we know. But that's what it's looking like right now.
• 1:16
  Marvin: Yeah, I think Ellis owes me the day of the first snow in Johnson City the next time I talk to him.
• 1:23
  Matt: Yeah i i'm gonna i i think a good guess on that would be uh sometime between
• 1:30
  Matt: october 15th and uh october 15th yeah.
• 1:35
  Marvin: So you know it's interesting you know when we were together fishing that was
• 1:38
  Marvin: kind of on the front edge of that tropical depression you've had a lot of yo-yoing
• 1:42
  Marvin: around in terms of conditions and i was kind of curious what that's done to your smallmouth bite.
• 1:47
  Matt: Yeah it's it's been kind of all over the board
• 1:50
  Matt: and to be completely honest i've jumped i've jumped
• 1:54
  Matt: fisheries a fair bit um just kind
• 1:57
  Matt: of reacting to water and um you know damn fluctuations and temperature drops
• 2:04
  Matt: and all that kind of thing so um i can tell you what i've seen you know i I
• 2:11
  Matt: haven't been on one river or fishery for a whole week in the last couple of weeks.
• 2:16
  Matt: But we definitely had, I guess,
• 2:19
  Matt: you know, our whole corner of the state got skipped over by all the rainfall
• 2:24
  Matt: that hit out towards you and Charlotte and central North Carolina and even like
• 2:30
  Matt: Lynchburg, Roanoke area.
• 2:31
  Matt: So we were pretty much, I mean, we got some rain and the new river came up.
• 2:39
  Matt: To over 5,000 cubic feet at Radford for a day or two and then drop back down
• 2:46
  Matt: to seasonal flows pretty quickly.
• 2:48
  Matt: No real dirty water to speak of.
• 2:52
  Matt: Um, and then it, uh, cooled off quite a bit, you know, like we were talking about earlier,
• 2:58
  Matt: um, mid August, we usually get a bit of a cold snap, but I think that tropical
• 3:04
  Matt: depression coming through kind of supercharge it a little bit.
• 3:07
  Matt: Um, but that, that storm day, I think was Thursday of last week or two weeks ago.
• 3:16
  Matt: And, um, a couple of days before that were pretty dang weird.
• 3:20
  Matt: Weird um and then the few days after that
• 3:23
  Matt: i think we were just kind of suffering from
• 3:27
  Matt: you know conditions getting jerked
• 3:31
  Matt: around a bit rising water quickly dropping water
• 3:34
  Matt: temps drop and all that kind of stuff so it's been pretty funky um we've we're
• 3:40
  Matt: still i mean i I may have said a couple of times that last week was one of the
• 3:48
  Matt: worst slash hardest weeks of my guiding career.
• 3:54
  Matt: But, I mean, we still managed to put, you know, a couple 20-ish fish in the
• 4:00
  Matt: boat and a bunch of really solid fish.
• 4:04
  Matt: So, it's really hard to complain too much. um and you
• 4:08
  Matt: know now we're faced with this uh
• 4:12
  Matt: cold front that kind of kind of
• 4:15
  Matt: swept through today we had high wind and bright
• 4:19
  Matt: sunny conditions and the high in the
• 4:22
  Matt: like you know low 70s so
• 4:25
  Matt: um things are definitely changing um i think
• 4:28
  Matt: things will get better in the next week when the when the temperatures
• 4:31
  Matt: start coming up again um and certainly
• 4:35
  Matt: our top water fishing will be a little
• 4:38
  Matt: bit better um with temp climbing
• 4:42
  Matt: i really really like to see like upper 70s to mid 80s temperatures for for really
• 4:51
  Matt: solid bug fishing um you certainly have good good fishing outside of that range
• 4:56
  Matt: particularly this time of year when you got cicadas drop in and And, you know,
• 5:01
  Matt: just lots of bugs around in low, clear water.
• 5:04
  Matt: But certainly it'll be nice to have a water to shoot up a little bit again. Yeah.
• 5:10
  Marvin: And so as it starts to turn cold, does that kind of, you know,
• 5:14
  Marvin: clue the smallies in that they need to put the feed bag on? Yeah.
• 5:17
  Matt: Yeah, I mean, I do think that's a thing people talk about, like the fall bite,
• 5:23
  Matt: you know, as soon as, you know, whatever it is, September 20th,
• 5:27
  Matt: 21st, 22nd, first day of fall, everybody starts talking about how, you know, fall bites on.
• 5:33
  Matt: Well, I think it's a lot more complicated than that.
• 5:37
  Matt: I think across species, you see a shift happening about this time of year on
• 5:46
  Matt: our tailwater systems, the Boone Lake system.
• 5:49
  Matt: You'll start seeing big brown trout moving around, kind of pre-spawn,
• 5:55
  Matt: moving up into the river, out of the lake.
• 5:59
  Matt: Our temps will start dropping a little bit. They'll come out of that late July,
• 6:04
  Matt: early August peak on the warm water natural rivers, and you'll start seeing
• 6:10
  Matt: musky disassociating from the cold water refuge spring,
• 6:16
  Matt: creek mouth kind of water.
• 6:18
  Matt: You'll start seeing the small mouth kind of, like I said, they'll slow down
• 6:25
  Matt: in the morning sometimes, but they're still pretty buggy.
• 6:28
  Matt: Um and i think that little bit of a cold snap
• 6:31
  Matt: does kind of clue them in there and and
• 6:34
  Matt: i think that's part of why we have some fantastic fishing
• 6:37
  Matt: in august and september um so i i think that's a real thing um and that uh some
• 6:46
  Matt: of those colder overnights will kind of help kill off some of those those cicadas
• 6:50
  Matt: too and that's just a sliding you know it's a it's a gradient as we get into to mid-October,
• 6:57
  Matt: colder overnights, killing cicadas and June bugs and all that stuff off and
• 7:03
  Matt: having more of that available on the surface of the water, creating some good bug fishing.
• 7:10
  Matt: So, yeah, I think that mid-August timeframe is a pretty pivotal time as kind
• 7:18
  Matt: of the beginning of the end.
• 7:19
  Matt: And, you know, once we get into October, things can kind of stabilize a little
• 7:26
  Matt: bit because you can have real cold weather, you can have real warm weather,
• 7:29
  Matt: and usually we're not getting a lot of rainfall.
• 7:32
  Matt: And so sometimes the fishing can, you can have some challenging days at time of year,
• 7:38
  Matt: but really the, I think the better fishing that's associated with the changing
• 7:45
  Matt: of summer into fall usually happens kind of early.
• 7:49
  Matt: Early in that in that transition and late in that transition so like august
• 7:54
  Matt: september and then and then later in the fall so i i think you're right it's.
• 7:59
  Marvin: Interesting too i was just looking at the calendar i mean we've lost an hour
• 8:02
  Marvin: of daylight in the last what seven weeks.
• 8:05
  Matt: Oh it's it's ridiculous man i mean and and uh you know in another i mean daylight
• 8:12
  Matt: savings times just in you know,
• 8:15
  Matt: less than less than three months and then it'll be getting dark at five o'clock
• 8:20
  Matt: so um things change pretty quickly and um you'll start to notice that when you're uh.
• 8:29
  Matt: When you're i do anyway we're bug fishing in
• 8:32
  Matt: in september because you'll you'll
• 8:37
  Matt: have to pay attention to the kind of angle of
• 8:40
  Matt: the sun you know you'll have these these pools sometimes
• 8:44
  Matt: times that you're fishing really low clear water late in the
• 8:46
  Matt: day and say the sun
• 8:50
  Matt: is at your you know at your back and
• 8:53
  Matt: you're fishing the right bank and there's lots of fish lots of good habits at
• 8:58
  Matt: and um but that that sun angle just getting lower and lower earlier in the day
• 9:03
  Matt: and it can sometimes cast some pretty sharp shadows and make that kind of fishing
• 9:09
  Matt: a little tougher you know it it's something I notice every year,
• 9:13
  Matt: whereas you run through that same spot at four or five, six o'clock in July
• 9:16
  Matt: and the sun's still way overhead and you don't have to worry about that quite
• 9:20
  Matt: as much. So things are definitely changing.
• 9:23
  Matt: Um, and, uh, you know, they've got less and less of a daytime window to operate with.
• 9:29
  Matt: So some of those kind of more visual feeding fish like, like smallmouth,
• 9:35
  Matt: again, I think that's another kind of, uh, motivator to feed this time of year.
• 9:41
  Marvin: Yeah, got it. And you know, folks, we love questions at the Articulate Fly.
• 9:45
  Marvin: You can email them to us or DM us on social media, whatever is easiest for you.
• 9:49
  Marvin: And if we use your question, I will send you some Articulate Fly swag.
• 9:52
  Marvin: We are drawing for some cool stuff from Matt at the end of the season.
• 9:55
  Marvin: And you know, Matt, you know, as I was joking with someone, we're getting close
• 9:58
  Marvin: to pumpkin spice latte time.
• 10:00
  Marvin: It means you're probably pretty full up on small mouth for like October,
• 10:06
  Marvin: but you're probably booking musky trips and all that kind of good stuff.
• 10:08
  Marvin: If you want to let folks know kind of what you have open and how to reach out
• 10:11
  Marvin: and all that kind of good stuff.
• 10:13
  Matt: Yeah, absolutely. I've been just talking to somebody on the phone about smallmouth dates.
• 10:19
  Matt: Nothing specific, but for next year, everything's booked for this year unless
• 10:24
  Matt: we're talking wintertime fishing.
• 10:28
  Matt: But I have been booking a pile of muskie dates,
• 10:32
  Matt: and they tend to go pretty quickly, especially considering we're usually traveling
• 10:39
  Matt: around the holidays, so that takes a couple weeks off the calendar.
• 10:43
  Matt: So, um, certainly if you're interested in that, give me a shout,
• 10:47
  Matt: um, my phone number and emails on the website, which is mattreillyflyfishing.com
• 10:53
  Matt: and, um, however you want to reach out is great.
• 10:58
  Matt: I love phone calls that way we can really kind of discuss and make sure everybody,
• 11:05
  Matt: um, you know, gets all their questions answered and knows what they're getting into. to.
• 11:09
  Matt: And, um, it's just nice to kind of, kind of have that open line of communication,
• 11:15
  Matt: whether we're planning something short term or, or talking about putting some
• 11:20
  Matt: dates on the calendar for a year out.
• 11:22
  Matt: Um, but yeah, all that's good.
• 11:25
  Marvin: Yeah. It's interesting. It's always amazing to me how few people take advantage
• 11:28
  Marvin: of guides that are willing to really talk to them and understand what they want
• 11:31
  Marvin: to accomplish on the water. And to me, it's super important.
• 11:35
  Matt: Oh it is i mean it uh not to get on too much of a safe box at the end of our four but,
• 11:43
  Matt: um there's a there's a lot of um
• 11:47
  Matt: there's there's a
• 11:49
  Matt: lot of of those kinds of like booking
• 11:52
  Matt: platforms out there these days and that's
• 11:55
  Matt: kind of one of the main talking points is you can
• 11:58
  Matt: they can save a guy a lot of time talking
• 12:01
  Matt: to clients and all that you know you just get their their phone
• 12:04
  Matt: number and tell them where to meet you at the beginning of the day and and
• 12:08
  Matt: that's that but i mean i firmly believe
• 12:11
  Matt: that if you want to uh get the most out of a trip and i think this goes for
• 12:17
  Matt: both both guides and and clients i mean if if you want to get the most out of
• 12:21
  Matt: a trip if everybody wants to be as happy as possible and as effective as possible
• 12:26
  Matt: and make sure you're You're fishing with the right people,
• 12:28
  Matt: people and guides,
• 12:31
  Matt: you know, the relationship and everybody having the same goals and the boat
• 12:36
  Matt: and all that is really important.
• 12:38
  Matt: I think, you know, talking to people, whether it's in person,
• 12:44
  Matt: on the phone, whatever, I think it's incredibly important.
• 12:47
  Matt: And I would not book a trip without doing that. So absolutely give me a call.
• 12:53
  Matt: And if I got time, I'll I'll talk your ear off about whatever you want to talk about. Yeah.
• 12:58
  Marvin: Getting close to getting squirrel hunt attempts, right?
• 13:02
  Matt: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We can squirrel hunt from the boat while we're while we're fishing for muskies.
• 13:10
  Marvin: There you go. Kill two birds with one stone. Well, you know,
• 13:13
  Marvin: folks, as I always say, you owe it to yourself to get out there and catch a
• 13:16
  Marvin: few tight lines, everybody tight lines, Matt.
• 13:20
  Matt: Thanks, Marvin.