Latest / The Articulate Fly / S6, Ep 51: The Ruch Report: Brendan Ruch on Post-Spawn Smallmouth Strategies

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S6, Ep 51: The Ruch Report: Brendan Ruch on Post-Spawn Smallmouth Strategies · The Articulate Fly

• 0:03
  Marvin: Hey folks, it's Marvin Cash, the host of the Articulate Fly,
• 0:06
  Marvin: and we're here for the inaugural Roosh Report with none other than the OG Brendan
• 0:10
  Marvin: Roosh himself. Brendan, how are you?
• 0:13
  Brendan: Doing great. I'm fantastic. Thanks for having me.
• 0:16
  Marvin: Yeah, it's awesome. And you got a great, you had a guide's day off today.
• 0:21
  Brendan: Yeah, it's rare to have a day where I don't have to travel somewhere.
• 0:25
  Brendan: So yeah, it was nice to wake wake up later than I'd like to admit and take care
• 0:30
  Brendan: of some things and hang out.
• 0:31
  Marvin: Yeah. In the PM, not the AM, right?
• 0:35
  Brendan: Close to it.
• 0:37
  Marvin: Good for you. And, you know, it's kind of funny because I talked to the guys
• 0:40
  Marvin: at TCO in State College and, I mean, just like kind of everywhere,
• 0:44
  Marvin: kind of on the Eastern Seaboard, we've gotten a fair amount of rain in the last week to 10 days.
• 0:48
  Marvin: And I would imagine that's probably at a minimum wrecked your major tributaries, right? Right.
• 0:55
  Brendan: Yeah, we got kind of pushed off of the larger rivers and in a good way,
• 1:02
  Brendan: kind of, you know, got to get back to like April conditions on some of the smaller bodies of water.
• 1:08
  Brendan: So it's been nice this year. it's kind of like once the tributaries start to
• 1:12
  Brendan: get clear the bigger rivers are coming down kind of like right into like the
• 1:16
  Brendan: prime like you know six inch fly water where it's like green like,
• 1:23
  Brendan: four feet of visibility at most um and the big fish are just you know that's
• 1:27
  Brendan: when they like to hunt so um and then when it rains again the tributaries are
• 1:32
  Brendan: blown for a day or two and then And you're back in that prime water for at least a few days.
• 1:39
  Marvin: Yeah, and I would imagine, too, even though you're a little bit farther north
• 1:42
  Marvin: than some of the other folks I talked to about smallmouth, I'd imagine you are
• 1:46
  Marvin: well on the other side of the spawn, and I would hope your bass are probably
• 1:50
  Marvin: not sulky anymore, right? Yeah.
• 1:53
  Brendan: The higher water kind of put some pep in their stick.
• 1:59
  Brendan: Last week, a week and a half ago, we were getting some pretty skinny fish post-spawn,
• 2:04
  Brendan: in faster current, prime feeding spots.
• 2:10
  Brendan: The past few days, the fish really put on some weight in that high water.
• 2:15
  Brendan: They're almost at pre-spawn weight. Some of the fins are showing a little sign
• 2:20
  Brendan: that they were on beds recently, but the fish are They're killing big flies
• 2:24
  Brendan: and, uh, feeling, feeling fat and happy again.
• 2:28
  Marvin: Yeah. And so with the kind of the elevated water, does that kind of put them
• 2:32
  Marvin: on structure and they're just basically, you know, chasing ambushy? Is that kind of the MO?
• 2:37
  Brendan: Yeah, for sure. Um, like I had one of the best days of my career,
• 2:40
  Brendan: uh, about a week and a half ago and,
• 2:44
  Brendan: we were on some bigger water and first fish of the day was like a 19 and a half
• 2:49
  Brendan: and it was on mid river structure, like just a giant boulder.
• 2:54
  Brendan: And, um, that was kind of a good sign, like big post-spawn fish off the bed, back in the ambush zone.
• 3:00
  Brendan: And, uh, yeah, that kind of like set the tone for the rest of the day.
• 3:04
  Brendan: And a lot of those fish on the big river were just where they should have been.
• 3:10
  Brendan: We're kind of like in, you know, late March water where they're kind of packed the pounds on.
• 3:14
  Marvin: Got it. And so kind of from a gear and tactics perspective, you know,
• 3:18
  Marvin: are you kind of, what are your fishing streamers sort of mid column,
• 3:20
  Marvin: maybe with like, uh, intermediate lines? I mean, what's the,
• 3:23
  Marvin: what's the, what's the game on the tactics?
• 3:27
  Brendan: Yeah, with the water temps we have now, like post-spawn in the high water,
• 3:31
  Brendan: the fish are much more willing to come up than they are in late March, early April.
• 3:36
  Brendan: So we're fishing kind of like the same flies on intermediates.
• 3:42
  Brendan: The pauses can be a little bit shorter than they need to be in early spring,
• 3:46
  Brendan: which is cool because you get to see some fish that really want to commit and
• 3:51
  Brendan: they'll kind of just do a complete 180 on the fly. So you get to see the whole profile of the fish.
• 3:58
  Brendan: Um fishing either keel changers or like that leggy boy platform so like a small
• 4:05
  Brendan: tungsten bead behind the brush head uh just to keep that fly from wanting to
• 4:09
  Brendan: come up a little bit too high but definitely the top third of the water column.
• 4:12
  Marvin: Got it and sort of as you know things clear and the water drops i mean i know
• 4:18
  Marvin: it's a little early form to kind of spread out you know where should folks look
• 4:21
  Marvin: if they want to find them let's just say in a week or so you know know,
• 4:24
  Marvin: where, where are they going to migrate to as the water drops and clears out?
• 4:29
  Brendan: Um, fortunately it looks like we have enough rain to keep flows kind of where they are.
• 4:34
  Brendan: Um, but I think still like those, those mid river transitions,
• 4:40
  Brendan: um, specifically in the, the Rocky rivers that we have here,
• 4:43
  Brendan: uh, you might find some fish up on skinnier water,
• 4:46
  Brendan: but I'm, I'm typically fishing that
• 4:49
  Brendan: first real drop and the structure that relates
• 4:52
  Brendan: to that um fishing pretty wide current seams when the water drops out not necessarily
• 5:00
  Brendan: looking at like the small three foot wide seams on the bank uh just because
• 5:04
  Brendan: there isn't much isn't much margin for error in there when the fish are dealing
• 5:08
  Brendan: with birds of prey constantly got.
• 5:11
  Marvin: It and so you know we're you know we're getting ready to cruise into the beginning
• 5:14
  Marvin: of summer i guess officially with memorial day weekend coming up you know do
• 5:18
  Marvin: you uh you know it's going to be probably what a good month or so before your,
• 5:22
  Marvin: your top water fishing really kind of turns on.
• 5:26
  Brendan: Right now, we're getting a lot of fish looking up for frogs and even some bigger,
• 5:32
  Brendan: like the largest size boobabug, for instance.
• 5:36
  Brendan: I'm not mentally there yet. I still want to see fish kill the biggest streamers possible.
• 5:43
  Brendan: But if they start eating flies as soon as they hit the water,
• 5:46
  Brendan: then we'll switch to a frog.
• 5:48
  Brendan: But yeah, we're looking at maybe three, four weeks until it's prime topwater
• 5:54
  Brendan: season. and, and, uh, kind of just like stick to the program,
• 5:58
  Brendan: even if the morning isn't, or like the, you know, midday, it'll shut off on
• 6:02
  Brendan: top water, kind of stick to the program.
• 6:03
  Brendan: And usually you'll still get the larger fish looking up.
• 6:06
  Marvin: Got it. And I guess, you know, are you in the, uh, are you in the middle of
• 6:09
  Marvin: all the cicada craziness or is that not in your neck of the woods this year?
• 6:14
  Brendan: Unfortunately, we're missing that this year, but, uh, it seems like a lot of
• 6:18
  Brendan: people a little bit South of here, they're going to have a pretty good time.
• 6:22
  Marvin: Yeah. Yeah, it's been pretty nuts down here in the Carolinas and Virginia.
• 6:25
  Marvin: People have been tearing up bass, and they've been tearing up carp for sure.
• 6:29
  Marvin: And, you know, folks, we love questions on the Articulate Fly.
• 6:32
  Marvin: You can DM them to us or email them to us, whatever is easiest for you.
• 6:36
  Marvin: And if we use your question on an upcoming Roosh report, I will send you some Articulate Fly swag.
• 6:41
  Marvin: And we're working on putting together the prize package from Brendan,
• 6:45
  Marvin: but at a minimum it's going to have a bunch of Roosh angling swag and stickers,
• 6:48
  Marvin: but I'm sure there's going to be some other cool stuff as well.
• 6:50
  Marvin: And, you know, Brendan, before I let you go, you want to let folks know where
• 6:53
  Marvin: they can find you on social media, book you and fish with you and all that kind of good stuff.
• 6:57
  Marvin: And if you've got, you know, kind of open windows in your guide calendar,
• 7:01
  Marvin: why don't you let folks know about those as well?
• 7:04
  Brendan: Yeah, so you can reach me on Instagram at Brendan Ruch, E-R-E-N-B-A-N-R-U-C-H.
• 7:11
  Brendan: I just started a Facebook page for the business. It's Ruch Angling. And...
• 7:18
  Brendan: Yeah, my phone number will be in the show notes. And what was the second part
• 7:23
  Brendan: of your question? I'm sorry.
• 7:25
  Marvin: Let's see. Oh, open dates.
• 7:27
  Brendan: Yeah, so I have some open dates spread throughout the summer.
• 7:31
  Brendan: And if you want to get out and catch a bunch of smallmouth, we can certainly
• 7:36
  Brendan: do that on sub-circus stuff.
• 7:38
  Brendan: But summertime is a great time to kind of hunt a bigger fish on topwater.
• 7:45
  Brendan: Water and uh yeah the rivers we have here are definitely well suited for that.
• 7:50
  Marvin: Yeah very very cool and i also know you're famous you'll probably be tying with
• 7:53
  Marvin: the log jam guys tomorrow night if you got kind of uh other places people can
• 7:57
  Marvin: kind of catch up with you and kind of see what you're doing uh when you're not
• 8:01
  Marvin: on the water um doing crazy stuff with bananas and stuff like that or listening to the Smiths?
• 8:08
  Brendan: Yeah, so a few of my friends at Log Jam are crazy enough to want to tie flies
• 8:15
  Brendan: with me every Tuesday night at 8.35 Eastern.
• 8:19
  Brendan: So you can catch me there, and that'll be a pretty good time.
• 8:23
  Brendan: I would imagine I'll have some, maybe a house fly piece and a Log Jam hat in the giveaway as well.
• 8:30
  Marvin: Yeah, super cool. Well, listen, folks, Folks, you know, we are getting into
• 8:34
  Marvin: that great time of the year where, you know, you don't necessarily have to put your trout right away.
• 8:38
  Marvin: But there's some great warm water species you can chase on the fly.
• 8:41
  Marvin: You owe it to yourself to get out there and catch a few.
• 8:44
  Marvin: Tight lines, everybody. Tight lines, Brendan.