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Meaty Bronzeback -- the first of many!

The South Fork of the Shenandoah between Stanley and Alma was our target this weekend as Paul and I looked to repeat the successful float we'd had on this stretch of the river a month ago with Fritz, Jacob and James.

The South Fork is hidden under the morning mist in the river valley

We dropped off Paul's van at the Alma takeout, loaded his tube in my van and we're gearing up at the Newport Boat ramp by 0745. With the benefit of the canoe I was loaded for bear with 4 rods, two spinning, two long determined to figure out what they were looking for and feed them a steady diet.

The Newport put-in w the sun rising over the ridge line

We half joked about a 200 fish day as we waded into the first rifle below the canoe launch. The water was about 3 inches lower than the last trip here and seemed perfect. Our plan was to really work this first extended riffle then make out way quickly through the 1/4 mile lake but after taking a modest half dozen or so fish from the riffle, try as we might, we were not able to move through the lake quickly.

Paul with his first smallmouth of the day

It's not like we were catching lots of fish, the bite was slow and steady, we were just having a hard not not trying each nook cranny, bolder and slot. We broke for some lunch and a barley-inspired beverage at 1130 and talked about having had a good day but not a great day numbers wise..."that's about to change" I offered, more hopeful than certain, as we entered the rock garden and rapids ahead and OH was I right. 
 

Golden Retrievers are still doing their magic

 

"Take care of the fish, and the fishing will take care of itself." 

 About this time Paul switched over to his fly rod and decided to use 1.5 inch mini-tubes in flecked silver with a 1/32 oz jig head inside. These were KILLERS. I fished mine on like a streamer he fished his more like a standard tube bait and both methods were deadly, his perhaps a little more effective than mine.  We trained ourselves to find the smallies' feeding stations in the pooling water just on the shoulders of the fast water.   Holy cow, it was like the smallies were at Golden Corral on payday.  

Big smiles on both their mugs

I mostly fished either beside or behind Paul and there were multiple times when he'd (no kidding) catch 6 smallies in 8 casts and 10 smallies in 12 casts!  AMAZING. 

Just like that our day went from good to epic  Just before caught his 100th fish he hooked into a huge fish in a pool that he was running the table on, he'd probably caught 10 fish in this slot to my 5 30 feet away...then it hit,  and we knew it was big.  It was very similar to a hooked salmon that decides towhead down stream so when Paul's fly line narrowed down to old backing he plopped in his tube and followed moby as he headed downstream through a rapid. Paul finally got his feet under him after a 50 yard fish-tube-pull and began to work moby into some slack water. At this point moby martial led kernel of a brain and decided to go to ground. Paul glimpsed him enough to decide that he was a monster catfish.  Moby-cat then found a piece of submerged metal grating and broke Paul off to end the excitement. This fish screamed the reel and took off like a torpedo, Paul and I have little doubt that he was one of those 25-30" cats that prowl the depths. I stayed right in my spot through this adventure and found a high enough casting platform to cast into Paul's fish hole and took 6-8 good sized bronzebacks from the same spot!  

 

Paul works a seam

 

standard Shenandoah bronzeback

Paul caught fish 100 a minute or two later and we both took a minute to appreciate an amazing day.  I was about 25 bass behind Paul at this point and caught my 100th about 2 hours later.  

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Paul Fish tight on

Armed with those silver mini tubes and an eye for the right water it was just one of those days. We had other adventures, lost paddles, shipwrecked families floundering in the rapids, sinking orcas and muscle bound dudes with girlfriends, but to hear about those stories you'll have to join on the next adventure. 

 The float ended when we were worn out. The fish were still boring but the sun had set behind the trees. We'd been on the water for 11.5 hours!  Every part of us was sore except for our spirits.  Paul had caught / brought to hand 158 fish and I BTH 118. Amazing. 

 

This was Paul's 100th smallmouth

Bristle-tooth(ed)

 

Go Nats -- beat mets!