Transcript
Marvin:
[0:04] Hey, folks, it's Marvin Cash, the host of the Articulate Fly, and we're back with another Central Virginia Fishing Report with Ethan Martin at Telltale's Fly Shop. How you doing, Ethan? I'm doing great today.
Ethan:
[0:14] How are you doing?
Marvin:
[0:15] As always, I'm just trying to stay out of trouble, and I imagine you guys got a shot of rain through this last storm system, but I imagine things are starting to drop a little bit in your neck of the woods. What are you seeing on the water?
Ethan:
[0:26] Pretty much exactly what you just said. We have seen the flows are dropping.
We got a little shot of rain last night, but it's not enough to make things go crazy anywhere for the weekend, especially.
I mean, the James has been really good flows. If you want to do some smallmouth fishing, our small streams have been good fishing flows. They are maybe a touch lower than usual this time of year.
But all in all, it's pretty decent water right now for fishing.
And temps have been good too, because that's always a concern when you have low water is what are the temperatures doing?
But this spring's been a little bit more cool, and so the average temps out on the small streams are way under what would be considered a dangerous level to fish at.
So definitely, bug activity's been really good. I mean, just yesterday I saw some good size sulfurs just swimming around in downtown Lynchburg.
Or not swimming, but flying.
And then a couple guys went and fished in a small stream. Same thing, a bunch of little ...
I guess they're not little, like almost the size 12 or 14 yellow sallies and more of those yellow sulfurs.
So definitely a hot color is going to be yellow and oranges if you are going out fishing for trout.
So yeah, it's a great time of year right now.
Marvin:
[1:54] Yeah, and I would say, too, right, we were talking before we started recording, you know, your delayed harvest program is going to burn off here probably at the end of the month. You know, I looked at your forecast.
I don't see any real significant rain events for you. And I think the challenge to this time of year is once the trees get going, they soak up a lot of that moisture. So it kind of never makes it to the creek, right?
So it might be a smart thing to do to get out there and fish for trout because you're going to have all summer to fish for smallmouth.
Ethan:
[2:22] Yeah, and just to your point.
As those delayed harvest streams get more and more low and very clear, those trout can become pretty tricky to catch.
I know a lot of times people assume that stock trout are just stupid fish, but a lot of the ones on our delayed harvest streams have been in there for a while, hopefully unless they've been poached or killed or something.
[2:46] So at this point, tail end of the trout season, if you will, they're somewhat educated and they're definitely acclimated to their environment, knowing which bugs to eat, crayfish, that sort of stuff.
So, your tactics are going to have to be a little bit more spot on, but this is also a great time if you are a beginner that you can go out there and just throw like a little woolly bugger and catch fish because there's been a lot of spawns this time of the year.
There's a lot of the smaller minnows that are in the water, so it's a great pattern.
I know people have heard me say that before that A woolly bugger or just a small minnow imitation is a solid starting point if you're new to fly fishing because you don't have to have a perfect drift like you do with a bug because minnows swim and they're kind of erratic motion.
So if you're out there and you don't really know what's going on but you're newer to it, then this is a great time of year, especially if you can look at the whole list of online streams that are near us that have stock trout or delayed harvest trout and show up with basic little minnow, woolly bugger, black woolly bugger, whatever you're thinking, and give it a go.
So certainly, if that's been something that you've been debating on, what time of year should I go out and do this? Should I wait till fall?
This is the time of year I would go. If I'm a newbie or taking a newbie out, this is 100% when I would go. Yeah.
Marvin:
[4:13] Or you could just take the the approach, fish or work, and you go, fish.
Ethan:
[4:18] Yes, again, yeah, who needs work?
Marvin:
[4:21] Who needs work? And then, you know, kind of what are you seeing on the small mouth front?
Ethan:
[4:26] Smallmouth has been pretty good, too. I mean, it's been post-spawn, so most of those fish have spawned.
And the minnow baitfish game has also been pretty good there.
So we've caught some big fish already this spring. I haven't posted pictures of them or anything, but there's been quite a few really good looking fish that have come out of the James this year.
So definitely, if that's something that you're interested in, then give it a go. And most of it's going to be be ripping streamers.
The perk, and you know, I'll touch on this too, because I've gotten a couple emails recently of people asking about like, should I use a sinking line under James right now? Do I need intermediate? Can I get away with the floating?
Like the flows right now are pretty decent in our neck of the woods.
So you can get away with a floating line if you have a sinking fly.
[5:23] But, you know, depth is always gonna be a pretty big thing with every type of fish.
And so, if the river that you're fishing, that section has a 20-foot deep hole and you're fishing a floating line, so you're only fishing the top, like, two to four foot of water, if that, then, you know, you're not gonna be where those fish are.
But, again, if you're floating, you're gonna cover a bunch of different types and varieties of water during the day.
So, you know, if you focus on the bank and you focus on those areas that are, like, two to four foot of water, then for sure, you can go out and fish streamers with a floating line, you know, like a Clouser Minnow or something like that.
And that's been working pretty well, honestly. So for me, you know, early spring especially, I usually have a sinking line on, but we're kind of getting into that transition where the water is low enough that you can do it with a floating line.
So it's another one of those barrier to entries that some people have with smallmouth fishing They think, well, you know, I've got a six weight, but I need to have a sinking line and then need to have all these new flies and all this.
[6:29] In reality, if this is the time of year that you want to go out and give it a go, and you've got a caboose in your backyard, then it's not too hard to just strap up that six weight with the floating line, grab a couple of the biggest woolly buggers you can find, or clouds or minnows, something with some weight to it, and then just float down the river and cast at the bank.
I mean, this is the time of year where that stuff starts pretty good.
So I've heard of some people, too, catching them on the swimming frogs, the umpqua swimming frogs, that everybody that's in the small mouth game has used them for the most part.
So, yeah, I mean, this time of the year is great for casting and active retrieves back to you. A little different than late summer where you're casting and you just let that popper sit on the surface for a bit.
So, yeah, that's the tactics.
Marvin:
[7:19] Yeah, it's interesting, too, right, because you can kind of cheat a little bit.
And I think Rio makes those those sinking leaders, right?
That you can add to a floating line and then put your leader on that, your mono or your fluoro leader.
And that'll kind of let you cheat a little bit for some of those cases before you want to go and invest either in a full sinking or – I mean, the only downside is they hinge, but they also probably cost less than $20. They do. Yeah.
Ethan:
[7:51] So, for perspective, scientific angler sells them – we sell them in a shop.
They're like $12.95 for one, which is basically, you can pick which sinking leader style you want and how long it is.
So they make a ton of different options. There's a six-foot option that's intermediate.
There's a nine-foot option that's intermediate or sink three or sink six.
And then we even have like little... There's a leader wallet that you can get all of them, and it's a little bit cheaper. So that product is cheaper still than an actual sinking line.
So you could have that little leader wallet with intermediate SYNC3, SYNC6, and then six different types of SYNC rates, and you would be in it for less than what an actual syncing line costs, which is usually right now about $100 for a syncing line.
That's easier to cash than just like the $50 ones. So yeah, definitely, if you're budget conscious, then that is definitely an option that you can keep with you all the time.
And it's a great, great product, in my opinion.
Marvin:
[8:57] Yeah, because I mean, when you buy a sinking line, you're not just talking about the line, you need a spool at a minimum, right?
So you know, it's definitely a better tool.
But if you don't fish them a lot, it's that's a great workaround.
And it's kind of interesting, too, because, you know, Brenner's got a question for you as we move kind of into midsummer, which I guess is probably, I don't know, a month from now, I would say.
Yeah. You know, he wanted to kind of get the 411, I guess, on what the small mouth will be eating about that time of year, right?
Ethan:
[9:29] Yeah. Still, one of my favorite things to throw is minnows that time of year.
They're opportunistic feeders, so they're going to eat crayfish.
They're going to eat baitfish.
They're going to eat any damselflies that they can catch on the surface, but I'd say the bulk of their food is still going to be baitfish and other little guys swimming around.
Definitely that's something that I would focus on, but if you go out and you start throwing crayfish and you're like, well, I'm not catching them because they're just not eating crayfish this time of year.
That's not necessarily true because if you've ever fished with live bait like I did when I was a kid, we'd go and catch a little great crayfish out of the jeans and you chuck that through any hole, there is a fish that will eat that regardless of what time of year it is.
Same thing with a halberd mite, those terrifying things.
For the most part, it's still going to be about presentation and getting your fly in front of that fish, um, and you know, if that's an active retrieve that's triggering, or if that's, you know, the, the fish sees it and just identifies it as food and just comes and engulfs it.
Um, you know, I'd still say at the end of the day, I would be throwing bait fish to start.
Um, but I think presentation and where you're putting the fly matters a whole lot more than what is at the end of that, particularly for smallmouth.
Marvin:
[10:51] So, yeah, and I would say too, right? I mean, you know, the river is going to tell you, but you know, to your point, if you're small, if you're throwing small streamers, it's a whole lot easier to switch to throwing topwater stuff than it is if you're basically dredging with patterns on the bottom.
You know, I don't know, it's kind of a question of like, what's more fun to you to fish, right? Even if you don't catch as as many fish.
Ethan:
[11:14] For sure.
Marvin:
[11:15] Yeah, and I always say, you know smallmouth fishing and when you watch a white game changer disappear, it's pretty killer Yes, I agree That's what's hard about it.
Ethan:
[11:24] I think a lot of times is like it's so it can be so visual so Anytime you're giving up visual to catch more fish, you know, there's a lot of people out there that are going to say Well, absolutely.
I want to catch more fish and the truth of the matter is well Yeah, I mean I also want to catch more fish But eventually, you're going to be like, okay, well, I want to see me, you know, top water.
And so like, you'll develop preferences within still, I want to catch the maximum amount of fish.
And it's like, okay, well, I want to catch the maximum amount of fish that I can catch with a top water fly.
So then you can kind of search through which top water fly is going to work the best, what size, what color, you know, is that a frog? Is that a minnow or something like that? So there's always options.
Marvin:
[12:06] There's always options and I think that's part of the fun of it is just exploring through your options basically you know every day out of the water you can try something different, Fly you can email them to us you can DM us on social media if we use your question I will send send you some articulate fly swag and you're in here, something cool from the shop at the end of the season.
And Ethan, before I let you go, you want to let folks know where you are, shop hours and all that kind of good stuff.
Ethan:
[12:46] Yep. Yeah. So we're located on main street in downtown Lynchburg, Virginia.
So if you're in the central Virginia area, we're right on the dam driver.
So especially through the summer, you know, you can come stop by and you can go wait fish right downtown and catch a bunch of smallmouths.
So it's a pretty cool neck of the woods. If you can't ever make it to our physical location, though, we have, for the most part, all of our products are online as well.
So great, great place. You know, if you're looking to support a local business, then we are happy to help any way we can.
Marvin:
[13:19] Yeah, well, there you go. Well, listen, folks, you owe it to yourself to get out there and catch a few. Tight lines, everybody. Tight lines, Ethan. That works.