Back to the basics...

As far as fly fishing goes, most of us started out by wading some little creek somewhere in hopes of getting a finicky ol' trout to eat some tiny little fly. We would end up over the years spending hours by trekking many miles up and down these streams, waist deep in the water. Wade fishing is how it all began for most of us. Getting down on the same level as the fish, trying to be stealthy, and making a good cast without putting our flies in the tree branches behind us...it was all part of the unique experience that only wade fishing can give you.

In recent years, we have been fortunate enough to began fishing from drift boats in our pursuit of all things fishy here in the Ozarks. Its an amazing way to see and fish these rivers. It has its advantages over wade fishing, no doubt about it. It makes fly fishing more of a social experience as well when you get to share the boat with 2 of your good fishing buddies. Its great in its own right....BUT, there comes a time when you just need to get back to the basics...

This happened a few weeks back on an early Sunday morning for JoeyC and myself. We had planned on floating one of our favorite smallmouth streams with another buddy of ours but family plans required him to miss the trip then JoeyC and I both had fishing time constraints to adhere to. So, instead of floating, we decided to just wade fish a couple of our favorite sections of a couple of smallie rivers. I left the house around 4:30am and met up with JoeyC at 6:30am at the 1st access point where we would begin our descent downstream in hopes of sticking a few bronze backs. Wet wading sounded like a great idea till the temp gauge on the truck was reading 56 degrees when I got to the river and I had left my waders at the house. Nice. Here goes nothing...

Luckily, the river temp wasn't too bad at all as we dropped in and started making our way downstream. Armed with our 6wts and fly boxes full of big nasty streamers, we began our assault on all of the fishy spots in hopes of luring a big smallmouth from its lair. It didn't take long at all, actually it was on my 2nd cast, as I put the fly next to a log jam and saw a big gold flash. Fish on!! In the heavy current, the fish put a serious bend into the rod and made a couple of awesome runs. Smallmouth are just bad ass....pure and simple!

The bite was good for us that morning. We threw DDs on full sink lines in all the likely spots and the fish obliged us with some seriously cool eats. Now with throwing the bigger streamers, our overall numbers do go down but the quality is definitely up on the fish. I gotta give smallmouth some credit though, even the little ones can get a little over zealous and try to eat a fly thats over half its size. They hit harder than the big ones do too! Its totally insane. Want evidence? Take a look at this greedy lil' SOB below....

After wading down as far as we could go, we jumped back up on the county road and hiked back up to the vehicles so we could go check out another river where we knew there were some serious mondo sized ditch pickles hanging out. Sadly, thanks to a few individuals who have no respect for people's property, we were met with "No Trespassing" and "Private Property" signs at the pull off spot on the county road where we normally park. JoeyC was just there earlier in the week too! We were SOL so we drove on up river to the next bridge where there was another pull off to park and access the river. We waded backed downstream to the very upper parts of the section we were wanting to fish, we didn't even get to fish the primo water that we had in mind. We were able to stick a couple decent fish but the bite had slowed for us with the high mid day sun and we were starting to see some canoe/kayak traffic as well. Part of it....

Great day on the water. It was good to get back to our roots per say and do some wade fishing on our favorite stretch of smallmouth water. Looking forward to what the summer is gonna bring us as far as the smallmouth fishing goes. The topwater bite should be kicking off in fully swing anytime. We have a big group trip planned for next weekend as well for smallmouth. 3 drift boats, 9 anglers, and a lot of quality smallmouth water to fish. It should be epic...

Here are a few other pictures from the day's trip. Hope you guys enjoy the pics...

Until next time, keep chasing the dream...