A Great Day Bass Fishing

These fish all came from my favorite smallie stretch of my home river.
Flies:
Shenk's White Minnow
Osthoff Wooly Bugger
Gartside Gurgler (Big Fish of the Day)

I Promised These Bass That I Would Make Them Famous

These are some leftover pictures from June that I never got around to posting.

As you can tell from these shots, I am not a purist.  In fact, I would probably spin fish more often if the damn line didn't tangle so much.  Yeah I know, use a small barrel swivel.  But that only works for so long.  Honestly though, spinning rods are extremely versatile.  You can cover a lot of water with one, they get into tight spots (no casting room) better than fly rods, and a lot of the time you can throw streamers (flies) better with them.  I find that you can put some wicked action on Shenk's Minnows and Sculpins with a spinning rod.

One of the Reasons I Haven't Posted Much Recently

Even a Blind Squirrel...

This guy or maybe it was a girl was a rare occurence.  It took a Mixed Media blind.

Generally you don't catch carp on the fly unless you are sight fishing, and even then, they are sometimes difficult to come by.

Up to this point, the day had been slow with fish hard to come by.  I had been stripping a Shenk's Minnow along with some other mid-level flies through some nice pools and runs with only some tiny smallmouths to show for my efforts.

This is the Mixed Media that did the trick.  Slowly dragging this baby through a nice deep pool rewarded me with a nice strong pull on the other end of my line.  This fly was also responsible for the following bass later in the outing.

You can see the Mixed Media sticking out of the side of this guy's face.

This little piggy nailed my fly shortly after it broke the surface of the water!  She went about 15".