7/24/16 Smallmouthapalooza

Larry, Mike, and I fished the Elkhart river on Sunday. the Three Rivers Fly Fishers was holding an outing at Island Park and our plan was to float the lower river and fish for Smallmouth and Pike. We would float the river and then meet up with the fly fishers for lunch. We met up around 7 to run a shuttle and get the day started early before the inevitable hot weather returned. I began the day by throwing the crayfish imitation fly that I had luck with the previous week during the tournament. Only 3 casts in, I hooked my first Smallmouth. From there, it never let up all day. I would estimate that I caught between 30 and 40 Smallmouth on the day. I never did land any big fish but I did have chances at several. Most of my fish fell between 10 and 14 inches. The fish were absolutely ravenous. If you hooked one, several more fish would be chasing it, trying to steal whatever it had eaten. I had several times where my fly popped out of a fishes mouth only to be immediately taken by another nearby fish. By 11 o'clock the crayfish fly was on it's last leg and didn't look good in the water anymore. It is absolutely destroyed and doesn't look anything what it did at the start of the day. In the lower river, I switched to a streamer and continued to catch fish. I was even using a two handed strip to move the streamer as fast as possible and still catching fish! I've never seen fish so willing to chase and smash fast moving flies. It was incredible! Some of the close up shots I took turned out really well. For whatever reason, Smallmouth seem to be one of the more photogenic fish around.