The oppressive heat has confined our fishing to lowlight periods. An evening trip prompted a long upstream wade to a deep, shaded pool near a spring that figured to hold good numbers of smallmouth bass. Thirty minutes without a hit on streamers forced us to switch from floating line at 1 to 2 i.p.s. and a size-4 Craw Bully. Casting upstream in slow-moving pocket water, we allowed the fly to rest on the bottom before employing a “lift, drop, strip” retrieve. Action came immediately, and we netted 14 smallies from 8 to 14 inches. On the wade back out one of our old wading boots came completely apart. Fish hard; fish very hard.
Heat Wave Smallmouths
