Smallies

My client called me on Monday and had to cancel his trip yesterday. Unfortunately he fell and bruised his ribs. Now that I had the day off I decided that I would load up my pontoon boat and try to catch some small mouths on Scott's flat lake, but before I could go I should try to make the wife happy and do some chores around the house. It always amazes me how fast I can get them done when I want to fish!

I arrived to the lake around 11:00 set up two rods one rod had a 200 grain sinking line and the other was set up for drys. It was an overcast day with a nice breeze, the water was a little green in color, but still had good visibility. I started fishing with a 6 wt. rod a 200 grain line, 7 1/2 foot 3x tapered leader, my version of cutters gobblin and a small size 10 olive seal bugger.

I kicked out about 30' or so looked down into the water and saw my first victim swim bye. I stopped kicking stripped line off my reel and made my first cast in the direction I saw that smallie swim, let the fly sink for about 10 seconds stripped three times and BANG! First cast first fish not big in size but big with attitude. Oh you ask what fly did it take, well it took the seal bugger. I then proceeded to a submerged willow bush made a dozen cast and had few small grabs with no hook ups. (Hmmm) I then scooted over to some more submerged willows made one perfect cast let the fly sink for a few seconds stripped four or five times and felt some heaviness set the hook and yes it was a bull dog of a fight, the fished stayed deep turned the pontoon boat in circles and then decided to show her self, nice fat 3 to 4 pound small mouth. She wanted a bigger meal and took the size 4 version of the gobblin.

It was a stellar day of fishing, I landed 4 small mouths that were in that 3 to 4 pound class and lost a couple that were close in size. Mixed in with those big fish I caught a dozen or so smaller fish that ranged from 10" to 14". I also caught 6 rainbows that ranged in size from 12" to 18" the 18" rainbow looked and fought like it must of been a hold over from two years ago stocking.

My version of the goblin is tied with either crawdad orange pine squirrel or rabbit strip depending on the size of hook, I will also very the body color, I will some time use olive chenille with a black hackle, olive chenille and olive hackle, black chenille and olive hackle or orange grizzly hackle. I will also use a cone head bead for wieght, found that gold works well.