Countdown to the End

I'm still hitting the bass hard this summer before I leave for State College and while I'm excited for college, I know I won't be able to fish like I can now, so I'm putting in as much time on the water as possible.  Two weekends ago, my uncle and I took my pontoon boat onto a small lake in South Jersey right by his house.  My uncle is a great fisherman and a great dude.  Over the years he has taught me a ton about fishing and about life in general.  Whenever we get together and hit the water, I know it's gonna be a good time.  It was hot and we could only fish during the middle of the day, but we got it done with quite a few largemouths that were still willing to play.  My uncle, affectionately known to everyone as "Bub," cleaned up with texas and carolina rigged rubber worms on a light spinning outfit and I picked up a few bass casting large streamers to structure and weed beds. We had a blast and I can't wait to do it again!

Uncle Bubba with his first of the day

A little bit better bass

Last Sunday, I was going to float the lower Schuylkill river a little bit closer to home with a buddy I went to high school with, but when he called and couldn't make it, I called up a customer turned friend, Josh, to see if he was game.  Turns out he was free, so we met in Phoenixville and then shuttled the cars and my boat up to Limerick.  I had never floated this stretch of the Skuk, but we figured the bass fishing would still be decent.  Well it turns out we figured wrong.  The stretch we floated was shallow, slow and pretty much structureless.  We saw a few nice bass, but nothing crazy and those that we saw were super spooky and didn't want to eat.  We did, however, see a number of GIANT carp, so I might be back to do a little sight fishing on those big sandy flats in that stretch of water.  I pretty much just rowed and coached Josh through his first time fishing streamers for bass off of a drift boat.  Josh was great on the boat and fished the whole time, never complaining about the lack of action.  His persistence payed off with a solid smallmouth that gave us an awesome acrobatic aerial show right before last light.  Even tough the fishing was definitely far from great, I still had an awesome time and I hope Josh did too.  We'll get 'em next time man.  Remember, when the weather gets hot and the trout fishing gets slow, grab a bigger rod and chase smallmouth... They are a ton of fun on the fly rod and can really turn a hot summer day into an awesome day of fly fishing!

Josh with a great Schulykill River Smallmouth

Fatty