“Murray’s Fly Shop,” a young lady answered my call.
“Hi. Is Harry or Jeff in? I have a smallmouth emergency.”
“A smallmouth emergency? Uh. . .OK.”
Mr. Murray, wack job on line one. “Yeah, Harry is in. Just a minute, please.”
“Hello, this is Harry Murray.”
“Harry, it’s Dirk. I need your advice. We moved to Chapel Hill a year ago. I’ve fished the New River in North Carolina from Boone to Jefferson and on to the Virginia line. I’ve been three times since we moved and I haven’t seen a smallmouth, caught a smallmouth, or spoken to another fisherman on the water at the same time that has caught a smallmouth. I’m thinking I should try the New north of the state line, maybe at Independence. What do you think?”
The New River is frequently said with great authority to be the second oldest river in the world and an outstanding smallmouth stream. Its age is subject to some debate among geologists, though, and many suspect that it isn’t even the oldest river in the U.S. The Grand Canyon dwarfs the New River Gorge, after all. I was beginning to develop a dissenting opinion on the outstanding smallmouth part, too.
“Well. . .” , Harry began.
His pause wasn’t because he didn’t know what to say, but because he didn’t want to offend his Tar Heel friends.
“I just don’t understand it, but I’ve had several customers move to North Carolina and tell me the same thing. They’ll drive all the way back up here to the Shenandoah, driving right past some of the best smallmouth fishing in the state. I’d try the New in southern Virginia. Fish the fast water and pound the banks. Try the first few hours of daylight, or better yet, plan to be on the water until nearly dark.”
I moved to North Carolina planning to systematically locate the best trout and smallmouth fishing in the state, and to fly fish saltwater along the way. The south fork of the New River gets rave reviews, but in three trips I’ve drawn a big fat zero. Had I lost my ability to catch smallmouth on a fly? Were my smallmouth-catching skills somehow limited to Virginia streams?
Or, maybe the fish were really there but I just couldn’t see them.
I’ve done better with trout. My oldest son, Cary, and I fished the Wautaga River last fall with a guide and we caught some nice, big browns. Better yet, I discovered that the best trout streams in Virginia are much closer now than when I lived in northern Virginia. Big Wilson Creek, for example, is just over the Virginia border and less than three hours drive from my new home. It would have been nearly six hours from Northern Virginia.
But back to the smallmouth. I packed a six-weight and an eight-weight fly rod into the back of my SUV and headed north. I stopped the first evening near Independence, Virginia and unloaded next to the New River near the US 21 bridge close to the NC border about six in the evening. As I approached the water, I noticed a metal sign across the dirt road that paralleled the river. A branch covered most of it, but I could read enough to see that it was not a “No Parking” sign, which was good enough for me. Ignoring signs is rarely a wise decision, but when I get that close to a good fishing spot, the “wise” area of my brain short-circuits or something. I ignored it and waded in.
I fished the banks for about an hour and caught nothing, so I decided to try the fast water in the middle of the river. The water was August-shallow and clear as Perrier. Wading wet in just a pair of fishing shorts, a T-shirt and some wading shoes, I fished fifty yards across the river and I don’t think I ever got the legs of my shorts damp.
Thirty or so feet of fly line tied to a flexible nine-foot graphite fly rod make a fairly complex physical system. Once you develop the skill to make the weight of the line and the leverage and flexibility of the rod work in harmony, that system feels almost alive. Maybe that’s why we speak of “killing a cast” when we lose the timing of our motion and the fly line falls into a heap on top of the water instead of shooting out to our target. When it all works together, though, it feels like magic. That feeling is what I like most about fly fishing.
My family had given me a waterproof, 6 megapixel digital camera for Fathers Day. It is tiny enough to fit in a shirt pocket and they figured I could take pictures while I fish without worrying about dropping it into the water. It has a self-portrait mode for those snapshots people like to take of themselves and a friend by holding the camera at arm’s length. I wasn’t sure that I could take the camera from my pocket, turn it on and aim it, all while I had a fish on the line, so I tried a practice shot. It worked well enough without the fish, so I returned to covering the fast water with my fly.
I drifted a light blue popping bug behind a large boulder and suddenly my six-weight rod bent in half. The fish was so large that I had to work him into a few inches of water near the bank to land and release him. The eight-weight rod that I left in my trunk was starting to seem like the better choice.
In two hours, I caught only two fish, but one was the biggest smallmouth I’ve ever caught and the second wasn’t far behind. I left the river at dark and called Cary to tell him about my new personal best. And as I reached the car, I got a better look at that sign. Located on a small bend in the river that dips down into my new home state, it said “North Carolina State Line”. I had caught both fish in NC water. Technically, my Carolina smallmouth drought was over.
I spent the night in a hotel near I-77 and planned a few hours fishing the next morning before heading home. I decided to drive north about twenty miles to a place called Fosters Falls. I parked at the New River Trail State Park, picked up the lighter six-weight fly rod again, having learned absolutely nothing the night before, and waded into a beautiful spot on the river.
Upstream to my left was a small island, a dozen yards wide but a hundred yards long, covered with tall shade trees and splitting the river into a small stream on one side and a wide river on the other. The river was covered with large boulders, the sign of good smallmouth habitat. Just upstream of the island were the falls, a series of a half dozen drop-offs, each two to three feet high where the water poured over with a roar and flowed about fifteen feet to the next drop. Downstream I could see high bluffs on the opposite bank. The river was crystal clear, low and fast moving, with two great blue herons and geese everywhere on the water. A flight of twenty-two flew so low over my head in their giant vee that above the roar of the falls I could hear their wings beating the air. This is why I love to fish smallmouth rivers.
Using the same tactics and the same light blue popping bug as the night before, I picked up where I left off. Within twenty minutes, I landed a smallmouth larger than my personal best the night before. That was just the start. I caught about a dozen nice, fat smallmouth bass in a little more than two hours, none less than 12 inches long.
The sun was beating down by noon, but the cool water up to my knees and a light breeze made it very pleasant. I waded out and headed for home, with plans to stop in Greensboro for lunch with Cary.
When I reached our favorite barbecue joint, Cary had already gotten a table. I handed him my camera and said, “Take a look at the pictures of the fish I caught. I haven’t seen them, yet.” Then I headed to the men’s room to wash up.
When I returned to the table, Cary was smiling.
“Nice fish, huh?” I asked.
“Dad, “ he said with that special glee that teenagers reserve for ridiculing their parents, “you need to work on your self-photography. Only one of the pictures actually includes the fish.”
“What?” I reached for the camera and checked the LCD screen, flipping through the shots. Sure enough, four of the five pictures showed my big smile and my arm holding something completely out of the picture.
Oh, the fish is there, you just can’t see it. Fish are like that sometimes.
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