I was lucky enough today to be able to do one of my favorite floats on a small local river today.  The original plan was to do a paddle up and float back but my buddy couldn't make it out early but he agreed to do the paddle up portion from the take out so i could do the whole float.

 

Anyways, i started out chucking poppers on my trusty Sage 7wt XP and was picking up sunnies on about every other cast with a few spots mixed in.  I was actually almost getting annoyed with all the sunnies so i sized up to a larger popper to help weed out some of the smaller fish and for the most part it worked.  Ended up catching a few more larger sunnies with the largest being measured at 9 1/2".  I did catch a big spot, well big for this flow that is no wider than your standard 2 lane road.  He measured out at 13".  There are some bigger fish in here as last year i ended up landing an 18" smallie out of here but the rule of thumb is fish in the 8-12" range pretty much all day long.

 

In an effort to try and target the even larger fish i switched over to one of my least favorite flies, the clouser minnow.  Yeah i know it is a classic and everyone catches fish on them but i never seem to catch much with them.  Well that was about to change.  It was a small size 2 clouser i tied, white on white with some flash tied in for extra sparkle

 

First cast i caught a 8" sunny.  About 10 casts later i got into a nice smallie that measured 13".  The catching continued for the rest of the trip and i ended up with well over a dozen smallies, 10 spots and who knows how many sunnies.

 

I did have a very large smallie come and check out my fly as i was dead drifting past a log but he never went after it but at least now i know where he lives since i marked it on my phone

 

All in all a very good day with well over 50 fish total caught with the total species count at 6. pumpkinseed, bluegill, suckers, spots, smallies and one small catfish.

 

My buddy was throwing a nose hooked yum dinger and caught a bunch of fish but nothing of any size so for today, the long rod won.

 

I love small central VA rivers

Never could get into the "fairy wand" for bass, I've got a couple nice orvis outfits, might have to tinker with them a bit more. Sounds like a day well spent!!

Never could get into the "fairy wand" for bass, I've got a couple nice orvis outfits, might have to tinker with them a bit more. Sounds like a day well spent!!

Not the best in all situations but in rivers it can be better than conventional and besides, chicks dig the long rod

I bet that clouser gets some more drift time now. I always keep one of my fly rods stowed when im on my boat...you never now when your going to run into some risers :-)