Fall in the Foothills---River Bass on the Fly

It was fall in the foothills.  It was dry and clear and the sweet-cool of the morning refreshed you.  Cool, but not cold.  A good fall day.  

I'd loaded up the canoe from the coast and headed west to the in-laws' place, on the banks of the Yadkin River, outside of Winston-Salem.  

There's something about a smallmouth bass on a fly rod.  Maybe it's the strength of the fish, the strength of their pull against the current.  Or maybe it's because they're the fish that really taught me about fly fishing.  My original fly fishing quarry.  In all honesty, smallmouth caught me, not the other way around, back on the banks of Rapidan River in Virginia.  I've been hooked ever since.  

I met a man once, while trout fishing in the mountains, who claimed the Yadkin held the best smallie fishing in North Carolina.  Better than the New River, even the French Broad.  Maybe not in numbers, but in size.  I'll be honest, I haven't fished those other rivers enough to make a halfway educated opinion the subject.  But I will say, I like the Yadkin.  I like it a lot.  

You've got to fish in a "window" of clear and low water, which doesn't happen a lot on that river, a river that too many times looks like someone's Starbucks drink, or maybe more like 2 star hotel coffee with expired creamer, roaring and swirling down the drain.  The steep, high, muddy banks tell you this river gets high flows and powerful floods.  But when conditions are right, it's a pretty thing.  The current is still moving in places, but it meanders more than it races.  You can see the rocks and vegetation and life underneath the water.  The leaves are turning orange and red and brown.  Pilot Mountain rises off in the distance.  The fields of the Piedmont's rolling hills are lush and green with the morning dew.  At the river, eagles and ospreys soar above.  Wood ducks flush from a woody tangle on the riverbank.  Turtles line logs here and there, jumping, surprisingly fast, when you get too close.  There's life all around and life is good.  

I'd put in near "Shoals" above East Bend, and it'd be about a half day float back to the in-law's.  The river there is in several braids.  It's rocky, especially at low water.  In between fly casts and retrieves, I'd had to do some significant maneuvering in the ol' Pathfinder Old Town canoe.  But before one rocky rapid, not 100 yards from the put in, THUMP.  The line went tight, the rod came alive.  The feel of a thick fish pulsing against the current. 

I'd spun the spool of the fly reel with my left hand, holding the rod with the other, trying to quickly get the extra fly line back on the reel.  Tension with the fish.  Then, I'd attempted to paddle with one hand, hold the rod with the other, and was able to get the boat into an eddy, and not go careening down the small rapid or pin the boat on a rock while the river poured over the gunnel.  I'm sure it would've been quite an amusing show if someone else had been watching.  But I had the place to myself.  After some runs, some acrobatics, I'd gotten the fish to hand.  What a day, already.

There'd be some more fish.  Maybe a beer, re-chilled in the river, to wash down the turkey and bacon sandwich.  And no one else on the river.  On a Saturday.  That's something you can't say about most eastern trout streams and fishing haunts.  What a day.  A good fall day.