The West end of the pond.

 

Like and addiction I turned my need to have a decent chance of hooking fish. Lake Erie Western Basin has surface temps of 46-52 degrees. This will trigger fish to begin to poke around the first wading sections of the rivers around there. 

I Grabbed some grub for the morning and made coffee from home. With an 1.25 hour car ride to a new to me Lake Erie tributary I headed out. I got to the creek and I knew from the USGS she would be at mid summer flows.

 I was about 3 miles from the mouth of the river. I would see a lot of porpoising long nose gar and so many in fact I thought they were smallies! Lol I saw a few smallies hanging out under timber and in the normal holding areas. They were so tight in cover I could not get a fly to them or even close. I pressed on down river blind casting to all cover in the river.

 I fished rock bars, to different colored river bottoms, and to every sweeper / strainer I could find. This is very early for these guys and gals to enter the river. I was throwing my custom switch with a Anadro/Nymph series line by SA with a grain window of 200 grains. 

I was fan casting long and short and counting down to allow the black and white clouser to cover the entire water column. The clouser was 3” long and black over white and had a red rabbit throat for gill flare. The hook size is 1/0 and a typical clouser style hook. 

I bombed a cast around a submerged log. To my surprise a chunk of a Smallmouth hen about 12” long smacked the the fly. Water was still cool and she did not jump. After a short fight I would lip and treat her like the great little fighter she was. 

 I would not hook another fish and I was fine with that. I went higher in the river system to look for resident smallies and saw none. I did see plenty of Manistees though and they need to leave ..lol.. and return in the fall!

I will return next weekend to see how this year Smallmouth run progresses.