Fished Smithgall Woods with Greg, Sam and Joe the other weekend. We started the morning looking for fish along the high and off-colored Hooch through Helen which was almost unfishable with fly rods though the spin fishers were having a good morning. Well we knew that we had reservations at Smithgall so we were still excited about the day even though it was off to a slow start.
We got to Smithgall and after some stream-side Wendys and a quick throw of the Frisbee it was time to get loaded up and on the river. Since there was a turkey hunt going on the only section open was section 1 so we started at the culvert hole. I drew the short straw so I was first up and rewarded with a quick 10 inch trout. I jumped out and the next guy was up. We did that for a little while playing leapfrog in the hole and caught a couple of fish.
We caught some smaller fish and then Joe hooked into something a little larger and the race was on downstream.
There were a couple of bigger fish hooked in the run but we were unable to land them. So we ended up with a few fish out of that hole so we split up and started looking for fish upstream. We got to the pavilion hole which was running pretty fast and we caught a couple of small fish on the outside seam but before moving again. I found a run just downstream of that hole and started nymphing and before I had made that many casts I was up to 5 fish. They were sitting in the back and though none were larger than 16 inches they were active and feeding on midges. I jumped out and ran back up to get Sam to see if any of them were still biting for him. We got back into the hole and we discussed how to get the flies down to them and made a few casts and before you knew it Sam had his first trout on a fly rod.
He ended up with another pretty quickly and broke off on a fish way up in the run that hit his flies like a freight train so by that point it was time to get back up with Greg and Joe so we hustled back down to find them back in the culvert hole.
Well it didn't take long for Greg to figure out the run as well and the video says it all.
Greg was faster than I was and the fish was faster than both of us. Just off screen that fish took off and was flying downstream by the time Greg caught up with him. It seemed to be the story of the day for sure. The fish were just faster than we were though we ended up catching quite a few fish as usual the big fish find ways to break you off or come unglued. Still I love that stream and seeing that many smaller fish in there shows me that the stream is back on the way up.
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