New River Friday evening 6/27/08

[Woolly Bugger]

I wasn't going to post this report but I've been talking about it so here it is. Despite the thunderstorms I headed up to the New River Friday evening for a couple hours of fishing.



On the drive I saw storms forming to the south and west and drove though one on 21. The southbound lane was closed from a fallen tree and debris littered the road from the strong winds.



The weather looked better once I crossed the mountain and the sky was clear when I approached the bridge on Farmers Fish Camp Road. There were several other cars parked there and I saw two other fishermen wading way up yonder above the bridge.

The sun was setting as I tied on a yellow gurgler hoping the top water bite would be on. The water felt warm as I waded up through the ledges casting above the submerged rocks where the smallies  like to hang out. Nothing was happening and I considered for a moment switching to a clouser or some other sub-surface pattern.  I stayed with the gurgler because I wanted to see that explosive strike. I changed flies four of five times and all I caught were red-eyes. My friend, Al, says that bas will eat anything, well they weren't tonight! The sun was now behind the trees and I worked over to the top of the ledges where I knew the water, so that I could cross over and work back down stream. I kept expecting to have a great hook-up, but the only smallie I caught was about 4 inches long. I saw it briefly as it shot by me after the eight weight hook set launched the little guy 100 feet across the stream. Sorry 'bout that. 



I fished until 9:30 and then waded down to the bridge and drank a beer. Can't complain, it was just not happening on top that evening. I don't know if a storm dumped some water there or if the barometric pressure dropped, all I know is that all I caught were a dozen red-eye.