Early Spring Fishing Report on the Smith River in Bassett, Virginia

Spring is here and hopefully here to stay, you never know when playing with Virginia weather. I am sure we will find a few more cold fronts throughout the Spring season but it appears we are officially into that Spring fishing season. I think I am just as excited as the fish have been over the past few rounds on the water. This is one of my favorite times of the year to be outside and on the water. Cool mornings at the boat ramp with a cup of joe, followed by shedding layers throughout the day, hard to beat it. As we have progressed out of that fairly callous winter season we have only seen an uptick in fish activity week in and week out! I anticipate that trend will continue! Here in this Early Spring Fishing Report on the Smith River in Bassett, Virginia we will speak on some of these trends that are shifting moving out of our cold season into the Spring season.

As alluded to above, we have only seen an uptick in trout activity on the water each week, a trend I look to see continue to rise with fair consistent warm temperatures. These temperature increases have only spiked many environmental factors contributing to these observations we have been able to witness out on the water. One of the most notable factors we’ve seen return to our ecosystem is the heightened aquatic insect activity. We have already begun seeing some smaller spring hatches earlier this month towards the beginning of March being backed in the later half of the month with some fairly thick hatches! This past weekend's round held a day with temperatures soaring up to 88 degrees! We were blessed with a very nice mid-morning hatch with several species of bugs coming off. This increase in bug activity has been a nice feature to see after a long cold spell coming out of late January and into February. Days like this seemed like a mere fever dream snapped with the cold reality outside now coming to fruition and the reality of the conditions we get to play in. With these hatches and bugs coming off in their adult state we have seen a few fish navigate towards the top of the water column and take advantage of these Spring Hatch opportunities.

That same 88 degree day held several opportunities for some surface takes as I surveyed the top portion of the water column coming right through town. We ran into a squad of brown trout holding off the back of a log jam suspended in the water column patiently waiting for the right size profile to come floating overhead. Before taking the first cast we held off just to merely admire the unity of the pack of browns and see their light brownish gray bodies suspending 3-4 inches below the surface. It was such an admirable moment to see and witness, honestly more rewarding than catching the fish, simply sitting back and watching the fish behavior and learning from the opportunities presented. These fish were stationed up feeding in an active line, we made one cast, unfortunately a bit too close, thus triggering to the fish that something was not fully natural. In turn, those happily actively feeding browns slowly deflated that swim bladder and sunk ever so cunningly back to the depths. Such a subtle, intricate game pursuing these fish on top. Chalked up to a mix of delayed spotting, and not the greatest approach angle for the cast that put these fish back into their resting location below the surface but nonetheless a great encounter to see in the early to mid-Spring season.

Another favorable trend that has become more and more prevalent is the location these fish are holding and feeding. Like touched on above with the pack of browns, we are seeing these fish populations begin to shift their holding locations and move into more active feeding lines, matching their metabolism with these temperatures and food availability. One of the best ways to do that is to push further up towards the head of that run, ensuring first dibs on any food passing through that line. We have begun to shift back into hitting the heads of runs and allowing those drifts to play throughout the full run where as prior in the winter season we were targeting the slower moving water towards the rear sections of those runs, the slow tail outs. These tail outs are still a great play, but now having more viable options to find feeding fish. We picked up several in runs that have not been as productive as I had hoped in prior sessions but really beginning to turn on and hold fish. One of them, “there should be a fish there” turning into “Oh there’s a fish there!” We will continue to see this trend further with our fish populations migrating out of those slow wintering pools into the heads of runs and finding more oxygenated waters as the season progresses.

This is by far some of my favorite times to be out on the water! Temperatures are turning up, alongside with the fish, it is a great time to get out and spend a day on the water pursuing trout in one of Virginia's greatest tailwater resources. 

 I have a few more remaining April Dates and have already begun removing some from May. 

April: 5th, 12th, 25th, and 26th

May: 3rd (half day PM), 9th, 10th, 23rd, 24th, 30th and 31st.