Marvin: Hey folks it's Marvin Cash the host of the articulate fly and we're back with

Marvin: another southwest virginia fishing report with Matt Riley how are you doing Matt I'm.

Matt: Doing great man how are you.

Marvin: As always I'm just trying to stay out of trouble and you know I think finally

Marvin: uh we've got this kind of funky early spring weather out of our system and it

Marvin: looks like we're kind of back to kind of typical warming trend and no crazy like 32 degree nights.

Marvin: And I think that might be a trend that's going to continue. That's what Ellis Ward says anyway.

Matt: He didn't know what the hell he was talking about.

Matt: Yeah, today was kind of an odd day.

Matt: We had a couple, you know, Sunday was, or I don't know what day it is,

Matt: Monday was kind of a scorcher.

Matt: I think we hit like 88, 90, at least up in, I was fishing up in Lynchburg,

Matt: but we had a bit of a cold front roll through today.

Matt: We had some wind and I think the high was like 70, 67, something like that, a little bit of rain.

Matt: But it's looking like it's going to be in the kind of mid 70s to mid 80s for

Matt: the foreseeable future.

Matt: I wouldn't say a fair bit of rain, but there's a chance of rain about every

Matt: day in the forecast starting this weekend.

Matt: So things are looking to be kind of damp and seasonable.

Matt: So yeah, all good.

Marvin: Yeah, and I would imagine, right, probably more post-spawn fish than pre-spawn

Marvin: smallmouth at this point?

Matt: Uh correct yeah depending on where you are um volume of fish in the system and all that um.

Matt: But i would say we're we're certainly postponed a

Matt: couple weeks postponed um and i was actually talking to a client of mine about

Matt: that on the phone you know when i say post spawn i'm i'm really referring to

Matt: you you kind of make it mean a couple of different You could refer to the summer as post-spawn,

Matt: you know, like diffusion throughout the river, set up the feed.

Matt: Spawn's totally over.

Matt: When I say post-spawn, I'm referring to fish that have already,

Matt: like, dropped eggs and fertilized them, you know.

Matt: So, males that are sitting on nests, I will either call nest guarding males

Matt: or I'll call them post-spawn males. And then, you know, females that have dropped

Matt: eggs, they're immediately postponed as well.

Matt: And they obviously don't garden nests like the males do, but it just,

Matt: it creates a certain attitude and demeanor within the fish.

Matt: So it's something you have to consider. But yeah, our pretty standard timing

Matt: throughout southwest central Virginia is somewhere between like the 12th of

Matt: April and the 18th of April.

Matt: You're going to have a wave go off if temperatures are anywhere near 60 in that

Matt: range just about every year.

Matt: So we're certainly, I would say, about two weeks post the first wave of spawning fish.

Marvin: Yeah, got it. And I guess, you know, it goes without saying don't fish to the

Marvin: males on the nests. But, you know, I also know that kind of,

Marvin: you know, we'll just say, you know, not summer post-spawn, but near post-spawn

Marvin: kind of puts the fish in a funk.

Marvin: You know, how long is it going to take for that to kind of work through the

Marvin: system before kind of the bite starts to kind of come back?

Matt: Yeah, it's, it's, uh, you know, again, it might be more information than you

Matt: want, but, um, this is just what goes through my head every day.

Matt: And it's, it's, it's a valuable context because a lot of people don't know what

Matt: they're looking at. You know, males on nests are guarding, and they don't really

Matt: do a lot of actual eating.

Matt: I mean, they will eat something that comes near their nest, or they'll just

Matt: pick it up and try to move it, or they'll try to kill it or just wrap it or something.

Matt: But a lot of times what you get from those fish are just, you know,

Matt: you'll toss your fly, whether it be a streamer or popper or something,

Matt: up into an area with a nest in it.

Matt: And you'll get this fish just kind of lazily following it out.

Matt: And that can be frustrating if you don't know what you're looking at because

Matt: it seems like, you know, a fish just followed your fly and didn't eat it.

Matt: But really what it is, is a fish that's just not really actively feeding and

Matt: has other things on its mind.

Matt: And it's just kind of seeing a potential predator out of its zone.

Matt: Sometimes they'll come over and eat something or mouth it and you just get this

Matt: kind of uninspired take.

Matt: And, you know, very easy to catch guardian males if you don't know exactly where

Matt: they are. So, generally speaking, this time of year, I just encourage people

Matt: and I try myself to just fight fish as quickly as possible and put them back.

Matt: You know, don't keep them in the net for five minutes and take a bunch of pictures

Matt: and, you know, just kind of be done with it.

Matt: But the females, and when a male gets on a nest, it'll be two to three weeks

Matt: before, about two weeks before you have fries swimming up.

Matt: And then, you know, probably a month very safely, you know, before they're back

Matt: out in the river with no parental responsibilities. Yeah.

Matt: And that goes for, you know, all of them. The females, once they spawn,

Matt: they're just, you know, pretty tired, lazy.

Matt: And they'll hang near those spawning areas, but they're just,

Matt: they're going to be tough to locate if you don't know exactly where.

Matt: And it can be very specific places where they'll kind of hole up.

Matt: And they can be tough to feed because they are just, you know,

Matt: they don't have a lot of energy. They're not real actively chasing things down.

Matt: So in order to find those bigger fish, all the 20 plus inch fish in the river

Matt: system are going to be females for the most part.

Matt: In order to catch those fish, it's hard to do it consistently unless you just

Matt: have a lot of really good data post-spawn.

Matt: You generally have to slow things way down.

Matt: And and fish to some specific areas um and

Matt: that you know that'll last a couple

Matt: of weeks basically just long enough for those fish to

Matt: kind of get their strength back and kind of integrate back into the the greater

Matt: um river system so a couple weeks to a month basically before it's all said

Matt: and done and before that you know you're just kind of fishing other other areas you're You're fishing,

Matt: well, one area I tend to find a lot of those post-bomb females is kind of more mid-river, vertical,

Matt: fairly dramatic structure.

Matt: And, you know, otherwise just fishing current seams and stuff like that,

Matt: you know, where you'll find fish that are not actively guarding nests.

Marvin: Yeah, got it. And got a question for you from Josh. She wanted to get your thoughts

Marvin: on key river indicators that tell you to start focusing on topwater fishing.

Matt: Um yeah okay um

Matt: the i'll just

Matt: kind of go off off the cuff here i guess there's really

Matt: i say this a lot but there's a couple of different genres of

Matt: top water fishing um if we're talking bug

Matt: fishing um which is

Matt: generally a fairly passive um you

Matt: know finesse kind of tactic um one

Matt: it's real helpful to have bugs out and about you know i

Matt: i think i saw i know i saw the first

Matt: you know dragon flies damsel flies of the

Matt: year in the last two weeks on my rivers and so that's significant but you know

Matt: certain smaller rivers you've got a big kind of drake mayflies flying around

Matt: a lot in the spring caddis flies even earlier in march you know if you've been

Matt: in a small creek or stream

Matt: in March or April and you have pretty shallow clear water.

Matt: Um, it's, it's not out of the question to think that you might,

Matt: might be able to catch some fish on top water flies.

Matt: Um, and so, you know, certainly looking for the presence of bugs,

Matt: water temps that are generally, you know, depending again on how big or deep

Matt: your river system is a pretty shallow river system, You could probably start fishing in the 50 to,

Matt: I mean, I'd say probably 55 to 60 degree rain if the water's low to normal.

Matt: Just understand that when you're in that water temperature range in the spring,

Matt: you're generally not, you know, the fish are still pre-spawn.

Matt: They're actively keying in on bigger food sources. Yeah.

Matt: But comfortably by 60 degrees, you could do that a lot of places.

Matt: And what else?

Matt: Just, you know, seeing surface activity, you know, just kind of basically if

Matt: you're out there in February, you're generally not seeing sunfish and bass and

Matt: stuff hitting the surface very often.

Matt: But, you know, come May, you'll start to see some of that stuff.

Matt: So if you see activity on the surface, that's a good indicator as well.

Matt: And like I mentioned earlier, with just kind of the general demeanor of the post-pawn females,

Matt: fifth time a year, a really passive approach like that, especially if you know

Matt: exactly where a fish lives,

Matt: can be a really effective thing.

Matt: Because, you know, a bug or an insect imitation popped down on the surface.

Matt: It fishes when it's sitting still, and there's a lot of food value there,

Matt: and it's not going to require that fish to really catch anything.

Matt: It's kind of like when we have really hot water temps in the summer,

Matt: you know, you can catch the biggest fish in the river on a small bug just because

Matt: they're trying to conserve energy.

Matt: So that's another you know indicator i guess you say when it comes to other

Matt: top water stuff you know poppers and divers and you know just like kind of bait

Matt: machine froggy stuff that you know,

Matt: messing around on the surface i would say you know that that can even fit into

Matt: the pre-spawn program if you have water more likely stream flows and temperatures

Matt: that that permit that you know if if the water is real high and real cold,

Matt: you're probably not fishing top water.

Matt: But if it's, you know, again, like 55 degrees and, you know,

Matt: maybe normal to a little low, you know, and you want to fish a kind of a waking

Matt: bait fish or, you know, a swimming, diving,

Matt: you know, minnow bait fish kind of thing, I would say go for it.

Matt: That, I mean, that's pretty much what I go for. and, you know, try it out.

Matt: You never really know what's going to work until you do it.

Matt: And it'll just play into your data for what the fish will do when.

Marvin: Yeah, there you go. And, you know, folks, we love questions on the Articulate Fly.

Marvin: You can email them to us or DM us on social media, whatever's easiest for you.

Marvin: And if we use your question, I will send you some Articulate Fly swag when you're

Marvin: drawing for something cool from Matt at the end of the season.

Marvin: And Matt, before I let you go, you want to let folks know, you know,

Marvin: where they can find you so they can book you and fish with you.

Marvin: And I know there are not a lot of lily pads out there probably between now and October.

Marvin: Will you want to let folks kind of know what the situation is?

Matt: Yeah um i mean i always encourage people to

Matt: to give me a call um kind

Matt: of regardless if you're interested in in uh

Matt: in anything um just talking about fishing

Matt: or setting something up in the future um i

Matt: i do tend to i don't have

Matt: much anything really available until mid-october

Matt: um but you know cancellations happen

Matt: pretty regularly um sometimes and

Matt: uh you know things happen so just always

Matt: check with me and but for the most part um you know we're looking at we're looking

Matt: at must be season and stuff like that um but i'm not pushing real hard for any

Matt: of that yet but anyway you know all that information is on my website which

Matt: is mattrileyflyfishing.com,

Matt: and yeah feel free to reach out however you feel best.

Marvin: Well there you go well listen folks show it to yourself to get out there and

Marvin: catch a few tight lines everybody tight lines matt thanks barbara.