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

Marvin: Southwest Virginia fishing report with Matt Riley Matt how are you I'm.

Matt: Doing great man how are you.

Marvin: As always I'm just trying to stay out of trouble and it's kind of funny we were

Marvin: kind of joking that you know maybe we've seen the last of the heat for this summer you.

Matt: Have to check with the local weatherman Ellis word down in Tennessee on that

Matt: front but I'm not I was really willing to stick my neck out there.

Matt: But it sure seems, you know, if you look at the next couple weeks,

Matt: I mean, for mid to late August, we're sitting pretty right now with temps in

Matt: the, like, our morning temps have been in the 50s.

Matt: I think we're going to have a couple of, like, high 40s.

Matt: And then daytime in the 60s, 70s, getting back up into, like,

Matt: the mid upper 80s next week. But, you know, for the late August,

Matt: mid to upper 80s is pretty, pretty cool.

Matt: And, you know, who knows what happens after that? We could have some 90 degree

Matt: days in October for all we know. But that's what it's looking like right now.

Marvin: Yeah, I think Ellis owes me the day of the first snow in Johnson City the next time I talk to him.

Matt: Yeah i i'm gonna i i think a good guess on that would be uh sometime between

Matt: october 15th and uh october 15th yeah.

Marvin: So you know it's interesting you know when we were together fishing that was

Marvin: kind of on the front edge of that tropical depression you've had a lot of yo-yoing

Marvin: around in terms of conditions and i was kind of curious what that's done to your smallmouth bite.

Matt: Yeah it's it's been kind of all over the board

Matt: and to be completely honest i've jumped i've jumped

Matt: fisheries a fair bit um just kind

Matt: of reacting to water and um you know damn fluctuations and temperature drops

Matt: and all that kind of thing so um i can tell you what i've seen you know i I

Matt: haven't been on one river or fishery for a whole week in the last couple of weeks.

Matt: But we definitely had, I guess,

Matt: you know, our whole corner of the state got skipped over by all the rainfall

Matt: that hit out towards you and Charlotte and central North Carolina and even like

Matt: Lynchburg, Roanoke area.

Matt: So we were pretty much, I mean, we got some rain and the new river came up.

Matt: To over 5,000 cubic feet at Radford for a day or two and then drop back down

Matt: to seasonal flows pretty quickly.

Matt: No real dirty water to speak of.

Matt: Um, and then it, uh, cooled off quite a bit, you know, like we were talking about earlier,

Matt: um, mid August, we usually get a bit of a cold snap, but I think that tropical

Matt: depression coming through kind of supercharge it a little bit.

Matt: Um, but that, that storm day, I think was Thursday of last week or two weeks ago.

Matt: And, um, a couple of days before that were pretty dang weird.

Matt: Weird um and then the few days after that

Matt: i think we were just kind of suffering from

Matt: you know conditions getting jerked

Matt: around a bit rising water quickly dropping water

Matt: temps drop and all that kind of stuff so it's been pretty funky um we've we're

Matt: still i mean i I may have said a couple of times that last week was one of the

Matt: worst slash hardest weeks of my guiding career.

Matt: But, I mean, we still managed to put, you know, a couple 20-ish fish in the

Matt: boat and a bunch of really solid fish.

Matt: So, it's really hard to complain too much. um and you

Matt: know now we're faced with this uh

Matt: cold front that kind of kind of

Matt: swept through today we had high wind and bright

Matt: sunny conditions and the high in the

Matt: like you know low 70s so

Matt: um things are definitely changing um i think

Matt: things will get better in the next week when the when the temperatures

Matt: start coming up again um and certainly

Matt: our top water fishing will be a little

Matt: bit better um with temp climbing

Matt: i really really like to see like upper 70s to mid 80s temperatures for for really

Matt: solid bug fishing um you certainly have good good fishing outside of that range

Matt: particularly this time of year when you got cicadas drop in and And, you know,

Matt: just lots of bugs around in low, clear water.

Matt: But certainly it'll be nice to have a water to shoot up a little bit again. Yeah.

Marvin: And so as it starts to turn cold, does that kind of, you know,

Marvin: clue the smallies in that they need to put the feed bag on? Yeah.

Matt: Yeah, I mean, I do think that's a thing people talk about, like the fall bite,

Matt: you know, as soon as, you know, whatever it is, September 20th,

Matt: 21st, 22nd, first day of fall, everybody starts talking about how, you know, fall bites on.

Matt: Well, I think it's a lot more complicated than that.

Matt: I think across species, you see a shift happening about this time of year on

Matt: our tailwater systems, the Boone Lake system.

Matt: You'll start seeing big brown trout moving around, kind of pre-spawn,

Matt: moving up into the river, out of the lake.

Matt: Our temps will start dropping a little bit. They'll come out of that late July,

Matt: early August peak on the warm water natural rivers, and you'll start seeing

Matt: musky disassociating from the cold water refuge spring,

Matt: creek mouth kind of water.

Matt: You'll start seeing the small mouth kind of, like I said, they'll slow down

Matt: in the morning sometimes, but they're still pretty buggy.

Matt: Um and i think that little bit of a cold snap

Matt: does kind of clue them in there and and

Matt: i think that's part of why we have some fantastic fishing

Matt: in august and september um so i i think that's a real thing um and that uh some

Matt: of those colder overnights will kind of help kill off some of those those cicadas

Matt: too and that's just a sliding you know it's a it's a gradient as we get into to mid-October,

Matt: colder overnights, killing cicadas and June bugs and all that stuff off and

Matt: having more of that available on the surface of the water, creating some good bug fishing.

Matt: So, yeah, I think that mid-August timeframe is a pretty pivotal time as kind

Matt: of the beginning of the end.

Matt: And, you know, once we get into October, things can kind of stabilize a little

Matt: bit because you can have real cold weather, you can have real warm weather,

Matt: and usually we're not getting a lot of rainfall.

Matt: And so sometimes the fishing can, you can have some challenging days at time of year,

Matt: but really the, I think the better fishing that's associated with the changing

Matt: of summer into fall usually happens kind of early.

Matt: Early in that in that transition and late in that transition so like august

Matt: september and then and then later in the fall so i i think you're right it's.

Marvin: Interesting too i was just looking at the calendar i mean we've lost an hour

Marvin: of daylight in the last what seven weeks.

Matt: Oh it's it's ridiculous man i mean and and uh you know in another i mean daylight

Matt: savings times just in you know,

Matt: less than less than three months and then it'll be getting dark at five o'clock

Matt: so um things change pretty quickly and um you'll start to notice that when you're uh.

Matt: When you're i do anyway we're bug fishing in

Matt: in september because you'll you'll

Matt: have to pay attention to the kind of angle of

Matt: the sun you know you'll have these these pools sometimes

Matt: times that you're fishing really low clear water late in the

Matt: day and say the sun

Matt: is at your you know at your back and

Matt: you're fishing the right bank and there's lots of fish lots of good habits at

Matt: and um but that that sun angle just getting lower and lower earlier in the day

Matt: and it can sometimes cast some pretty sharp shadows and make that kind of fishing

Matt: a little tougher you know it it's something I notice every year,

Matt: whereas you run through that same spot at four or five, six o'clock in July

Matt: and the sun's still way overhead and you don't have to worry about that quite

Matt: as much. So things are definitely changing.

Matt: Um, and, uh, you know, they've got less and less of a daytime window to operate with.

Matt: So some of those kind of more visual feeding fish like, like smallmouth,

Matt: again, I think that's another kind of, uh, motivator to feed this time of year.

Marvin: Yeah, got it. And you know, folks, we love questions at the Articulate Fly.

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

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

Marvin: We are drawing for some cool stuff from Matt at the end of the season.

Marvin: And you know, Matt, you know, as I was joking with someone, we're getting close

Marvin: to pumpkin spice latte time.

Marvin: It means you're probably pretty full up on small mouth for like October,

Marvin: but you're probably booking musky trips and all that kind of good stuff.

Marvin: If you want to let folks know kind of what you have open and how to reach out

Marvin: and all that kind of good stuff.

Matt: Yeah, absolutely. I've been just talking to somebody on the phone about smallmouth dates.

Matt: Nothing specific, but for next year, everything's booked for this year unless

Matt: we're talking wintertime fishing.

Matt: But I have been booking a pile of muskie dates,

Matt: and they tend to go pretty quickly, especially considering we're usually traveling

Matt: around the holidays, so that takes a couple weeks off the calendar.

Matt: So, um, certainly if you're interested in that, give me a shout,

Matt: um, my phone number and emails on the website, which is mattreillyflyfishing.com

Matt: and, um, however you want to reach out is great.

Matt: I love phone calls that way we can really kind of discuss and make sure everybody,

Matt: um, you know, gets all their questions answered and knows what they're getting into. to.

Matt: And, um, it's just nice to kind of, kind of have that open line of communication,

Matt: whether we're planning something short term or, or talking about putting some

Matt: dates on the calendar for a year out.

Matt: Um, but yeah, all that's good.

Marvin: Yeah. It's interesting. It's always amazing to me how few people take advantage

Marvin: of guides that are willing to really talk to them and understand what they want

Marvin: to accomplish on the water. And to me, it's super important.

Matt: Oh it is i mean it uh not to get on too much of a safe box at the end of our four but,

Matt: um there's a there's a lot of um

Matt: there's there's a

Matt: lot of of those kinds of like booking

Matt: platforms out there these days and that's

Matt: kind of one of the main talking points is you can

Matt: they can save a guy a lot of time talking

Matt: to clients and all that you know you just get their their phone

Matt: number and tell them where to meet you at the beginning of the day and and

Matt: that's that but i mean i firmly believe

Matt: that if you want to uh get the most out of a trip and i think this goes for

Matt: both both guides and and clients i mean if if you want to get the most out of

Matt: a trip if everybody wants to be as happy as possible and as effective as possible

Matt: and make sure you're You're fishing with the right people,

Matt: people and guides,

Matt: you know, the relationship and everybody having the same goals and the boat

Matt: and all that is really important.

Matt: I think, you know, talking to people, whether it's in person,

Matt: on the phone, whatever, I think it's incredibly important.

Matt: And I would not book a trip without doing that. So absolutely give me a call.

Matt: And if I got time, I'll I'll talk your ear off about whatever you want to talk about. Yeah.

Marvin: Getting close to getting squirrel hunt attempts, right?

Matt: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We can squirrel hunt from the boat while we're while we're fishing for muskies.

Marvin: There you go. Kill two birds with one stone. Well, you know,

Marvin: folks, as I always say, you owe it to yourself to get out there and catch a

Marvin: few tight lines, everybody tight lines, Matt.

Matt: Thanks, Marvin.