Smith river Virginia 5/12/20:

[AndyS]

Booked a last minute float trip with EJ Stern from http://www.raleighflies.com/

Put a hurting on the trout, nothing huge though but racked up double digits quickly. Still trying to wrap my head around floating say the South branch but a very deep one just packed with wild trout. I should of got some pics of the browns, I know the guide did. Seems like the closest trout fishing to the Raleigh- Durham area. Virginia is amazingly beautiful !! We were in the town of Bassett, near the old furniture factory, the entire area is a step back to 1950's !!
I wish we had started early and could have caught the dense over cast but instead go on the water at 11am under a clearing sky and bright sun, good for fly fishing, bad for spin fishing. Guide never saw trout caught on jigs before. One plunge pool we anchored up and I vertical jigged trout, much like they do for crappie down here, the guide was amazed !!
Gonna start getting warm real soon, he suggested fishing the Nuese with him for giant Largemouth , we shall see.

....and tires, saw about 25 to 40 tires per mile, floated 8 miles.

[thmyorke1]

nice action! glad we are spreading the jigs across the nation

i hope you do target those bass. largemouth or smallmouth, they must be big down there.

[AndyS]

I wanted to get on the Catawba, but that guide was out of town for the week.
If I didn't find a guide I was going to go up and fish and wade the Smith river anyway. Water stays cold all year due to water releases. The river is at the start of the Blue Ridge mountains. Like I said, it's going to start getting warm and the trout mindset will go away until the fall. They have been getting stripers on the Roanoke and Nuese but that is winding down now. The Largemouth they catch on float trips range up to 8 pounds and fight like crazy the guide said. They also get gar and big white perch.

[DanH]

Very nice! How far from your new house is the Smith River?

[bigfishy]

Sounds like a great trip!!thx fer sharing...now get on that LM bite...sounds epic

[AndyS]

2 hours even to get to Bassett Va., some going to Old Fort in NC.
Caught fish in Tennessee and Virginia so far and not one fish in North Carolina yet