Fly Fishing the Smith River, May 2024

 

I had been hearing about the Smith River because of my interest in brown trout fisheries.  I had heard a couple of presentations at the Virginia Fly Fishing Festival and wanted to give it a try.  I remember one presenter saying to take advantage of the fishery now since a dam embankment collapsed and damaged some of the turbine infrastructure, but when that was repaired the release schedule would be less steady and the fishery would suffer as a result.  

Lucky for me, my good friend Will was also interested to give it a try.  We hired a guide from New River Fly Fishing to take us on a float.

We met at the take out; 6.4 miles below the put in at the Philpott Dam.  

We rode with the guide upstream to dam where the embankment was under repair.  With some experience in erosion and sediment control, stabilizing that embankment slope seemed impossible so maybe the fishery could survive for a little longer.   

Just to the right of the picture above was the damaged turbine house.  Was that the burial mud stain on the wall???

Our guide dropped the raft into the water just below the dam.

Not much dry fly activity, but we started catching trout on nymphs pretty quickly.

Rainbows, not the browns we were looking for, but getting the skunk out nonetheless.

The morning was cool and overcast, fog still not quite lifting off the water.

There was another drift boat coming behind us.  Glad we were able to be the first to fish the pools.

We did catch a few small brownies...

More fog...

Pulling over for lunch...

Will was also doing well.  We picked on fish here and there, through  the morning and into the afternoon.

Nothing spectacular, but steady action.

The predicted rain held off longer than expected, but when it came, it came with a vengeance.  We pretty much hunkered down and were rowed to the take out. 

It was a fun day; probably something we could repeat on our own in a canoe if we wanted.  We'll definitely keep in the the rolodex.

peace.

Fly Fishing the Evergaldes by Canoe 2024

 

This was my second trip to fish the Everglades by canoe.  I made some minor repairs to the Sears (Grumman) aluminum hull and strapped her to the top of my trusty Subaru.  The trips tarted with a "O-dark hundred" departure from Virginia. 

On the first day, I drove all the way to the KOA in Titusville Florida.  Due to the long drive, I opted for a cabin with a bed and mattress rather than sleeping on a sleeping bag pad on the ground.

The following day, I drove to the Miami airport to retrieve my adventure partner, David, and we continued on to Chokoloskee.  Like the last time, we stayed at the Chokoloskee Island Resort where we could grab a campsite (in a sea of motorhomes).

We spent the rest o the afternoon tying flies and relaxing...

... finding truth in the thatched patio.

The resort also has a nice ramp and marina facility.

For dinner, we ended up at the Havana Cafe.  Good food!

And they have a rooster that crows at sunset and then flies up into the trees to roost for the evening.

Sun setting over Chokoloskee Bay...

The Chokoloskee Island Resort has lots of nice amenities, including an indoor gathering space.  

We chatted up one of the NPS park rangers collecting bone samples at the dock's cleaning station and he offered to show us his traveling collection of fish heads, otoliths (ear bones), etc. and gave us a schooling on the differences between sea trout, redfish and other species.

After a while, we retreated back to our tent and drifted off to sleep.

The next day, we planned to fish around the tide looking for the rising tide along the mangrove shores east of Chokoloskee, spending the afternoon fishing the falling tide and it passed over the labrnyth of oyster bars on the west side of the island. 

The weather was overcast when we set out in the morning - not ideal for spotting fish.  

David broke the ice with a small snook.

We ran over and spooked a school of redfish, but although we followed them around, we could not get them to eat.  

A bunch of recreational paddlers ran right through the school and that was the end of that.  We charged for the island so we could remount the canoe, go back to the resort, and launch at their ramp to hit the west side.

We paddled around, but the tide was lower than we expected.  David eked out another willing snook to break the afternoon slump.  

That afternoon, we got a call from our Flamingo guide that the weather was going to be better tomorrow than the next day when we had scheduled and he asked us if we could swap days.  We were trying to get big tarpon of fly so we ate the resort fee and packed up a day early to head to the Everglades.

The following morning, on the Tamiami Trail we spotted this casualty of big, fast roads paved through the heart of the river of grass.  

Poor dead gator...

At the entrance to the park, always a good photo op.

We pitched the tent at one of the Flamingo campground sites...

... and woke up early the next morning to meet our guide, Capt. Mark Giacobba.

He made a mad dash north into Whitewater Bay.  Thank God he was using GPS to track his path, because we were flying through skinny water!  After about an hour of relentless hard running, he eased us into this little creek and started poling with the sun just about starting to show.  We started seeing porpoising tarpon right away!  See the rings in the photos below.

Early on, it was buggy as hell.  Little No see ems were on every piece of exposed skin.  I wore this bug jacket, but eventually took it off after the sun got higher in the sky.

We were told to cast into the center of the rings made when the tarpon would roll.  Capt Giacobba said, after rolling, the tarpon head for the bottom and look back up from where they came.  And if they saw a fly looking like prey, they would eat it.  We tried! 

Between the two of us, we probably cast to over 100 tarpon, but could not get an eat!  Finally, they stopped rolling and we left to find other hunting grounds.

We ended up in another shallow creek where Capt Giacobba poled us into a little cove where we spotted 4 or 5 large tarpon laid up.  We snuck around and island to disguise our approach; I got a few cast in, hooked one, had it on for about 5 seconds and then it spit the hook.  Everyone was devistated.  That commotion spooked the rest in the group and we poled our way out of the creek.

David was up next, and he spotted a nice snook, hiding in the shadows.

After a good cast and a good eat, the fish came to hand.

We looked around for a little while longer, but didn't get any more shots in this creek.  We motored south and we thought we would go looking for more snook and redfish.  But Capt Gaicobba had blown a trailer bearing on the way to meet us in the morning and he wanted to do a field repair before having to drive home in the dark.  So that cut our day a few hours short.

We saw some amazing things, had some good shots at large fish, and caught some, but the experience left us wanting more - that's Florida!

We headed back to our campsite; as the sun started to set, we were getting eaten alive by no see ems, so we actually ate dinner in the car!  Still light out, we went to check out the new Flamingo lounge.

Inside, it was very nice AND BUG FREE!

We got a beer and chatted up some other anglers and devised our DIY plan for the next few days.  Capt Giacobba advised us to camp at Flamingo rather than in the backcountry since it would give us more options to fish without wind or get out of foul weather.  We heeded his advise.  The biggest downside to this strategy was that it would involve a lot more daily paddling to get to and from the fishing grounds.  The map below, with the day's route numbered, shows what we eventually did. 

Last time we did this trip, the West Lake launch was closed and under renovation.  Now reopened, it is a beautiful facility for paddlers. 

Our first DIY day, we would head back to familiar waters in "The Lungs".  The star on the map shows the location of a backcountry campsite we had used the last time.  All smiles on our way to the ramp...

At West Lake, there's a trail that leads to the water.  We checked it out to see if you could fish from the end.  Here's a rest spot in the mangroves....

Other trails were guarded...

Even the ramp was guarded...

We shooed this smaller gator out of the way and quickly launched the canoe before her lizard brain could think about retribution! 

It was a long, windy paddle to the Lungs.  Firs we had to traverse the length of West Lake.

The wind didn't let down as the sun rose.  We wondered if we were going to be able to find any lee.

We got some relief from the wind as we picked our way through the narrow creeks connecting the mud lakes.

Finally emerging into the lungs, we tried some spots where we had had luck in previous years.

All to no avail.  As the sun rose, it cast a nice shadow in a band on the eastern shoreline of the lake.  David cast into that shadow and retrieved into the light, and BANG!  The first tarpon came to hand!

What a beauty!

After that, we traded places in the canoe and followed the same procedure with the same results.

We caught tarpon regularly until the sun got overhead and we lost the shadow.  When we started to get some afternoon sun we were hampered from fishing the opposite shoreline because the wind was pounding that side with waves.  So we switched tactics and jus looked for lee and David turned out to be the snook whisperer, pulling lots of fish out of woody debris ambush spots along the shore.

By mid-afternoon and many fish, we decided to head for home with a long, windy paddle ahead of us.  

When we got back to the ramp, we loaded the gear in the back of the Subaru and heaved the canoe on top.  We headed straight for the lodge restaurant and got celebratory beers and some fries to carry us over until darkness came and we could cook dinner in the bug-free dark. 

A great day by any measure!

The next day (#3), we decided to explore Mud Lake for the first time.

We drove down the long path to the parking lot that provided a small paddlecraft launch site on the Buttonwood Canal.  

We launched the canoe and turned left for the paddle into Coot Bay.  It was a head's up paddle as all the motor boats, skiffs, houseboats and other motorcraft use the Buttonwood Canal to get to Whitewater Bay and they are not looking for canoes!  So we hugged the shoreline.

We emerged into the large Coot Bay and paddled northwest to a narrow creek entrance that would take us to Mud Lake.   

We applied what we had learned the day before.  We started fishing the western end of the lake, near the connecting creek mouth, casting into the shadows and retrieving into the light.  It didn't take long before the payoff.

Bucket mouth...

The baby 'poons came in all sizes and were great fun on the 8 wt.

David continued on in his role as snook whisperer.

We found a productive stretch of shoreline and fished it, conveyor belt style, repeating drifts through the productive water.

After a time, we stopped for our 4-star lunch.

Happy anglers...

At mid-afternoon, we started our paddle home.  On the exit into Coon Lake, we found the creek blocked by a set of anglers fishing the outgoing tide.  We chatted them up and they were not having much luck.  We did not tell them about our success, we just slide by them, paddled a little south and commenced catching more snook along the shoreline.

We made it back to the put in, loaded all the gear in the Subaru and strapped the canoe on top and slowly made our way along the dirt creekside road to the paved road to our campsite.  

We got sorted and then headed back to the lodge restaurant for some french fries and a beer to cap the day's successful fishing.

For our last day, we headed back to the West Lake Canoe Trail

We got an early start to maximize our fishing time before the winds were predicted to make the paddling difficult.  We arrived at the ramp just as the sun was coming up, making for some picturesque paddling. 

The sun just popping up...

The eastern end of Long Lake, headed into the Lungs.

With the wind up, it was hard to find suitable lee where we could get the shadows for tarpon fishing.  Not to worry, David was finding snook along shoreline debris - perfect ambush points.

This one was along the southwestern shoreline...

We were getting worried about the wind picking up, so eventually, we headed home.  We got turned around a little in the connecting creeks and lakes.  Some of the connectors are pretty well overgrown and camouflaged and not marked, but we eventually made it into Long Lake. 

I can't remember what made us stop; maybe we saw a swirl, but David picked up this mayan cichlid.  

We only identified it after getting back to the lodge, where we learned we should have killed it, because it's a non-native, invasive fish.

Heck, since David caught one, we figured it was my turn to make a few casts.  Just like in the other lakes, casting into the shadows produced this nice little baby tarpon.  

I think that was my only fish for the day , so it was a welcome skunk-breaker.  We had paddled right through this spot on earlier trips.  Just goes to show that there are probably fish in all these lakes.  

Ok, time to get down to business.  We made our way into West Lake and it was a slog paddling into the strong wind.

The picture doesn't do it justice, but there were whitecaps on the lake and we had to constantly correct the canoe's course so we didn't take water over the side or capsize.  That would be a bummer at the end of a successful trip!  The western shore came to us ever so slowly, but finally we spied the pedestrian trail viewing platform and we knew w were close.  We ducked into the little feeder finger and beached the trusty Sears canoe.  We found the gator that was on the ramp a couple of days before.  She was now guarding a nest of eggs in a roped off portion of the grass at the edge of the parking area.  Now we know why she was on the ramp - coming up to lay her eggs!

We made it back to camp, did a preliminary pack up, showered and headed to the lodge for one last beer and sunset.  After dark, we cooked our last dinner and got ready for bed.

The next day, we got up early, threw the rest of the gear and the tent in the back of the car and delivered David to the Miami airport for his flight home.

I turned the Subaru north and, not like last time, stopped near the NC/SC border.  The last day was only about a 4-hour drive home and I spent the rest of the day, unpacking, doing laundry, washing equipment, setting the tent out to dry, etc.

Another great trip to the Everglades - fly fishing out of my childhood Sears aluminum canoe - thank you "silver king" for safe passage.

peace

PS - here are the flies that did all the catching - Giacobba's Blue Claw