Tour De Bronze

Well, the first leg of our spring smallmouth tour had to be cancelled. Nathaniel and I were supposed to float the New River in West Virginia today, rafting a spectacular gorge and casting topwater lures, crankbaits and soft plastics for ultra-abundant smallmouth bass. The river is raging, though (so much so that commercial whitewater rafting trips have been suspended) and definitely wouldn't be conducive to fishing. Instead we stayed home an extra day and will point the truck north later this morning. Tomorrow, we're fishing the Allegheny River with friend, fellow outdoor writer and fishing guide Jeff Knapp. Jeff runs a jetboat and knows the Allegheny and it's chunky bronzebacks extremely well. After that we continue north to Buffalo, where we'll spend two days on Erie with Frank Campbell (http://niagaracharter.com/). It'll be my first visit to Erie's legendary eastern basin, and I can't wait. If we get the smallmouths really good on the first day, we may try steelheads the second day, but we'll take things one day at a time. Fish stories to follow.