Thursday Tips: Don't Bring a Knife to a Gunfight

Brian "Squirrel" Hager just shook his head and grinned when he saw the two rods I'd brought for our day on the river. One was a medium-light spinning outfit rigged with 6-pound test. The other, an ultralight, was spooled with 4-pound line. A long-time guide on the West Virginia portion of the New River, Squirrel likes at least 8-pound test, and he prefers 10.

I should have known better, having fished that section of river several times. Sometimes I forget, though. I quite commonly target stream smallmouths with 4- or 6-pound-test and pretty light rods, but the New is a large, crashing mountain river, which calls for making longer casts and and contending with quite a bit of current. It also lends itself to bigger lures than I often throw for stream smallies, so heavier line and stiffer rod are more effective for making good presentations. The New is also loaded with abrasive rocks, and it holds some giant smallmouths, which will break your heart if they end up breaking your line.

I don't know that I lost any heavyweights on my most recent trip. I don't know that I didn't, either, though, because I broke my line on a few hooksets and failed to hook quite a few fish that I never saw or felt enough to sense their size. I do know that I missed an inordinate number of solid strikes from fish of all sizes.

The major shortfall of my light tackle was that I didn't get good enough hook penetration and missed far too many fish, either by not them at all or by them shaking off partway through the fight. Between rods that were too soft and a drag that I had to keep a little loose because of my light line, my hooksets simply weren't as effective as they should have been. I also didn't end up using the ultralight much because it was just too light, so it was hard for me to keep complementary lures rigged and ready and to fish spots all the ways I would have liked.

I still caught an enormous number of bass on that particular day because the action so incredible. Had the bite been slower my sub-par hook-up ratio would have been frustrating. I enjoy ultralight fishing as much as anyone, and I'll still carry little stuff when the situation reasonably allows for it. I was reminded, though, to keep in mind that a number of factors (including fish size, river size, cover thickness, lure size and style and hook size) affect the right rod, reel and line size for a day of fishing, and that it's generally better to err heavy than light.

For more information about the tremendous smallmouth fishing on the New River, visit Mountain State Anglers.

Squirrelly Fine Smallmouth Action

For starters I simply have to acknowledge that I have no idea how many fish Nathaniel and I caught yesterday. In fact, I couldn't guess within 50 fish. We made no attempt to count, and Nathaniel, who was in the back of the raft, probably caught a few dozen smallmouths that I never saw. Often my attention was on the fish I was landing, my next cast or the path of the raft, and unless a fish was bigger than average, attacked with added gusto, got serious air or did something else of note, Nathaniel would just land it, unhook it with a grin, slip it back into the river, and fire off another cast.

Squirrel, as veteran guide Brian Hager is best known, said he had little doubt that we eclipsed the 200-fish mark, and I believe him. Squirrel has led a load of fast-action days on West Virginia's New River, often with anglers intentionally counting every fish, so he has an excellent gauge of the action. I do know that Nathaniel and I both hit snaps where we'd catch a fish every cast for several casts in a row, and the only thing that broke some of those snaps was missing or losing fish that hit hard and probably should have been landed. I also know without question that Nathaniel and I had never caught nearly that many fish together in a day.

Don't misunderstand. Fish-catching action is only one measure of a day of fishing in my mind. However, if you consider the setting, those other values would have earned the highest of marks had we not caught a fish. I got to share a raft with my son and a guide who loves to show off the New River and its spectacular gorge. We spent the day crashing through rapids -- sometimes picking a smallie from an eddy pocket on the way through, and working the deep green runs that separate the rapids, all between the boulders and cliff walls of 1,000-foot-deep gorge.

When given a choice early in the morning, I briefly pondered whether to fish the gorge or an upstream section, only because the river has run so high all spring and summer that Mountain State Anglers hadn't run any fishing trips through the gorge section. I really didn't have to think about it for long, though. Squirrel was confident that we'd catch 'em, and he quietly suspected it might be exactly the sort of day it turned out to be. I'd fished the gorge twice previously, and while other sections are beautiful as well, the total experience of running New River Gorge is without rival in my mind.

This part probably goes without saying, but I sure am glad we opted to fish the gorge!