Point 17: Catching a bundle of smallmouth in the dog days of summer

July 13th, 2025

During the middle of what was probably the hottest month of the year, in the desert no less- my wife and I decided to take out our family's boat on our favorite lake for a little escape to do some camping and swimming. Of course, no vacation around the water wouldn't be complete for me without some fishing at some point along the way. I packed my fly rod without expecting too much, just a way to spend the time in the mornings and evenings when the heat of the summer wasn't going to usher us into the water for the vast majority of the day.

We chose a beach to park the boat that looked inviting, it also was flanked by steep red rock cliffs plunging into the water that appeared like it had potential for great fishing structure. After an afternoon picnicking and swimming, I indulged in attempting to fish these cliff walls as evening approached. The rock walls spilled

into the water and continued for another foot or so before meeting soft sand below, where a sand bar extended out about 30 feet before leading to a sudden indeterminable depth below. I noticed in this clear water a small school of bluegill scurrying in the shallows with a bass in tow stalking them. I excitedly began spooling out line tipped with a shad-imitating streamer and cast it just to the side of the school of small fish. The retrieve immediately captured the interest of the bass, which spurned into action darting around the fly for a couple seconds before striking. It put up a great fight for a smaller fish before giving in and allowing me to pose for a nice picture. It was a decent smallmouth about 12-13 inches in size, which was quickly placed back in the water to soon start chasing baitfish again soon. After this fun little skirmish, I fished the shallows for another few minutes

hoping to strike gold again along the sandbar. It's an addicting thrill sight fishing like that, and a fun change from the usual high altitude stream fishing I'm so used to. However no more bass were found in the shallows so I resorted to casting out into the drop-off and letting the fly sink about 10 feet down before starting to strip it in. This method quickly seemed fruitful, as a few more smallmouth were caught in quick succession, chasing and engulfing the fly from deeper water. I caught half a dozen or so, all about the same size before turning in for dinner. It was a fun outing and gave me a great appreciation of a species I'm not used to targeting so much.

The rest of the trip was great from a non-fishing perspective, but besides the flurry of catching a handful of smallmouth in quick succession was fairly uneventful, besides perhaps me catching a personal best catfish off the stern of the boat. With catching 3+ smallmouth all at or above 12 inches I earned another point on my Legendary Angler challenge, making it my 17th. Just 83 more to go...