S6, Ep 137: Navigating Post-Hurricane Waters with Matt Reilly

Hey, folks, it's Marvin Cash, the host of the Articulate Fly. And we're back with another Southwest Virginia fishing report with Matt Reilly. Matt, how are you?

I'm doing great, man. How are you?

As always. Just trying to stay out of trouble.

And, you know, we were talking before we started recording and I think maybe in your neck of the woods, you know, at least from a fishing perspective, things have started to kind of normalize post hurricane.

Oh, yeah, we have. We've been musky fishing on the new for a couple of weeks now. The kind of dirty water coming out of Crater Lake is now in the past.

Like 97% of the boat ramps and access points on the system are back in usable shape. Especially, you know, if you've got a, a raft or something. You can, you can not necessarily have to back all the way to the river.

So, yeah, we're, we're kind of in the swing of things now. It's been nice.

Yeah.

And you were telling me that below Clater Lake that you actually got a little bit of stain in the water, so it's actually making things a little bit more productive than normal.

Yeah, it's, I mean, it's, it's slowly becoming less and less stain, but it's, you know, it's not the gin clarity that we would normally have with the amount of rainfall we've had in the last month and you know, low water this time of year. So that, that has been nice to have that little bit of fail, you know, condition in the water. There's lots of real clear water in the system too.

Just depends on, on, on where you, where you are. And that's, you know, that's not necessarily a bad thing.

I feel like every year, this time of year we're talking about low, clear water and how it makes fishing really tough, but it's not always the case. And I mean, you've had a fair number of boat side eats in the last week or two, even in really, really clear water and sunny days.

So just about fishing your conditions and, you know, putting the reps in and trying to do everything right when it counts. Yeah.

And you know, hopefully it'll cool off at some point. Right?

Yeah, we're, we're getting there. I mean, we've got low to mid-60s, depending on where you are, water temps and parts of the region.

And Tom, you know, that's thanks to, you know, lows in the 40s and 50s and highs close to 80 for the last couple of weeks. Lots of sun, not a lot of clouds, but that's that's change. It's changed in the last couple days and it's fixing to change even more. I think tonight.

It's been fairly breezy this week. It's pushing in some, some cooler weather.

We're supposed to have lows in the, around freezing a little above and you know, highs in the 40s and 50s and that, that's going to stick around at least, you know, for the extended forecast. So I kind of like that. You know, I generally like things to be seasonal and that'll, that'll align us fairly well.

I usually look to have like mid-40s dumps by the end of Thanksgiving pretty typically, so hopefully that gets us on track there.

Yeah, and got an interesting question for you too. Got a bunch the last time, as I told you. I think when we start putting out musky pictures, people get excited and they respond better.

Yeah. Well, good to know what the people want.

Yeah, well, it's a good top secret social media hack, right? Uh, yeah, that's right. So, question.

Um, and it was Ninja and I can't remember the other part of his Instagram handle, but he wanted to get your thoughts on fly line and fly choice for fishing. Fall low water when you're in a smaller river system.

Yeah, that's a, that's a, that's a good question. Um, I, I'll start with the low water part.

There's a low water generally means one, you know, not being, I know this is obvious, but it's going to be relatively shallow to sort of what is typical in the river system.

It also generally means that the speed of the current is not very significant, which just means that the denser the line you're fishing, you know, if you're, if you're fishing a 3, 5, 7 or a tide 5 or something like that, you maybe get down too quickly.

And it also, you know, anytime you're muskie fishing, especially if you're fishing sort of, you know, Buford T bone, you know, glider kind of jackknifey flies, being able to not be rushed on your, on your retrieve is, is invaluable. You know, you don't want to be. It pays to fish flies fast sometimes.

But if you got a fly that does a lot of dog walking and side profile showing, you know, it's nice to have a line that's matched well to the depth and speed of the current so that if you want to pause it for three or four seconds, you could do that, not have to worry about it, shoot to the bottom. So I mean I would be looking at basically anything with like a.

And again, I don't know where you're fishing, but if I'm thinking shallow, small river, you know, something with like a 3 inch per second or less sink rate. So that may be an intermediate, that may be like an i35SA triple density line. It may just be a sink tip.

You know, you've got a floating running line because you're probably not making real long casts anyway.

And to that end, you know, the smaller the creek generally, the more it pays to have a kind of a more compact head in your fly line so you can, you can, you know, sort of pull your fly out of the water and shoot a cast without having to worry about, you know, getting a big head out of your rod tip. So those are considerations. Cortland makes a pretty good intermediate line as well. Musky line.

But that i35 or like a type 3 sink tip from SA would probably be what I would recommend you start with. You know, again, not necessarily knowing where you're fishing.

Another thing that might come into play that will impact your line choice is, you know, the type of flyer fishing, the type of presentation you're using.

So if you're not fishing a standard, you know, Buford or something that's designed to kick back and forth and walk the dog, maybe you're fishing something, you know, you've got warm water in the 60s and you're trying to fish with speed. You know, two hand retrieving, stuff like that, it, it does pay in those situations.

Have a little bit more density in your line because if you're going to be fishing real fast, you know, shooting a fly to a log jam, you know, being into your first strip by the time it hits the water, burn it back to the boat.

An intermediate might not be your best option because you're going to want to get some bite in the water with that line so that you're not just pulling it across the surface and it can get down, you know, six inches or a foot or two. So in that situation, I might look at a type 5 or an i35 or something like that that's got a little bit more sink rate. But that would be.

I don't know if that's obvious. Those would be my suggestions in terms of flies.

I mean, I would always say to start with, you know, regardless of size and color and all that stuff, you know, look at what the food base is in your river system. It may be primarily hog suckers, it may be a lot of red horse. You Know carp, sunfish, et cetera.

Figure out what they're probably eating in there and then use that to kind of narrow down your size and profile decisions. And let's see, generally speaking, in lower clear water, I'm going to lean towards, you know, natural colors. I always throw black in there.

I like black just about all the time. Natural colors and going a little smaller, the clearer things are.

You know, you might consider going a little lighter on flash, but not necessarily, but smaller bugs. Smaller bugs are also a little easier to depending on what materials are tied out of.

If they're made out of deer air, a smaller bug with enough density in your line will be pretty easy to cast and it'll get down pretty easily.

You know, you might not be throwing your big 14 inch like you know, glider style flies or just packed to the brim with bucktail because you're not making 70 foot casts and digging it down eight feet, you stripping it back to the boat. So those would be, would be my suggestions and I'm trying to figure out where else to go with that.

Mo eat a lot of things, even big flies and small water. Small flies and big water, those things aren't necessarily correlated.

But you know, generally speaking, lower, clearer, slower water, you know, I downsize a bit, go more natural and yeah, I mean that's where I would start anyway.

Yeah. Well, there you go. And you know folks, we love questions on the articulate flag.

You can email me or DM me on social media, whatever is easiest for you. And if we use your question, I will send you some articulate fly swag entering or drawing for some cool stuff from Matt at the end of the season.

And you know Matt, before I let you go, you want to let folks know. I know every time we talk you have fewer and fewer days and they're deeper and deeper into the next season.

You want to let folks know kind of what you have available and how to reach out and all that kind of good stuff.

Yeah, we've got a couple of musky days left in like November, December, a few in January, few in February. But it's definitely get pretty thin. Definitely more availability kind of later in the winter.

Also, you know, doing some smallmouth stuff on the tailwater in the kind of midst of winter, December, late November, December, January, February. It's a good time for that. But yeah, that's, that's kind of what we're looking at in the immediate future.

I have started booking some stuff for the spring, summer.

But if you have any questions about anything, you know that, that I do throughout the year, whether that's the musky thing, where smallmouth, spring, striper stuff, small mouth, you know, through the seasons, whatever, you know, just give me a shout and we'll, we'll figure out what the windows are and we'll. We'll get something set up. So feel free to reach out however you feel best.

And all that info is on the website, which is Matt Riley, Fly Fishing dot com.

Yeah, and you know, folks, as I always say, you know, when it's dreary and miserable in February and you're not out fishing for muskie, you're gonna, you're gonna wish that you had gotten out, particularly since it's still unseasonably warm in the mid Atlantic.

And I would also say too, you know, most of East Tennessee, southwest Virginia and western North Carolina is open for business and a great thing to do, take advantage of this weather, go to some of these mountain communities and spend some money and catch some fish. Tight lines, everybody. Tight lines, Matt.

Hey, thanks, Marvin.