S6, Ep 33: Southwest Virginia Fishing Report with Matt Reilly
Join Marvin Cash and Matt Reilly for a springtime splash on The Articulate Fly. The duo dives into the dynamic conditions of Southwest Virginia's waterways. With a mix of rain and sunshine nurturing the rivers, Matt paints a picture of full, happy flows and pre-spawn smallmouth bass eager for action.
Matt reveals his dream day on the river, casting streamers under heavy clouds and drizzle, while the fish put up an exhilarating fight. As they navigate temperatures ranging from the high 40s to 70s, Matt's expertise shines through, providing a masterclass on the art of streamer fishing in prime conditions.
Listeners get a special treat as Matt answers Brenner's question about his favorite crayfish patterns and colors for targeting smallmouth. From the classic crayfishy tan to the enticing black and blue, Matt simplifies the selection process while offering a glimpse into his strategic approach to color based on water temperature and clarity.
The conversation takes a deeper dive into presentation techniques, distinguishing between jig-style dredging and swimming methods, with Matt sharing his preference for the Clawdad and Tequeely patterns. He emphasizes the importance of adapting to the river's mood and the smallmouth's preferences, ensuring every cast counts.
As the episode wraps up, Marvin invites the audience to submit their questions for a chance to win some Articulate Fly swag. Matt announces a golden opportunity with last-minute openings for prime pre-spawn smallmouth fishing, urging listeners to reach out and secure a spot for an unforgettable angling adventure.
Whether you're a seasoned angler or just getting your feet wet, this episode is a must-listen for anyone looking to refine their approach to spring fishing. So, grab your gear, cast your line and let's catch a few! Tight lines, everyone!
To learn more about Matt, check out our full length interview.
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Marvin: Hey folks, it's Marvin Cash, the host of the Articulate Fly,
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Marvin: and we're back with another Southwest
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Marvin: Virginia Fishing Report with Matt Riley. How are you doing, Matt?
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Matt: I'm doing great, Marvin. How are you?
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Marvin: As always, just trying to stay out of trouble and getting ready for the Easter Bunny.
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Matt: Yeah. Yeah, we, uh, the, uh, little guy got his picture taken with the Easter
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Matt: Bunny downtown last week. So, it's officially spring. Things are starting to happen.
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Marvin: Yeah, there you go. You didn't go to the hardware store and buy any chicks or ducklings, did you?
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Matt: I didn't. I can't speak for my wife, but I haven't gotten home yet.
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Marvin: Yeah, well, there you go. Well, you know, it's funny. We were talking before
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Marvin: we started recording, and, you know, weather kind of in our part of the world
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Marvin: has kind of been a little bit all over the place, but mercifully,
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Marvin: we've been getting a decent amount of rain.
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Matt: Yeah, I'm pretty happy. Of course, the last day I had on the river was kind of my springtime dream.
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Matt: You know, it's been, rivers have been full.
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Matt: You know, we've had fairly consistent rain, but nothing like, you know, crazy heavy.
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Matt: I wouldn't even call the rivers high. They're just real, real happy and a good place.
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Matt: We've had some, you know, every couple of days, some pretty cloudy,
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Matt: kind of drizzly weather.
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Matt: Weather uh yesterday we fished most of
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Matt: the day in the rain heavy overcast um
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Matt: filling some some bait fish flies that small mouth that have a great time um
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Matt: still be dry for the next couple of days with kind of temps and the like seasonable
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Matt: to slightly warm you know So 50 to 70 degree range.
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Matt: And then we got some more rain coming next week. So I think things are looking pretty good.
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Marvin: And so can you give us a little bit more detail on the pre-spawn Smalley front?
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Matt: Uh, yeah, we've, uh, you know, again, depending on where you are,
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Matt: um, water temps and, and, you know, day to day overnight lows and,
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Matt: and things like that are going to dictate where you start out water temp wise and where you end.
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Matt: And, you know, whether you have sun on the water or clouds, think to how much
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Matt: of a tail bump you get over the course of the day.
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Matt: But, you know, generally speaking in the high, high 40s to mid 50s range is
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Matt: where we've been at for the last week or so. And it's a really nice place to be.
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Matt: Fisher, real happy to chase flies, you know, certain days you need a little
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Matt: bit longer suspension, longer pause.
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Matt: Um, but you know, with a little bit of water in the river to, um,
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Matt: some pace to the, to the string flow, there's a kind of an incentive or a need
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Matt: for those fish to, to, uh, to eat and, and they're kind of pinned up and,
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Matt: and fairly predictable places too.
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Matt: So, like I said, I'm real happy on that front.
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Matt: We've mainly been able to avoid any kind of, you know, deep dredging at this point.
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Matt: Had a couple of days in the last week and a half, two weeks where we've had
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Matt: some, you know, cooler overnight temps.
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Matt: We're starting out fairly cold where we've had to drop down a little bit.
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Matt: But for the most part, um, swim flies, different streamers is,
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Matt: has kind of been where we've been, where we've been staying,
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Matt: which again is, is very happy place to be.
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Marvin: Uh, there you go. And got a question for you from Brenner. He wanted to get
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Marvin: your thoughts on your favorite, uh, crayfish pattern colors for small mouth.
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Matt: Yeah. Um, I, I keep it pretty simple. I guess this goes for most flies that I fish.
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Matt: I'm not a gotta-have-12-different-color-schemes-in-the-box kind of guy.
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Matt: I realistically fish maybe four or five different colors over the course of
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Matt: the whole year max for crayfish imitations.
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Matt: Um the the go-to is always going to be you know the crayfishy color kind of a tan brown um.
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Matt: Just kind of what people might call green pumpkin, a little bit of olive,
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Matt: you know, in the conventional world.
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Matt: Big fan of black, black and blue, black and purple is good.
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Matt: You've got a little bit of extra color staying in the water.
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Matt: And that's more or less just for some contrast and just showing up a little
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Matt: bit better, particularly in cooler water.
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Matt: I'm a believer in the fact that, you know, if the water's cold and you've got a little bit of stain,
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Matt: those fish, their reactive distance is a little bit lower or smaller when it's cold.
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Matt: Because then they're not going to like move a long distance to to take a fly and so it.
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Matt: Very basically kind of the sooner they can become aware
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Matt: of that prey item in
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Matt: their sphere of awareness um the easier it is for them to catch or or go grab
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Matt: if it's if it's real cold and they're not you know moving around real quickly
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Matt: um so black and blue black black and purple um you know Purple is always a good
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Matt: kind of accent color for smallmouth,
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Matt: particularly on crayfish flies, I think.
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Matt: So like kind of a brownish purple, again, what they call peanut butter and jelly
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Matt: in the conventional world with tube jigs and jigging pigs and stuff like that.
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Matt: That um and uh you know i guess maybe another color scheme i guess you could
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Matt: call it would be just that typical kind of tan brown with a little more detail
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Matt: um this is something that i do.
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Matt: Um just more or less to help me and i don't think it hurts um for the fish um
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Matt: as as the water drops Pops out later in the spring or into the summer,
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Matt: I'll start tying my crayfish flies a little bit lighter than my standard kind of springtime bugs.
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Matt: So if I put a large or an extra large dumbbell eye on a size two or one or one
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Matt: odd crayfish, I might put a medium on that size two.
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Matt: And just to help me keep track of them i'll uh i'll add like a little kind of light orange,
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Matt: nail polish to the tips of the claws on them
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Matt: just to help me keep track of which ones are which and you know the other way
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Matt: to think about that is uh you know as the water gets a little bit clearer a
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Matt: little bit of detail isn't isn't a bad thing so maybe that's another color scheme
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Matt: and then And the other one that's relevant would be,
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Matt: You know, late, late June or early July when we're having a crayfish molt and
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Matt: the fish can tend to key in on crayfish pretty heavily for a week or week and a half or two.
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Matt: Something a little bit lighter, like more of a peachy tan kind of color is a good one to have.
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Matt: I mean, a lot of times they'll eat the standard fare then too,
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Matt: but that just might be a little bit more realistic.
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Matt: But yeah, I would say don't, don't overcomplicate it too much.
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Matt: You know, look at the food that matches colors and, you know,
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Matt: to that end, you know, some creeks, some rivers do have fairly unique,
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Matt: uh, uniquely colored crayfish.
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Matt: So maybe, maybe check into that.
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Matt: Um, but otherwise it's just natural colors. And then, you know,
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Matt: maybe a little, uh, kind of a secondary color just for different water conditions,
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Matt: you know, like those dark contrasted colors.
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Marvin: Got it. And, you know, do you like, you know, you know, different platforms
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Marvin: in terms of presentation?
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Marvin: Like, is it for you mostly fishing a kind of a jig style presentation or do
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Marvin: you have some other kind of presentation flavors you like with your crayfish?
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Matt: Um, yeah, so, so there's a kind of two main ways that I, that I fish them.
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Matt: One would be just a, you know, a jig.
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Matt: Um, and I, I talk about conventional gear a lot because I do both,
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Matt: um, a lot, but you know, that typical, you know, my favorite platform,
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Matt: I guess is, is the claw dad trucks pattern.
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Matt: Um, and I, I tie a pile of different kind of variations on it.
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Matt: To hit um but that's a that's a jake
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Matt: style grudging um bug with
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Matt: dumbbell eyes and not a lot of buoyancy um
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Matt: that to get down fairly quickly you're gonna fish
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Matt: it with a leader that's fairly small in diameter
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Matt: in the in the lower half
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Matt: just to help it get down a little bit um and
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Matt: yeah your fish i fish those on floating lines um just
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Matt: so that you're you can really fish the
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Matt: fly as opposed to a sink
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Matt: tip or an intermediate or something where there's water tension
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Matt: on the line dragging the fly around and um the uh necessary you can use the
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Matt: tip of the fly line which should also be a fairly visible um fly line you know
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Matt: heavy-headed streamer line um Um,
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Matt: something that I have kind of come into my program lately is, um,
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Matt: I guess it was maybe two years ago, scientific anglers changed the color of
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Matt: the Titan long streamer line, which is the one I, I really like for floating line.
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Matt: And now they've got kind of a like camo dark brown olives tip.
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Matt: Which is not what you want if you're trying to use your fly line tip as an indicator.
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Matt: So lines like the older Titanese, the Bass Bug, which is a heavy-headed fly
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Matt: line that's a wider, more visible color, are good.
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Matt: You're just kind of bouncing them on the bottom, watching the fly line tip for
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Matt: any kind of stop or twitch.
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Matt: Or there's some timing involved there where you want to try to identify when that fly hits bottom.
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Matt: And just bump it either with a strip or a rod tip jig or a little mend,
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Matt: you know, as soon as you see that, just to hop it up off the bottom.
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Matt: That'll keep it from getting snagged. If you see kind of a sharper twit or pop,
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Matt: or if you go to mend it or jig it or whatever,
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Matt: when you see that line lines start to slow and you
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Matt: feel some resistance or or something fishy you
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Matt: know then you're just giving them the the bill bands with the
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Matt: rod after stripping the the slack in um
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Matt: that's that one way to go about it the other
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Matt: way um that that i
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Matt: like to do it is and and do it with the same
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Matt: fly more or less you just change things up a little bit a
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Matt: little bit lighter dumbbell eyes um you
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Matt: can go bigger um in diameter on the rubber
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Matt: leg size so instead of fishing like a medium rubber leg
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Matt: you fish a large rubber leg um which gives
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Matt: the fly a little more buoyancy in the water or a little more drag as it as it
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Matt: sinks and you can kind of swim those a little bit more um as as the water warms
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Matt: up it it but if it's you know if if for some reason you feel the need to fish a crayfish fish, um,
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Matt: and not be on the bottom, um, which, which again can come into play kind of
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Matt: like late spring at times, early summer.
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Matt: Um, you can fish those up a little bit larger diameter leader to again,
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Matt: just for some drag, keep it up off the bottom a little bit, suspended a little bit more.
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Matt: Um, the other fly that I do employ a fair bit in that situation,
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Matt: which I, uh, you know, kind of from,
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Matt: one perspective, I kind of,
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Matt: don't understand what it is about the fly but um those tequilis the the fully mill pattern um.
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Matt: Is a is a is a great one when fish
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Matt: are just being kind of lethargic um moody
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Matt: and it it really does not look
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Matt: much like a crayfish at all but i think they eat them as crayfish
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Matt: um and that that fly kind
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Matt: of again employs some of the same uh tying
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Matt: strategies as as i mentioned in kind
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Matt: of my more buoyant uh whim crayfish kind
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Matt: of style with the claw dad where it's got
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Matt: uh three pairs of two rubber legs that
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Matt: just kind of stick out perpendicular to the body kind of
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Matt: act as a parachute a little bit um some marabou um a really kind of like bushy
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Matt: body material material and not a ton of weight but enough to get it down in
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Matt: the water column and those you know you can you can dead drift you can fish
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Matt: them a lot slower but you can kind of fish them like.
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Matt: Like lower middle water column and uh that's that's a good one too um you can
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Matt: mess with those colors you know the standard that you buy is like a copper with
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Matt: yellow legs and yellow black tail You know,
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Matt: I, I, I'll fish some with the kind of more muted kind of root beer-y tan body with,
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Matt: with like peach or, or brown,
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Matt: uh, marabou and some different color, color rubber legs.
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Matt: Um, not a bad idea. Just kind of a, a buggy, you know, smaller,
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Matt: you know, more subtle crayfish, I guess.
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Matt: Um, yeah, that's, that's, that's kind of where I, I tend to live.
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Matt: I, I'm really not a guy that likes to spend a long time, uh,
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Matt: tying crayfish flies because you will leave a lot of them on the bottom and
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Matt: it just hurts too bad to spend an hour and, uh,
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Matt: you know, eight different materials on a crayfish and then snag them up on the second cast.
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Marvin: You don't do that. Only your clients, right?
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Matt: Yeah. I've never, I haven't lost a fly since I was 12.
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Marvin: Yeah, there you go. Well, you know, folks, we love questions on the Articulate
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Marvin: Fly. You can email them to us or DM us on social media, whatever is easiest for you.
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Marvin: And if we use your question, I will send you some Articulate Fly swag.
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Marvin: And we're going to draw in for some cool stuff from Matt at the end of the season.
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Marvin: And Matt, before I let you go, because I just saw your email,
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Marvin: I know you've got some last minute pre-spawn Somali openings,
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Marvin: but why don't you let folks know kind of what you have in your calendar,
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Marvin: how to reach out and all that kind of good stuff.
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Matt: Yeah good call man i guess we nailed the timing on that one um i had uh three days just pop open um,
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Matt: some folks had to move their their calendar around kind of prime pre-spawn streamer
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Matt: fishing small mouth days and those are april 3rd and the 8th and the 9th so
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Matt: not that far off but i mean right right in the sweet spot of,
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Matt: you know, central really starting to blow up right now.
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Matt: They're getting real fat because, um, you know, they're starting to chase it.
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Matt: He a lot water still fairly cold.
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Matt: Um, they're just going to get heavier. Um,
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Matt: and, uh, with the, the water we have in the river right now and the kind of
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Matt: consistent kind of rainy, wet, cloudy weather we're, we're having,
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Matt: um, things, things have been real nice.
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Matt: So, um, those are, those are there.
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Matt: I do have like two other dates that just opened up for the rest of the year.
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Matt: I think they're July 30th and September 29th or 30th.
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Matt: Um, but other than that, we're pretty much taken care of on the small mouth front.
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Matt: And, uh, we are starting to book some musky stuff for the fall winter.
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Matt: Um, always booking trout trips. We've had some really cool dry fly days.
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Matt: Days, um, the last week or so.
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Matt: And, uh, that's only going to get better through, you know, May, June.
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Matt: And then, uh, as the summer wears on, you know, terrestrial attractor dry fly
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Matt: kind of stuff is going to come into effect.
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Matt: So booking a lot of stuff, but the small mouth stuff's real limited.
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Matt: So if you want to get out and poke some small mouth this year, give me a shout.
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Matt: And I've got got a couple of things i can do with the calendar to to get you
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Matt: out but um yeah contact info is on the website that's matt riley fly fishing.com
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Matt: and just reach out however you feel best.
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Marvin: Yeah well there you go we'll listen folks show it to yourself to get out there
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Marvin: and catch a few tight lines everybody tight lines matt thanks marvis.
Matt Reilly
Guide | Fly Tier | Outdoor Writer
Matt grew up stomping around the warm water creeks and rivers of his native central Virginia, just a stone's throw from the James River. He's been blessed with a great many mentors, including his father, who introduced him to fishing before the age of two.
In his teenage years, Matt took his first professional venture into the outdoor industry as a freelance writer and photographer, and soon secured a weekly outdoor column in The Daily Progress' Rural Virginian.
After heading south for college and falling in love with the fisheries of southwest Virginia, Matt established his guide service in 2018. Today, he is a father, husband, USCG-licensed captain, and a leading fishing guide specializing in smallmouth bass, musky, and other predatory game fish. He speaks regularly on a range of topics. His writing has appeared in several national and regional publications like Eastern Fly Fishing, American Angler, Fly Tyer, Southern Trout, Hatch Magazine, and Virginia Wildlife. He is also an ambassador for Reilly Rod Crafters, a producer of premium fly rods based in Virginia.
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