S6, Ep 94: Weather Whiplash and Smallmouth Strategies in Southwest Virginia
In this episode of The Articulate Fly, host Marvin Cash catches up with Matt Reilly for another comprehensive Southwest Virginia Fishing Report. They dive into the recent weather patterns, discussing the cooler temperatures and how they have impacted fishing conditions. Matt shares insights on how the tropical depression and fluctuating water levels have affected the smallmouth bite, emphasizing the importance of adapting to changing conditions.
Matt provides a detailed overview of the current fishing landscape, including the effects of temperature drops and dam fluctuations. He highlights the challenges and successes of recent fishing trips, noting the unpredictability of the weather and its impact on fish behavior. Despite the tough conditions, Matt reports some notable catches and offers a positive outlook for the coming weeks as temperatures begin to rise again.
They also explore the seasonal transitions, discussing how the approaching fall influences fish activity and the importance of daylight changes. Matt touches on the upcoming musky season and the importance of booking trips early, especially around the holidays. He emphasizes the value of open communication between guides and clients to ensure a successful and enjoyable fishing experience.
Don't miss this episode packed with practical fishing tips, seasonal insights and a touch of humor as Marvin and Matt navigate the ever-changing fishing conditions in Southwest Virginia.
To learn more about Matt, check out our full length interview.
All Things Social Media
Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube.
Support the Show
Subscribe to the Podcast
Subscribe to the podcast in the podcatcher of your choice.
Advertise on the Podcast
Is our community a good fit for your brand? Advertise with us.
In the Industry and Need Help Getting Unstuck?
Check out our consulting options!
Speaker:
Marvin: Hey folks it's Marvin cash the host of the articulate fly we're back with another
Speaker:
Marvin: Southwest Virginia fishing report with Matt Riley Matt how are you I'm.
Speaker:
Matt: Doing great man how are you.
Speaker:
Marvin: As always I'm just trying to stay out of trouble and it's kind of funny we were
Speaker:
Marvin: kind of joking that you know maybe we've seen the last of the heat for this summer you.
Speaker:
Matt: Have to check with the local weatherman Ellis word down in Tennessee on that
Speaker:
Matt: front but I'm not I was really willing to stick my neck out there.
Speaker:
Matt: But it sure seems, you know, if you look at the next couple weeks,
Speaker:
Matt: I mean, for mid to late August, we're sitting pretty right now with temps in
Speaker:
Matt: the, like, our morning temps have been in the 50s.
Speaker:
Matt: I think we're going to have a couple of, like, high 40s.
Speaker:
Matt: And then daytime in the 60s, 70s, getting back up into, like,
Speaker:
Matt: the mid upper 80s next week. But, you know, for the late August,
Speaker:
Matt: mid to upper 80s is pretty, pretty cool.
Speaker:
Matt: And, you know, who knows what happens after that? We could have some 90 degree
Speaker:
Matt: days in October for all we know. But that's what it's looking like right now.
Speaker:
Marvin: Yeah, I think Ellis owes me the day of the first snow in Johnson City the next time I talk to him.
Speaker:
Matt: Yeah i i'm gonna i i think a good guess on that would be uh sometime between
Speaker:
Matt: october 15th and uh october 15th yeah.
Speaker:
Marvin: So you know it's interesting you know when we were together fishing that was
Speaker:
Marvin: kind of on the front edge of that tropical depression you've had a lot of yo-yoing
Speaker:
Marvin: around in terms of conditions and i was kind of curious what that's done to your smallmouth bite.
Speaker:
Matt: Yeah it's it's been kind of all over the board
Speaker:
Matt: and to be completely honest i've jumped i've jumped
Speaker:
Matt: fisheries a fair bit um just kind
Speaker:
Matt: of reacting to water and um you know damn fluctuations and temperature drops
Speaker:
Matt: and all that kind of thing so um i can tell you what i've seen you know i I
Speaker:
Matt: haven't been on one river or fishery for a whole week in the last couple of weeks.
Speaker:
Matt: But we definitely had, I guess,
Speaker:
Matt: you know, our whole corner of the state got skipped over by all the rainfall
Speaker:
Matt: that hit out towards you and Charlotte and central North Carolina and even like
Speaker:
Matt: Lynchburg, Roanoke area.
Speaker:
Matt: So we were pretty much, I mean, we got some rain and the new river came up.
Speaker:
Matt: To over 5,000 cubic feet at Radford for a day or two and then drop back down
Speaker:
Matt: to seasonal flows pretty quickly.
Speaker:
Matt: No real dirty water to speak of.
Speaker:
Matt: Um, and then it, uh, cooled off quite a bit, you know, like we were talking about earlier,
Speaker:
Matt: um, mid August, we usually get a bit of a cold snap, but I think that tropical
Speaker:
Matt: depression coming through kind of supercharge it a little bit.
Speaker:
Matt: Um, but that, that storm day, I think was Thursday of last week or two weeks ago.
Speaker:
Matt: And, um, a couple of days before that were pretty dang weird.
Speaker:
Matt: Weird um and then the few days after that
Speaker:
Matt: i think we were just kind of suffering from
Speaker:
Matt: you know conditions getting jerked
Speaker:
Matt: around a bit rising water quickly dropping water
Speaker:
Matt: temps drop and all that kind of stuff so it's been pretty funky um we've we're
Speaker:
Matt: still i mean i I may have said a couple of times that last week was one of the
Speaker:
Matt: worst slash hardest weeks of my guiding career.
Speaker:
Matt: But, I mean, we still managed to put, you know, a couple 20-ish fish in the
Speaker:
Matt: boat and a bunch of really solid fish.
Speaker:
Matt: So, it's really hard to complain too much. um and you
Speaker:
Matt: know now we're faced with this uh
Speaker:
Matt: cold front that kind of kind of
Speaker:
Matt: swept through today we had high wind and bright
Speaker:
Matt: sunny conditions and the high in the
Speaker:
Matt: like you know low 70s so
Speaker:
Matt: um things are definitely changing um i think
Speaker:
Matt: things will get better in the next week when the when the temperatures
Speaker:
Matt: start coming up again um and certainly
Speaker:
Matt: our top water fishing will be a little
Speaker:
Matt: bit better um with temp climbing
Speaker:
Matt: i really really like to see like upper 70s to mid 80s temperatures for for really
Speaker:
Matt: solid bug fishing um you certainly have good good fishing outside of that range
Speaker:
Matt: particularly this time of year when you got cicadas drop in and And, you know,
Speaker:
Matt: just lots of bugs around in low, clear water.
Speaker:
Matt: But certainly it'll be nice to have a water to shoot up a little bit again. Yeah.
Speaker:
Marvin: And so as it starts to turn cold, does that kind of, you know,
Speaker:
Marvin: clue the smallies in that they need to put the feed bag on? Yeah.
Speaker:
Matt: Yeah, I mean, I do think that's a thing people talk about, like the fall bite,
Speaker:
Matt: you know, as soon as, you know, whatever it is, September 20th,
Speaker:
Matt: 21st, 22nd, first day of fall, everybody starts talking about how, you know, fall bites on.
Speaker:
Matt: Well, I think it's a lot more complicated than that.
Speaker:
Matt: I think across species, you see a shift happening about this time of year on
Speaker:
Matt: our tailwater systems, the Boone Lake system.
Speaker:
Matt: You'll start seeing big brown trout moving around, kind of pre-spawn,
Speaker:
Matt: moving up into the river, out of the lake.
Speaker:
Matt: Our temps will start dropping a little bit. They'll come out of that late July,
Speaker:
Matt: early August peak on the warm water natural rivers, and you'll start seeing
Speaker:
Matt: musky disassociating from the cold water refuge spring,
Speaker:
Matt: creek mouth kind of water.
Speaker:
Matt: You'll start seeing the small mouth kind of, like I said, they'll slow down
Speaker:
Matt: in the morning sometimes, but they're still pretty buggy.
Speaker:
Matt: Um and i think that little bit of a cold snap
Speaker:
Matt: does kind of clue them in there and and
Speaker:
Matt: i think that's part of why we have some fantastic fishing
Speaker:
Matt: in august and september um so i i think that's a real thing um and that uh some
Speaker:
Matt: of those colder overnights will kind of help kill off some of those those cicadas
Speaker:
Matt: too and that's just a sliding you know it's a it's a gradient as we get into to mid-October,
Speaker:
Matt: colder overnights, killing cicadas and June bugs and all that stuff off and
Speaker:
Matt: having more of that available on the surface of the water, creating some good bug fishing.
Speaker:
Matt: So, yeah, I think that mid-August timeframe is a pretty pivotal time as kind
Speaker:
Matt: of the beginning of the end.
Speaker:
Matt: And, you know, once we get into October, things can kind of stabilize a little
Speaker:
Matt: bit because you can have real cold weather, you can have real warm weather,
Speaker:
Matt: and usually we're not getting a lot of rainfall.
Speaker:
Matt: And so sometimes the fishing can, you can have some challenging days at time of year,
Speaker:
Matt: but really the, I think the better fishing that's associated with the changing
Speaker:
Matt: of summer into fall usually happens kind of early.
Speaker:
Matt: Early in that in that transition and late in that transition so like august
Speaker:
Matt: september and then and then later in the fall so i i think you're right it's.
Speaker:
Marvin: Interesting too i was just looking at the calendar i mean we've lost an hour
Speaker:
Marvin: of daylight in the last what seven weeks.
Speaker:
Matt: Oh it's it's ridiculous man i mean and and uh you know in another i mean daylight
Speaker:
Matt: savings times just in you know,
Speaker:
Matt: less than less than three months and then it'll be getting dark at five o'clock
Speaker:
Matt: so um things change pretty quickly and um you'll start to notice that when you're uh.
Speaker:
Matt: When you're i do anyway we're bug fishing in
Speaker:
Matt: in september because you'll you'll
Speaker:
Matt: have to pay attention to the kind of angle of
Speaker:
Matt: the sun you know you'll have these these pools sometimes
Speaker:
Matt: times that you're fishing really low clear water late in the
Speaker:
Matt: day and say the sun
Speaker:
Matt: is at your you know at your back and
Speaker:
Matt: you're fishing the right bank and there's lots of fish lots of good habits at
Speaker:
Matt: and um but that that sun angle just getting lower and lower earlier in the day
Speaker:
Matt: and it can sometimes cast some pretty sharp shadows and make that kind of fishing
Speaker:
Matt: a little tougher you know it it's something I notice every year,
Speaker:
Matt: whereas you run through that same spot at four or five, six o'clock in July
Speaker:
Matt: and the sun's still way overhead and you don't have to worry about that quite
Speaker:
Matt: as much. So things are definitely changing.
Speaker:
Matt: Um, and, uh, you know, they've got less and less of a daytime window to operate with.
Speaker:
Matt: So some of those kind of more visual feeding fish like, like smallmouth,
Speaker:
Matt: again, I think that's another kind of, uh, motivator to feed this time of year.
Speaker:
Marvin: Yeah, got it. And you know, folks, we love questions at the Articulate Fly.
Speaker:
Marvin: You can email them to us or DM us on social media, whatever is easiest for you.
Speaker:
Marvin: And if we use your question, I will send you some Articulate Fly swag.
Speaker:
Marvin: We are drawing for some cool stuff from Matt at the end of the season.
Speaker:
Marvin: And you know, Matt, you know, as I was joking with someone, we're getting close
Speaker:
Marvin: to pumpkin spice latte time.
Speaker:
Marvin: It means you're probably pretty full up on small mouth for like October,
Speaker:
Marvin: but you're probably booking musky trips and all that kind of good stuff.
Speaker:
Marvin: If you want to let folks know kind of what you have open and how to reach out
Speaker:
Marvin: and all that kind of good stuff.
Speaker:
Matt: Yeah, absolutely. I've been just talking to somebody on the phone about smallmouth dates.
Speaker:
Matt: Nothing specific, but for next year, everything's booked for this year unless
Speaker:
Matt: we're talking wintertime fishing.
Speaker:
Matt: But I have been booking a pile of muskie dates,
Speaker:
Matt: and they tend to go pretty quickly, especially considering we're usually traveling
Speaker:
Matt: around the holidays, so that takes a couple weeks off the calendar.
Speaker:
Matt: So, um, certainly if you're interested in that, give me a shout,
Speaker:
Matt: um, my phone number and emails on the website, which is mattreillyflyfishing.com
Speaker:
Matt: and, um, however you want to reach out is great.
Speaker:
Matt: I love phone calls that way we can really kind of discuss and make sure everybody,
Speaker:
Matt: um, you know, gets all their questions answered and knows what they're getting into. to.
Speaker:
Matt: And, um, it's just nice to kind of, kind of have that open line of communication,
Speaker:
Matt: whether we're planning something short term or, or talking about putting some
Speaker:
Matt: dates on the calendar for a year out.
Speaker:
Matt: Um, but yeah, all that's good.
Speaker:
Marvin: Yeah. It's interesting. It's always amazing to me how few people take advantage
Speaker:
Marvin: of guides that are willing to really talk to them and understand what they want
Speaker:
Marvin: to accomplish on the water. And to me, it's super important.
Speaker:
Matt: Oh it is i mean it uh not to get on too much of a safe box at the end of our four but,
Speaker:
Matt: um there's a there's a lot of um
Speaker:
Matt: there's there's a
Speaker:
Matt: lot of of those kinds of like booking
Speaker:
Matt: platforms out there these days and that's
Speaker:
Matt: kind of one of the main talking points is you can
Speaker:
Matt: they can save a guy a lot of time talking
Speaker:
Matt: to clients and all that you know you just get their their phone
Speaker:
Matt: number and tell them where to meet you at the beginning of the day and and
Speaker:
Matt: that's that but i mean i firmly believe
Speaker:
Matt: that if you want to uh get the most out of a trip and i think this goes for
Speaker:
Matt: both both guides and and clients i mean if if you want to get the most out of
Speaker:
Matt: a trip if everybody wants to be as happy as possible and as effective as possible
Speaker:
Matt: and make sure you're You're fishing with the right people,
Speaker:
Matt: people and guides,
Speaker:
Matt: you know, the relationship and everybody having the same goals and the boat
Speaker:
Matt: and all that is really important.
Speaker:
Matt: I think, you know, talking to people, whether it's in person,
Speaker:
Matt: on the phone, whatever, I think it's incredibly important.
Speaker:
Matt: And I would not book a trip without doing that. So absolutely give me a call.
Speaker:
Matt: And if I got time, I'll I'll talk your ear off about whatever you want to talk about. Yeah.
Speaker:
Marvin: Getting close to getting squirrel hunt attempts, right?
Speaker:
Matt: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We can squirrel hunt from the boat while we're while we're fishing for muskies.
Speaker:
Marvin: There you go. Kill two birds with one stone. Well, you know,
Speaker:
Marvin: folks, as I always say, you owe it to yourself to get out there and catch a
Speaker:
Marvin: few tight lines, everybody tight lines, Matt.
Speaker:
Matt: Thanks, Marvin.
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.
Follow:
