S8, Ep 29: Fishing in Flux: Matt Reilly's Take on Spring Trends and Techniques

Hey, folks, it's Marvin Cash, the host of The Articulate Fly.We're back with another Southwest Virginia Fishing Report with the man himself, Matt Reilly. Matt, how are you doing?

I'm doing good. We're. We're still fishing.

Yeah. Although, you know, we were talking before we started recording, and your spring striper run was pretty brief.

Yeah, man, most. Most, most everything since about, gosh, I guess the 1st of March has been kind of.Kind of accelerated and, and abrupt and, and, you know, muted to, to say. Well, not to say the least, but not to sound too down about it. It's. It's just been a funky spring, you know, super duper dry.Had a string of like 85 to 95 degree days, you know, for a week there in early April, some of that in late March. And, you know, when you don't have any water in the river, things warm up really quick and, you know, just been. It's been pretty, Pretty interesting.

Yeah, I would say, you know, we were talking before we started recording and folks that listened to all of these fishing reports would remember the Led Zeppelin song, that the song Remains the same because it doesn't really pretty much matter where you've been on the Eastern seaboard, whether it's trout or smallmouth, your spring's been pretty wrecked, right?

Yeah, well, yeah. Talking about leads up on. I'm ready for the levy to break any day now. The. Yeah, it's, it's. It's just been the same old.And I mean, I guess it hasn't been that long, but, you know, things, things progress. I mean, a lot goes on in the spring, you know, transition from, from muskies to pre spawn smallmouth for like a month, month and a half.And then stripers and a bunch of, you know, insect hatches on trout streams and, you know, if, you know, on certain years, cicadas. I was, I was kind of, kind of talking like I was.I was bummed that we didn't have another cicada hatch this year, but hell, I don't know, they could have come out three weeks ago for all I know, and we would have been, you know, having a tough time smallmouth fishing, you know, and then, you know, striper run Peter and out early and then missing the cicada hatch. Who. Who knows? You know, two. Two months ago, I was having a conversation with some of my West Virginia, Ohio fellas at a trade show up in Cincinnati.They're asking me, you know, because, I mean, you know, we had a pretty dang cold February and in January the river was frozen for a month and you know, we're trying to decide whether that's going to extend the, the kind of pre spawn muskie window or not. You know, maybe we'll be fishing all the way to April. They, I'm pretty sure they were pretty much done spawning by the first of April.So yeah, things have just, things have just changed real quick.

Yeah. And so, so what do you expect to see as you kind of shift gears back to smallmouth?

It. Well, so it was back out today. Today was my first coast striper run day. It's, you know, still real low.We do have, you know, we're having some pretty great early April weather right now. Like highs in the 60s, rain weather that, that really makes the, the striper fishing good if it comes at the right time of year.So water temps have dropped a little bit, but things are still really low.There's, there's fish in all stages of the SP still and we, you know, normally it, it, you know, that May through like late June, early first half of July time frame can be a real grab bag of different techniques and things with, with a couple, you know, kind of standout patterns like a, like a bait fish bite we usually get in late May, June and then a crayfish mold and you know, some top water fishing mixed in.But I, I have a feeling it's kind of just going to be like that, just kind of here and there all over the place with, with the added benefit of, you know, having real low water, whether the water's real warm and the fish are really in a buggy mood or not. Um, we'll definitely be able to get some fish on bugs we did today.And one thing I, I kind of always like to put into people's heads this time of year because I, I see this a lot. You know, mid April, early May, people start talking about how great the top water fishing is and they're, you know, it.You can catch a fish on a bug, you can catch a fish on a popper this time of year up under the trees, tight to the bank, whatever. There's fish that are eating bugs like damselflies and dragonflies and, and other things.Right now I've, I've pumped some stomachs this time of year and found stone flies and bees and, and beetles and all kinds of stuff in fish's stomachs. It's, it's, you know, it's a very viable food source for them at the moment.But you still do when you're tossing bugs, you know, tight to the bank and dead drift them.You run into a lot of males that are sitting on nests that will come up and grab those bugs just because they're kind of in their zone and not going anywhere.So you know, this time of year, whether you're streamer fishing or top water fishing, if you observe that behavior where you have fish that will kind of like lazily follow something, you know, maybe put it in their mouth, kind of lip grab it, not really scarf it down, or they follow it out 8, 10ft from the bank and then just kind of turn around and go back where they're, you know, where they were. A lot of times that's just defensive male behavior. And I'd encourage most people to just kind of keep moving on. You see that stuff and try not to.You know, it's really exciting when you, when you start catching a lot of like 17, 18 inch fish on, on top water bugs this time of year.But like a lot of that is, is, is what I just described, you know, so just, just kind of keep that context in mind and you know, try not to overdo it too much.

Yeah, good advice. It underscores what we heard from, I think last week from Brian Shoemaker telling people to stay away from the banks, right?

Oh yeah, Brian, Brian, Brian knows what he's talking about. The same, same deal.

So you know folks, we like smallmouth. You know, if you fish it kind of like, you know, we're matt guides.I mean we had, we had time, you know, we've had quite a few years where there's been really bad recruitment. So let's not screw it up. If we get a good year, you know, we have to take advantage of there not being a lot of rain, right.To have a good, good, good class year for smallmouth.

That is potentially the one of the biggest upsides is, you know, that these years where we go into the spawn really dry are really vulnerable because, you know, it, it doesn't take a lot to blow the river out. Well, I mean, in a, in a sense it does because the water table is extremely low.But you know, fish, fish can kind of set up anywhere in, in certain river systems when the water's this low. I mean, I've seen them in the last couple weeks, like just low water years.You'll see a lot of fish spawning and tail outs at times just like behind a basketball size rock middle of the river, you know, just because it doesn't take a lot to protect the site from, from current and some of your typical kind of protected backwatery kind of spots are, are real dry and real stagnant in low water. So, you know, an inch or two of rain or, or more or for a. In, in May can, can really monkey with things.But if the prevailing pattern is no rain, then, and you, you keep that through June, then you can do pretty well. So that's, that's, that's a very, you know, big potential upside.

Yeah, making a little lemonade there. I have have a question for you from Miles.And Miles is a listener, he's in college and when he gets out, he's interested in breaking into guiding and he wanted to kind of get your thoughts on kind of, you know, what's the best way to kind industry.

Man as far as guiding specifically? I would say. Well, I'd say first off, I mean, like I've been doing this, you know, regarding some other things in my life the last week or so.You know, anytime, anytime I'm, I'm trying to navigate something I don't really know a whole lot about.I like to get a lot of people's different opinions because everybody's advice is just going to be based on what's, what's worked for them, what their life experience has been. So I mean, I'll say from my perspective, the, I mean, I, I started, I started writing when I was 15, you know, professionally and over the.Probably five to seven years after that, before I started guiding, I met a lot of people and made a lot of contacts and that certainly helped. And I, I don't care what you do. It's always, it's always good to know a lot of people in that space.You know, I also had a lot of great mentors too that I sort of, sort of just stumbled into or, or seeked out to a degree.So, you know, trying to find, trying to surround yourself with people that are better than you that, that are willing to help that, you know, again from, from my life experience that are older folks that have kind of been there, done that and don't really have a whole lot to prove or probably you're better, better mentors than, you know, guys that are five years older than you that are, you know, know, slightly more than you and still trying to figure it out, which, you know, might disqualify me there. But, you know, just, just surround yourself with people that are better than you and then be, be willing to work really hard.It's definitely not easy. You're there.There's a lot of guides out there these days and they're getting better and better resources you know, educational resources are getting better and better. So it, it's, it's, it's relatively easy to learn and, and get good.And then you just got to spend a lot of time on the water because it doesn't matter how much you read or watch on YouTube or somebody tells you half the time that stuff isn't right, you know, or it doesn't work in your fishery. You know, you've just, you've just got to figure it out on your own to some degree. You know, I talk about context a lot.You want to learn as much as you can, try to get as many ideas in your head as possible and then go out and see what you see and you know, try to decide what, what works and what doesn't.And gosh, in terms of like, you know, one thing that I, I definitely have going for me is the fact that I, I have year round fisheries that are, that are pretty good. I also live in a place that has a relatively low cost of living.So, you know, it'd be really hard for, you know, me to have, you know, two kids and a wife and guide full time and, and you know, more or less make it live in some place like Northern Virginia or, you know, someplace with a much higher cost of living. So that's, that's worth thinking about. Like I said, I can, can guide year round. I pretty much have something going on every day of the year.So if you get a, get a big blowout in, in May and lose a couple weeks, you know, your season doesn't end in October. You got musky season or striper season or, or trout season or, you know, whatever you're doing in the wintertime.And gosh, the other big thing is just diversification. You know, I, like I said, I do a lot of writing.I do, I do a lot less now than I used to, but it's always something to do if, you know, I find myself with a frozen river in the wintertime and, and you know, caught up on all my chores and you know, needing something to make some money. So that's, that's always nice. You know, you're not just tied to one single stream of income and gosh, I could ramble about this for a while.

Yeah, well, I told you we could literally talk about it for 90 minutes and put out a separate podcast episode. Yeah, maybe sometime when you, the rivers get blown out, when the levy does break, we can do that.But you know, kind of underscoring kind of one of the points you were making about talking to a Lot of different people.I think it's really important and sometimes I think younger people don't realize this, but you got to understand the difference between being somebody like Matt, who's like making most of his income guiding. And then there are other people that are super passionate and they're good, but it's not their primary source of income.And the decisions they make guiding are different based upon the fact that they don't need to put food on the table by going and ch and fish.

Correct. And oh gosh, you just put another thought in my head. You know, I, I would say a big thing too that I don't know.You know, I think the Internet makes a little bit tougher, maybe every day, maybe a little bit easier. Is, you know, you do, you do want to learn from folks and you want to talk to as many people as possible.But at the end of the day, you know, guiding is, is at least the way I do is about, it is about catching fish, but it's also about the, it's also about the places and, and the fish and the people. And you just, you, you want to be as authentic as possible.And you also have to, you know, I, I say this a lot to a bunch of different people who probably, you know, don't care one bit. But if, if you were, if you were going to guide as a career, obviously you have to make money.You know, you've got to figure out how to make it sustainable. But assuming you've done that, you know, there's three different things that kind of drive your decision making process from day to day.One is, you know, one is making money. One is respecting your, your, your customers and your people.Because at the end of the day, if you want to be, you know, long lived in, in that career, you need to treat people well, you need to have repeat business, you need to get referrals. And the other one is, is your fisheries.You know, you can't, you can't be abusing them, harming, harming the resource, putting things that can't take it on blast. And you know, of those three, making, making money kind of needs to be the last thing that you use to make your decisions.You know, those other two things are way more important and sometimes that hurts you.And, but I tend to think in the long run it's definitely going to help you, you know, but day to day, you know, you can't be, can't be putting people on the water on days that you shouldn't be getting on the water. You know, you need to Know what you're talking about.So you're not, you know, putting people on the river to do something that, like cicada fishing or something when there's no situation to be had. You know, you, you, you just, you, you gotta, you gotta think about those other two things first.Um, and again, I think that's just key to, not that I make the rules, but key to doing it the way that it should be done and, and having a business that, that sticks around, you know?

Yeah, absolutely. All good advice, Miles. I hope that helps. And you know, folks, we love questions on the articulate fly.You can email me or DM me on social media, whatever is easiest for you. And if you use your question, I will send you some articulate fly swag you're drawing for some cool stuff from Matt at the end of the season.And I know Matt, you, you sent out an email, I don't know, less than a week ago with a handful of smallmouth dates. And you told me you've already booked out most of those. So you want to let folks know kind of where the open spaces are.They're probably pretty late in the summer. October and how to get in touch and all that kind of good stuff.

Yeah, yeah, I've got a smattering of things. And in May and June, July, those May dates are kind of just the, the burnt ends of the striper run there that I was trying to salvage.And yeah, you know, I, I, I say it all the time, but people cancel and things change.So if you're looking to get out on the water, definitely reach out, but, you know, yeah, there's a couple, couple opportunities during, you know, it should be prime bug season and then, you know, for your conventional anglers or, or, you know, just folks that want to get out on the water, you know, May, June, early July is, as I mentioned, is kind of just a grab bag this year.We'll probably be doing a lot of top water fishing through that time frame just because it's going to be low and clear unless something changes dramatically. So there's another, there's another upside.

Yeah. Well, there you go. Well, listen, folks, you owe it yourself to get out there and catch a few tight lines, everybody. Tight lines. Matt.

Hey, thanks, man.