“I’d just like to learn something, get a better bearing on what these late-summer fish are doing,” I said over my right shoulder, delivering a passive prod to Jared Tuck, a seasoned smallmouth angler from Wytheville, as he slung another cast to the bank from the back of the raft.
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| The author releasing an trophy smallmouth to fight another day. Photo by Matt Reilly. |
“Yeah, it’d be nice to catch one, though,” said Tuck.
“We’ll catch a couple,” I said, attempting to anchor
the fate of the day with the optimism and confidence necessary in hunting
trophy fish.
An osprey launched itself into flight from a prominent
pine along the long, rocky shoreline, the rhythmic sound of air under large,
beating wings syncing with the whirling baseline of oar strokes pushing up-lake
against a light but steady breeze.
Zach Taylor, also of Wytheville, and a virgin to the
smallmouth bass that famously fin the New River near his home, cast from the
bow, silently wishing too for that first fish of the day.
On the first day of our junior year of college, Zach
and I met as roommates, and quickly established common ground in fishing. Upon
learning of his uninitiated smallmouth career, I made his introduction to the
hard-fighting bronzeback a priority, and we endeavored to float the New at the
next opportunity.
Tuck, who grew up fishing the waters of the New, was
our across-the-hall neighbor, and one of the 20 freshman residents I was
charged with advising. We talked about fishing and smallmouth and the New River
more often than not when we didn’t have work to do, and when we did.
But it was a year before the three of us found time to
fish together, and, ironically, we weren’t on the river, but a foreign water of
which little is publicly known. Its potential as a smallmouth fishery made me
eager to discover its secrets, to learn to catch its fish so as to be able to
guide anglers to trophy smallmouth on it. When I pitched the fishery to the
boys, they were eager, too.
Tuck swapped to a topwater lure. It landed with a
splash next to the bank, and he began working it to the boat in a zig-zag
powered by short, upward jerks of the rod tip.
“My dad caught a nice smallmouth on this thing on the
New,” said Tuck, without confidence.
As we approached a small creek mouth, Tuck fired his
lure to the bank under a small overhanging limb. Before he could begin his
retrieve, a V-wake pushing parallel to the bank sprouted a bucket mouth and
inhaled it with a loud splash.
Tuck cranked down and set the hook. I dropped the oars.
In a few seconds we all saw a large flash of bronze. I grabbed the net, and,
being in just a few feet of water, hopped out of the boat. A few tense seconds
passed before we saw the flank of the fish again. Tuck raised his rod tip, and
I shot the net underneath of the fish and around its head and lifted.
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| Jared Tuck with an 18-inch smallmouth taken on topwater. Photo by Matt Reilly. |
We all celebrated as I pulled the fish from the bag,
handing it to Tuck. The first fish of the day—about 18 inches—was the fish we
were looking for—a day-maker, and a trophy fish in just about anyone’s book,
especially for a foreign body of water.
Tuck traded me my camera for his fish, which he held
up for me to photograph. We measured the fish and I snapped more photos as he
lowered it back to the water.
Zach caught my attention with an excited grunt from
the front. I looked over my shoulder to see his rod bent statically. He was
snagged.
But he was reeling. Then the rod throbbed and the fish
jumped. As I stood in the water dumfounded, Tuck tried to hold on to his fish to
complete a double, but lost his grip in excitement. Zach’s fish bull-dogged
around the boat for almost 30 seconds before he succeeded in turning the fish’s
head towards the surface. As the brute flared its gills in preparation for
another head shake, I caught it with the net and pulled it from safety.
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| Zach Taylor with a 20-inch smallmouth--his first ever. Photo by Matt Reilly. |
“Dude!” I yelled at Zach as he stared in disbelief at
his first smallmouth ever hanging in the net.
Catching up to the events that had unfolded, we shared
fist bumps all around. We measured Zach’s fish, which taped at just over 20
inches—a trophy smallmouth, a citation certified by the game department, and a
hell of an introduction to the species. I took my camera back from Tuck and
handed the fish to Zach, his hands shaking.
We snapped photos and released the fish, and
celebrated those fish for the rest of the day, made complete in just a few
short but memorable moments.
*Originally published in The Rural Virginian
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