Your Fishing Forecast for July 31st!

 

Smallmouth can be found in shallow water near rocks, points, docks, and other structure in the morning and evening hours. Through the day (especially if it's sunny), target points, walls and weedbeds adjacent to deeper water (10-25'). Poppers, clouser minnows, and crayfish patterns are all good bets!

 

Largemouth bass don't get the attention they deserve among fly anglers for some reason, and we don't know why! They love to eat flies, and they're happy to live in shallow waters near shore, all day and all summer long! Target structure like weedbeds, lily pads, docks, and submerged trees. Largemouth are suckers for poppers, leeches and crayfish!

 

Though some of our most popular trout rivers are too hot to ethically fish for trout, there are still options! This is the time of year to explore small rivers, you'll be surprised what's out there! Look at the smallest rivers that are heavily tree covered, more shade = cooler river, in addition to that, we'd advise that you limit your fishing to morning hours before things heat up and of course monitor water temperature as you go (68F cutoff for brown trout).

 

With that said, keep an eye on overnight temperatures over the next couple weeks, cooler nights will mean more trout opportunities popping back up!

 

Don't forget that there are a slough of very cool species that are relatively unpressured just because most people don't know they're there! We're talking about fish like gar, bowfin, and drum (sheephead). These fish can be found in shallow waters of many lakes (the Great Lakes especially), and readily eat flies! What's even cooler is that most of the fishing for them is sight fishing, what could be better?! If you want to learn to fish for these fish, stop by for a visit and we'll point you in the right direction!