S8, Ep 69: Navigating the Transition: Captain Brian Shumaker on Smallmouth Behavior and Fishing Techniques

0:00Hey folks, it's Marvin Cash, the host of the Articulate Flyer. We're back with another Pennsylvania smallmouth report with the man himself, Captain Brian Shoemaker. Brian, how are you doing? I'm doing well, Marvin. How about yourself? Just trying to stay out of trouble. It's kind of funny. We were talking before we started recording and you're kind of, you have the weather that we want here in the south, but you're like three weeks ahead of us. Yeah. Yeah, this week here is starting out. Well, it started end of last week. We've got a rainy pattern coming in to coming in off the coast. So we've been having rain, mist, and we're actually cool temperatures are cold if you want to call it that way. We've been in the 60s the last couple of days. Tomorrow we're going to have rain and in the 50s. So I got to bundle up and dress up for on the water.

1:00Yeah, it sounds like no bugs either. Now we're not getting the bugs. The water temperatures drop down. We're at 70 degrees as of today's surface temperature. And with the cold rain and the cold temperatures, that would probably drop down into the 60s. And so do you expect the bug fishing to come back if it warms up or you think you're probably pretty much done on that front? No, I think if we get, you know, we get the, what are they called, Indian summer. If we get that Indian summer and we get the temperatures back up in the high 70s, like 80s, it'll warm back up and we'll be able to, we'll be able to start some bugs and catch some fish. Hey, guys, and you know, it's interesting too. We were also talking, you know, the days are noticeably shorter. You know, I suspect you're seeing the bass kind of moving around a little bit to different spots now, right? Yeah, absolutely. They're not, they're not really holding in the shallows much anymore.

2:01They're kind of roaming around and moving into a little bit deeper water and into the pockets and stuff like that. Haven't really, it haven't really seen it yet as them schooling up like impacts that they do in the fall. But as the water temperature cools off some more, they'll start doing that. But yeah, they're, the majority of the fish in right now is pretty much as a streamer bite. Hey, guys, just so now you're not doing one gallon bugs and one gallon streamers. You're probably fishing two streamer rigs. Anything you kind of change up when you're kind of in this kind of funky shoulder season from kind of a tactics and approach? Yeah, it right now, it's kind of interesting. Instead of, I like throwing like size two streamers, clasers, what have you, but actually downsizing to a size four right now has been very productive for us. And I like usually fishing an intermediate line, but we've been fishing them just straight

3:05on a floating line, one a nine foot leader. So it's like a slower descent and you know, they want that pause. You got to have that pause. And that's usually when they're getting bit real quick. The guy I had today is a single, single client. So I'm watching or I can see his line when he gets ahead against poolness. Then do you want to say to hook on that fish? He said, do you see that? I said, buddy, I see everything. I said, I know when the fish hits that fly and then I know when your reactions are little too slow. So I'll let you know when your reactions are low too slow. He just laughs. Yeah, it's interesting. You know, my experience with that is like watching white game changers disappear, right? And that's, you know, it's like it's there. It's there and it's gone. You're like, what should I do? And you should, like, you should script straight. Yeah, exactly. I had that on Friday. I had, I showed the guy as how I fish a streamer and how I set the whole because he kept

4:11no offense to the trout fisherman. He's trout set on every one of them. I said, buddy, you've got a strip strike and keep at rod, rod low. And then once he started doing what I showed him, he says, man, this really works. I said, yeah, that's what I get paid for. Yeah. You know, what's the kind of, because one of the things I always seem to mess up when I'm streamer fishing is basically, you know, you got, you know, pretty heavy terminal tackle, right? So you can kind of pull him right on in. But I think I told you before we started recording, I was fishing in Tennessee, had a nice big brown on and he jumped towards the boat and he was gone. You know, in terms of making that transition from the strip strike to basically getting the rod vertical and getting some tension on the fish. Yeah. So what, instead of, once you do that strip strike, what I do is, you strip strike at fly, but don't bring that rod straight up. I come off to the side and kind of keep it, oh, I don't know, be like a 45 degree angle and keep it between, like in the middle, between high and low and just come up a little bit,

5:18but don't come up high with your rod. Just keep that and keep that pressure on him. And then if the fish decides he's going to turn or something, then you can take that rod and come over to the other side, but still try to keep that 45 degree angle and keep that pressure on the fish. Yeah, got it. So you're really trying to keep that rod bent pretty deeply, let that thing do the work, right? Exactly. Let the rod do the work, you know, because I think the other, it's not really an issue, but I pinch all the barks down on all my flies. Another one that's for my safety, because I can't tell you how many times I've taken flies out of everywhere on my body. It's for, and it also helps the fish to protect the fish. But if you give him a little bit of slack, you know, a little bit of gif on that, they're down there shaking their head and eventually that fly is going to work loose.

6:20And if you can keep a little bit more pressure on that fish, it keeps that, you know, fly lodged in this mouth there. Even if he shakes, it's not that much. Like if you add a little bit of slack in your line where he gets more movement by, you know, shaking his hand or swimming one way or the other, because that fly, you know, will work loose with the bark pinch down. Got it. How long, you know, Brian, do you kind of expect, you know, the arc, I know you're done at the end of October, but, you know, what are you looking for if we get Indian summer and the bugs come back? What do you think the next kind of two to three weeks on the water look like in Pennsylvania? You know, we're going to have rogum water flows. And like I said, it would be, it would be a streamer bite. We get some warmer days and stuff. We'll be able to still throw some, some topwater bugs there and just kind of work them slow. Give them a lot of movement, you know, give it a little pop and just let it dead

7:20rest to give it a little pop and let it dead drift. So if we get that Indian summer, we could have a combination of a little bit of topwater. It's definitely going to be a streamer bite then too as well. Got it. And so, you know, I know you're booked out for the rest of your small mouth season and you got a little bit of a break and you can do some red fishing. So that probably means, you know, if they're not in your boat and on your calendar, people won't see you until the 2027 show season. You'll let folks know where they can find you on the road during show season. Yeah, I'll be, I don't know, I can't give you the dates and they can look it up. Be at the Virginia Flying Line Festival. I'll be at the Edison Fly fishing show. I'll be at the Lancaster Fly fishing show and I'll be at the Maryland Fly fishing show. Well, there you go. Well, folks, as I always say, y'all it's yourself to get out there and catch a few. Tightlines everybody. Tightlines Brian. Tightlines Marvin.