I got a call about 20 years ago from a guy in Utah who had heard how amazing smallmouth bass fishing was in the Penobscot River.
The problem was his timing. It was April. The river’s islands were under flood waters and I tried to talk him into going to Grand Lake Stream instead, but he insisted.
This was only my second or third year of guiding and I was still getting to know the river.
It was cold and windy and the water was high and icy the day we went. I told him I hadn’t fished it this early, but then I remembered I had once with a buddy and his dad using spinning rods. We had found some fish then, so I decided to start in that same area.
I found an unproductive stretch of slow current, so we moved. I was fishing a sink-tip line, and he was using an intermediate. I began stripping painfully slow, barely moving the fly. It felt like I was just snagging weeds, until I set the hook and brought in a smallmouth.
After the third one, I handed him my rod. He soon was into one of the biggest smallmouth I’ve ever seen.
That day taught me a lot. Normally, I strip with a “strip-strip-pause” rhythm, but in cold water, I needed to slow down. Like, really slow. I also learned that big fish often hold in eddies or spots with almost no current. With high water comes a buffet of food, and they don’t want to waste energy fighting current.
Ever since, April marks Stac’s first outing of the year. I have a go-to spot where fish hold reliably, and we usually take turns fishing. She more often catches bigger fish than I do.
On one particular spring day, it was sunny and warm, but the water was cold and high. I told myself that this was the year I’d finally out-fish her. I had tied a special fly designed to hover just off the bottom while using a sink-tip line — perfect for avoiding snags.
I made a long cast and started a painfully slow retrieve. I felt tension, set the hook and landed a solid 18-inch smallmouth.
“No way you’re beating that,” I told her.
She cast her line and immediately caught an 18 ½-inch fish.
I fired another cast, hooked a big one, and landed a 19 ½-inch smallie. “That’s it,” I said, “no way you’re topping this one.”
She stepped up, made a beautiful cast, and started stripping. Suddenly her line stopped. “Stuck on bottom?” I asked. But then the line pulled tight and a huge smallmouth launched out of the water, 50 feet away.
“Net it! Net it!” she yelled.
“I’m not getting in that water — it’s 45 degrees!,” I said.
She sometimes panics when she’s into a big fish, but she did everything right and landed a 20-inch smallmouth.
Once again, she beat me.
I kept fishing for another half hour while she sat and watched me catch a few more, but none came close to hers.
It’s been a couple of years since that day, mostly because my guiding season keeps starting earlier. But whenever I do get her out in April, she always seems to connect with a giant.
