Bob Swan and I fished the Flat river for smallnmouth today. The one Bob is fighting here straightened his hook. We did manage to land some smaller ones though
Alltogether we got about ten bass on topwater flies. I set the hook too quickly on another big one but we didn’t really get another good one on.
Jim,
Sounds like you had a great time & it’s fantastic to hear of Bob again. I wondered what happened to him.
BTW, tell him the ol 'tuber says he doesn’t look any different than he did 4 years ago…he looked old then & still DOES! :twisted:
Mikey
ps: Is he still playing with the Orchestra?
Gotta love smallmouth on top
Very nice. I have only been able to chase smallies once so far this year. I’m a bit jealous 
Hold it Jim you hit the Flat and didn’t invite me.
Tim, you’re always welcome to come along. Just call when you can fish.
In the great traditionof 20/20 hindsight I tied this up on a #10 hook tonight as Bob was out fishing me mercilessly with a small popper.
Nice looking fly, what kind of hook is that? The gap looks huge for a size 10.
I was surprised about the comment that a fish straightened your friend’s hook. I have heard that since I was a kid using nylon lines with aberdeen hooks on a cane pole. I have had a couple of broken hooks recently but not a straightened one in the last 50 years.
That’s a Mustad 37187 wide gape hook. The fly is just about one and a half inches from hook eye to tip of tail. I tried to take a picture of Bob’s popper with the straightened hook but it was too out of focus to show the wire. He was using eight pound test tippet material so it had to be a pretty light wire.
Other then carp they are the hardest fighting fish you can catch on a fly rod. Nice job. Its been a couple of weeks since I have been out fly fishing but I did manage 2 smallies in a small stream on a 7’ 5wt and they fought like a motha
Awesome! I’m very jealous.