The Show Me Fly Guy: Targeting Smallmouth Bass with Ryan Walker on a Fly- Part 1

My second smallmouth ever and my first that I caught on purpose thanks to Ryan.

I rolled into Mount Vernon, Missouri, at about 5:00 last Wednesday night. That was the first of many firsts that I would encounter over the next 24 hours. I had never been to Mount Vernon, I had never targeted smallmouth bass on a fly, and I had never met Ryan Walker in person. I checked into my hotel room and got all my gear ready for the next day. I grabbed some Subway, watched TV, and told Wendy that I had arrived safely. As boredom started to set in, I noticed I still had a little daylight so I started hunting for a place to fish. I ran across Williams Creek Pond on a map and come to find out, it was in a city park and was fishable. I caught a few bluegill on a fly as the sun set. The fish would get bigger from here.

I met up with Ryan at 6:00 the next morning. It was nice to shake his hand and in case you were wondering, he looks just like he does in all the pictures and videos that are on social media. If fish in Missouri and are on social media it would surprise me a little if you have never seen or heard of Ryan before. He is known by many as the best smallmouth fishing guide in the state of Missouri. He's a commercial fly tyer and I have posted about his Etsy store before and the amazing flies he turns out. He also founded Ozarks Smallmouth Alliance which is a grass roots conservation program that promotes catch and release for smallmouth bass in southern Missouri. Some people know him as "the free the fighter guy" or the guy that says "boom" a lot. While those are true, he is much more than that. Ryan has a passion for smallmouth and where he lives that is rare. His enthusiasm is genuine and never stops. I don't think Ryan even knows how to fake something and his love of his fisheries and smallmouth is strong!

Etsy Store: https://www.etsy.com/shop/OzarkSmallmouthFlies

Ozarks Smallmouth Alliance: https://www.facebook.com/Ozarkssmallmouth

Cell Phone for Guide Service Inquiries: 417-366-3617

I am not at liberty to say where we went next. We will just refer to it as a beautiful Ozark stream. Smallmouth bass guides are protective of their water and for good reason. It takes a long time to grow a big smallmouth. It wouldn't take many folks to converge on a stream, remove a bunch of fish, and negatively impact the fishery for years before it recovered. I will say that it was a little slice of heaven and had a solid smallmouth population.

Ryan had recently had the chance to demo a River Rat raft and referred to it as "a game changer". While I'm not sure how he got around before, I can attest that the raft was very comfortable really stable. In terms of fishing, he informed me that we would be throwing 6 and 8 weight rods with streamers with some on sinking lines. While I had never thrown a streamer on moving water for smallmouth, I had experience with hybrid striped bass, white bass, and largemouth on still water. What I'm trying to say is that my former experience really didn't matter because this was a new game. And even though I had heard of dungeons and clousers and even caught fish on lunch moneys, I still had no idea what I was doing. Today was going to be a day of learning and I can unabashedly say, it took me a while. It's a good thing that Ryan is a patient teacher and outstanding communicator.

We did some practice casting and drifts in areas that didn't hold fish just so I could get the hang of things. I ended up with a ball park idea of how the day was going to run and was cautiously optimistic as most fishing trips start out. It didn't take long for us to find fish or for me to miss fish. Sometimes I knew I missed them and other times I had no idea. We were drifting heavy flies through deep holes and I was just not seeing the takes. I even told Ryan that I was going to need an extremely aggressive fish smash my fly and hold on to it for a crazy amount of time. Thankfully, that's exactly what I got.

This fish hid HARD! He pretty much hooked himself because I was still transitioning from "trout sets" to strip sets. Now I had heard about how hard smallmouth fight but nothing can prepare you for the real thing. I felt like I had a two pound largemouth in terms of power and a bigger trout in terms of stamina. When I finally saw the fish I was in awe of both its power as well as color. This thing was beautiful and changed color like a chameleon. I literally watched it change color by the second. A sense of relieve rushed over me when Ryan netted the fish. The thought of not getting skunked came to mind and Ryan said something like "Well we aren't getting skunked today!" That made me laugh and reassured at the same time. I was overjoyed and felt like I was starting to figure this system out. My hubris however was about to be exposed...and then followed with exhilaration. Stay tuned for part 2 tomorrow.