Headwaters

I had an appointment near the river’s headwaters so I decided to fish for a couple of hours before I went to the appointment.  The river here is narrow and shallow, and the fish were pretty small for the most part.  On the first drift I had a dink smallmouth on and off.  I proceeded to catch several small chubs and dink smallmouth.  I worked down river to a point where the water was too deep for me to wade (or so I thought).  I turned around and fished upstream over the water I just fished and further up until I got stopped by an impassable log jam. I was wearing shorts and didn’t want to go bushwacking without long pants.  So I went back down river to the spot where it got too deep to wade, and found a shallow spot on the far bank that allowed me to pass.  I fished the rocky area where the bottom dropped off and caught a respectable smallmouth.  I continued to work a deadfall near the rocks and caught another decent smallmouth.  These were the first two fish that were big enough to fish for.  All the other were the size of baitfish.  It was cool to explore this new water, but the fishing was not great.  I doubt I’ll go back to this spot because the fish were so small, and it was close quarters; I lost several flies to the trees and submerged wood.