Ryan Caffrey holds a big New River smallmouth bass (click to enlarge)
Altamont Anglers guides love exploring new waters, and our recent explorations of Virginia's New River have opened up a whole new world of smallmouth bass fishing.
Ryan Caffrey has an incentive for exploring new waters, also: he's just bought a new boat and wants to find suitable beats for future drifting, so he booked a couple of days (punctuated by an overnight camp-out on the banks of the New) of guided fishing offered by AA guide Teo Whitlock. They hit the New on May 25 and 26, 2008.
The purpose of this type of recon mission is to learn the put-ins, take-outs, river hazards and drift-lines to take, so the fishing is kind of secondary. Until you start fishing, that is, and then everthing else becomes secondary.
Th smallie Ryan's holding on the left is the reason all else becomes secondary when there's fishing to be done...
Teo Whitlock holds a hefty smallmouth bass caught on Virginia's New River, May 26, 2008 (click to enlarge)
That fat bronze-back on the right represents a lucky moment in the life of a fishing guide: that moment when he gets to put down the oars and pick up a rod!
These New River smallmouth may have small mouths, but they seem to develop large bellies...
Mike Zibroski holds another nice New River smallmouth bass (click to enlarge)
The setting sun backlights Mike and a nice New River Smallie as the intrepid explorers near their chosen camp site. A hard day's fishing on brand-new water, a hammock by a campfire and dreams of the next day's float: Not a bad way to explore the New River.
Click the thumbnails below for larger views of more of Ryan, Mike and Teo's exploration of the New River:
(Altamont Anglers operates on Pisgah National Forest Rivers under USDA Forest Service Permit #PIS6560)
