I've been fly fishing since I was about 12 or 13, mostly small lakes and ponds around my home town. I've always netted a lot of pan fish and large mouth bass. This year I wanted to try something different, a little more challenging. After doing a bit of reading I learned that I had a blue ribbon smallie river not 30 minutes from me, so the first weekend in June I set off. I've been addicted ever since.

In the last 8 weeks I've caught literally 50 fish. Albeit most are 4"-8" range; an awesome sign for years to come. There have been a handful of really nice 10",12 and some nice 14" fish in the mix. Largest so far has been an 18". River smallies are incredible. A 2lb smallie feels like a 5 lb large mouth. So much fight it's incredible. On a fly rod or light weight spinning gear its a blast.

Enough talk, onto the pics. Huron river is a little slice of heaven in south eat Michigan.

Great photos and glad you had some luck

Looks like a great place to spend some time fishing. I lived in northern VA for a while and my favorite thing to do there was to go to the Shenandoah River and fish for Small Mouth bass.

I just spent the last 4 days kayaking the Doah and catching smallies.  Headed back to work tomorrow

Leaving a river of biting fish to return to work has to be one of the most miserable feelings in the world!

Ive been kayaking and fishing on belleville lake sense June, and have sens caught 2 cat fish, and 1 small mouth. using worms, lures, artificials and minnows. ive had terrible luck. youve done way better then I

Try wacky rigging a 3"-4" Gary Yamamoto senko on a 2/0 or 3/0 hook. You literally can't work it too slow. Pick it up, let it fall.  Even when the fish aren't biting, I always catch something on that.

Light colors for clear water, dark for stained water.

Nice thread OP! I hear good things about that river system, don't know a lot of people that fish it though. Smallies are one of my favorite fish to target due to the fight in them, would like to learn how to fly fish, that would be a blast. Did you see the pic in my thread of that monster smallie I caught in Lk St Claire, beast! I know they fly fish that body as well as the Detroit river for small mouth.

I saw that, very nice fish!

So do you still drive that S10 or what?

I have floated that river a number of times from island lake dam to Ann arbor and it is a blast
Only done a few times north of Kent lake and its still on my list
Have a uncle that has a house on the river and would fish it often

I fish for everything on just my fly rod... call me an elitist, but I just enjoy it more.

River smallies rock, I fish the Snake for them all the time, both floating and from the bank. Nice fish, OP- what are you throwing?

I used to get all radical about my patterns, but I mostly stick to smaller clouser minnows these days.

Very nice pics, looks like a great stretch of water, the bulk of my fishing the last few years has been for smallies in the local streams, but this year I kind of got side tracked by fishing a few local ponds for LM.

Mainly terrestrials. I have a lot of luck on a bee patterned popper. I won't even pop it, just let it float. Also I'm told dark streamers work well. I have a couple in my pack, haven't tried them yet. Water has been too low.

If all else fails I'll switch to wacky rigging a senko on a spinning rod.

Got a few nice ones of those this year too. Heh

Very nice fish