Just a lil note on some good fishing,have caught a pile of smallmouths up staunton river waded with my pops yesterday and caught 15 biggest 2.5 and 3-4 @1.5 they were hitting night crawlers and white flukes good luck and GOD bless

Hey man, congrats on the excellent day and thanks for the idea. Am going to take a shot at smallies on the James, based on your post.

Gotta love the smallies, they hit hard like brown trout, though they tire a little faster. And the bigger ones like you caught are awesome.

Hey inboard what part of the James are you going to fish? Just throw the fluke only no weight and I just split shot the crawlers at the edge of eddy

Hey Clicker,

First, congratulations on a nice bunch of smallies!
I understand if you can't answer this question but I figure it's worth a try. I love smallies and allways catch and release. I have tried the Staunton several times up around long island without any luck. I also fish super flukes a ton for smallies and they are awesome.
Ok, my question, were you upstream or downstream of long island when you caught those smallies? Not asking or expecting any exact location at all. Also, what was the water clarity like where you were? Every time I have gone up there it has been very poor visibility when compared to the James River.
I've yet to fish the James very much but Bruce Ingram's "James River Guide" is a pretty cheap buy on amazon and it gives some good information on each section of the river. Next time your up on the Staunton roll over some nice sized flat rocks and look for hellgramites, if you can find a few of these big, ugly larvae you will catch the heck out of the smallies with them (put the hook behind the 'collar' just below the head, watch out for the pincers!).

Thanks in advance for any info,

mike

hey Mike, I caught them below Long Island, @ melrose, call me @ 324-4445 sometime and we'll hook up and go want to float from long island to a friends place below melrose... contact me good luck..

Hey Clicker,

Thanks for the information. The water at Long Island looks so good but I've never had much luck there on smallies(though we used to catch plenty of little 2-6pound cats on cattawba worms --if you've never tried wading for cats there with cattawba's that is a lot of fun, like smallmouth fishing for cats). I'm a pretty busy guy but if I get some time off to go try it I'll sure give you a hollar! Wouldn't it be awesome if the Staunton developed into a James River/New River type Smallie fishery!

Thanks again,
mike

Is it pretty easy to get acess to the river, how much of it is posted.

I see you mention wading. Are they a couple of good spots a guy could enter and wade for a distance, without a boat? Have you tried any fly fishing for the smallies? I have fly fished, a bit for trout, but nothing close to home.

Hey robear, alot of the river is taken up by hunting clubs but I've grown up on this river and know of a few places and majority of the people float but their is some access by land. I've never tried fly fishing for smallies if I were to bring another fishing rod in this house my wife would probably run me off.

flyfishing while wading is a very good way to catch smallmouth, also I flyfish from a kayak. Use mostly dark colored wooly buggers, or clouser minnows. Dark rooster tails, or small dark grubs fished very slow along the bottom are my spinfishing methods.

I floated the staunton around the last of june. Between two of us we caught around 35-40 fish smallmouth and a few walleye. The next day we floated the james and caught around 90-100 smallmouth. The smallmouth in the james were tearing it up. Just some info for you guys.