Monotonous excitement - smallmouth and panfish fly fishing

I went fishing yesterday.  Yup.  Simple outing.  Again.  On the same water.  Well, technically, it was the same stream but not the same water.  Recent rains and flooding as the likes of which we haven't seen here in ages has changed the stream bed.  The challenge was trying to figure out where the places smallmouth bass had moved into.  Pools which had not been there before provided a swift dirty pool of wonderment and frustration.  The lies situated at the ends of riffles had disappeared and log jams were preventing upstream movement of fish into areas which once had an abundant population.

OK, maybe it wasn't so simple but there I was again, throwing the same fly.  The Shucker, a one time fly swap pattern that sat unused in a fly box for several years before being thrown into the pitching rotation to save my afternoon from "skunky-ness".

Since last fall, I have used this pattern more than any other fly.  It's got legs, it's provides motion and it sinks down in the water column or sinks to the bottom.  Most of the time, I use XL stainless steel eyes for weight.  I really want to throw Double Deceivers but don't want to use sinking line.  So, I stick to ol' faithful here.  I occasionally use purple Crazydads too.  Hoppers have been uneventful this fall.

I really would like to blog about something like tossing DD's at smallies or posting about how fish smashed my foamies.  But I'd rather just keep casting the Shucker because it catches fish.  Along with a ton of rock bass and a good amount of smallmouth which includes the one in the photo, the Shucker didn't fail me yesterday - nor did the five replacements, lol.

In the photo, it seems like I make be stretching the jaw or mouth.  I was criticized yesterday about how I held this smallmouth bass.  Other folks have criticized past photos of how I hold them.  Dave at http://highplainsflyfisher.blogspot.com/2013/09/two-nights-twenty-miles-of-river-and.html?showComment=1379709996583#c2161528768790471428 seems to be holding them just right.  Perhaps, next time, I will attempt the same hold but they seem to wriggle out of my grasp such as the last outing I had when a 18-20 incher squirted from my hold.

What did I do today?  I tied up 5 replacement Shuckers for my next outing.  Am I ever going to tie up Double Deceivers for which I had bought material this spring?  Dunno.  I really wish I could provide more interesting posts for ya'll.