We are now well into our 2026 smallmouth bass fishing season in Southwest Virginia. Our guided float fishing trips have been productive. The rivers are all running low due to the spring drought. We are seeing July and August river conditions in May, which is unseasonable to say the least, but we are making do and still catching fish on finesse soft plastics, light leaders, and topwater flies. Rain is in the forecast for next week, so we’ll see what happens. Hopefully we will get a much needed recharge and the rivers will be reset for more typical late spring/early summer levels. I did a little research into the strong El Niño for 2026 and that typically translates into wet summer conditions for the eastern US. We might go from a spring drought to a really wet summer. We’ll see what happens. Either way, we will adjust and we’ll have options for catching smallies.
Here are a few pictures from our recent trips:
