Dale Huggins of the Orvis shop in Short Pump, VA comments on his September '04 trip with Canoe the New. "We got on the river Sunday morning about 8am, and one look told me that we were not going to have a very good day and certainly were not going to fish the fly rods. I was half right. While I did try the long rod off and on, our fish came on conventional tackle.....Scott had the first citation on within a hour of leaving the launch area, a solid 20 and a half inch fish. We totally lost count of the fish we caught but estimates ran between 150 and 200 smallmouth between the four of us over the two day period. The amazing thing to me was the size of the fish we were catching. Fifteen, 16, 17, and 18 inch fish all day long. In addition to Scott's citation, I had two, a 21+ in the morning and another 20+ in the afternoon. I'm not sure of the count but I think we measured there of four fish that were at or over 19". I have fished and guided on a lot of smallmouth water, and this had to be the best two days of smallmouth fishing I have ever seen."