T.F.M. Spotting - Smallmouth Tourey

Mat Trevors of 411#3 recently fished a local smallmouth fishing tournament with fly rods instead of gear sticks and happened to be wearing his representing for this excellent T.F.M. Spotting Photo Contest submission. 

Mat wrote...  "This is the first fish I caught on the Cabela's C.G.R. 7/8 weight which was recommended to me last fall by some helpful chap who writes about fiberglass rods.  I was looking for a cost-effective rod under eight feet for fishing bass tournaments and to keep the gear guys from whining about some unfair advantage I might have. 

I already had Redington's 7'10" Predator in six weight but found it lacking for throwing large deer hair poppers and weighted flies. Over the winter I pieced together a very pimp bassin' setup, if I do say so myself, of the C.G.R. matched with a Hardy Ultralite 7000DD and Sage's Performance Bass fly line in the 230 grain Bluegill Taper.

Weather conditions weren't ideal (I had to switch to spinning gear late in the day) and didn't win the tournament, but of the nine fish we brought in, five were caught on the fly rod, included the largest two of the boat.  The largest smallmouth in the above photo came on a Barr's Meat Whistle on the first cast while the rest came on an all-white Clouser Minnow.

By the way...the glass rod while wearing the T.F.M. hoodie wasn't staged at all.  The T.F.M. hoodie was on because it was cold out and the glass rod was used because it was the best tool for the job!"

Mat...nice work.  I hope that this isn't the last tournament that you participate in with the fly rods.