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One day in April I got a phone call from Scott Wiley asking me if I wanted to go the New River that afternoon. Of course I wanted to say definitely, but I had a lecture in one of my building construction classes. So I made a couple phone calls and found out that I wouldn't miss anything important so I told him I would meet him at his place. We loaded our rods into the bed of his truck, stuck his two kayaks on the roof, and took off for the river. I parked my truck at the bottom of the float and road up to the boat landing with Scott.
I was throwing a 4-foot red craw crainkbait and we were only 30 minutes into a four-hour float when I came across a couple of lay downs stacked up on each other. I positioned my kayak downriver, and it must have been my 10th cast in the same spot in the middle of this tree that my bait got smacked and my rod bowed over. He took me for a ride and when he finally surfaced I lipped the biggest smallmouth I had ever seen in person. I was whoopin' and hollerin' at Scott across the river as I paddled over to him so he could snap a pic. The fish measured 18.5 inches. As we floated on down the river we picked up a couple more average smallies.
Then I heard Scott calling me over to his boat.
I remember him pulling a fish out of the bottom of his boat that was longer than mine and twice as fat. We were bummed that neither one of us had a scale to weigh that fish, but it measured 20 inches. When we finally made it down to where my truck was parked we were completely exhausted, but we had caught at least 10 fish between the two of us, and we both caught our personal smallmouth record. It was definitely worth it to skip class on that day, and the next time I get that same phone call you better believe I will be heading to the river ASAP.
— Charlie Machek
