The Pre-Work Special is a must if you have any flexibility in your schedule this time of year. Cooler mornings and happy fish can make for a couple productive hours before you head into the office. Our own Rick Mikesell is a big "Pre-Work Special" guy. He'll often come strolling into the office with his work shirt in hand regaling us with tales of his pre-work adventures along the DSP. Everything timed out right for me, so we linked up last week to enjoy a couple hours chasing carp and smallmouth on the river right behind the shop.

One Fly: Everyone Knows the Rules. The Jigged Wooly Bugger starting off hot with your typical DSP smallie.

Target acquired. There were a fair number of fish slowly cruising the mudflats looking for a well-presented fly to munch.

Taking advantage of the high vantage points along the DSP, Rick took a peek and then put the sneak on one of those tailing carp.

A couple looks at a cookie cutter DSP Carp before Rick lets it go.

We continued upstream and Rick found a rip-rap pocket filled with some more diminutive smallmouth. Earlier in the day, we saw a couple of sizable ones, but Rick couldn't convince them to eat. He threw his Jigged Wooly Bugger in the crowd and this specimen shot out of the depths and smacked his fly.

We've all certainly seen a good smallmouth or two around the DSP, but, as Rick commented - there seem to be quite a few more solid smallies hanging out this summer. It's nice to see the river producing smallmouth of this quality just minutes from the shop. Rick let this one scram and we walked a quick quarter mile back to the Denver shop. Bye now.