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Smallmouth Maniacs

4K views 16 replies 9 participants last post by  fishheadfred 
#1 ·
Living in the Great Bluegrass State, my options for steelheading, bonefishing, and coho chase are limited to say the least. I live a short drive from the Cumberlad River which is by rputation the best trout fishery in the south. One would think that this would make me a very happy young man, but one would be wrong...where are all of my kindred souls looking for that monster smallie?
 
#3 ·
Lots of Smallie fans here Fred and Carp fans too Greg!

Look back over some of last seasons threads, especially Quentins and you'll see a lot of interest in pursuing the "Freshwater Bonefish" on fly.
 
#5 ·
I've been tying up some hopeful smallie-slayers lately. A lead-eyed olive Zonker with an orange chenille wrapped body, and I use red wire to wrap the front half of the rabbit strip "matuka-style" to the hook.Leave about 1.5" strip hanging past hook bend as a wiggly tail.
I'm hoping another of my creations will be good too; it's a weighted minnow; mylar-tubing body, crystal polar-type hair wing, chartruese flashabou strands for an overwing, black thread head & a red yarn tuft at the throat. Looks good enuff to eat to me! LOL! Cheers, Dan'l
Lotsa places up here for bass in Ontario.
 
#6 ·
Smallmouth Bass

I catch and release more smallmouth on yellow body/white hackle woolie-bugger (size #8) than any other fly.

The smallies at Beaver Creek State Park in South-East Ohio just slam that fly...:devil:

I caught a few 18+ inch smallmouth there, but mostly in the 12-16 inch range. :D

I like to fish then just before the dam, right where the water bulges at the rock shelf, it's a smallmouth bananza... :hehe:

I also had limited luck using a purple rabbit strip zonker type fly, these seem to do well during heavy overcast days and just at sunrise and sunsets.
 
#7 ·
I love the aggressive hit and acrobatic fight of the smallies. There's a pretty good population in a few of the local lakes and rivers, but I haven't found any good methods for catching them consistently and I usually only catch them "by accident". It's always a treat to have one of those bronze footballs bouncing around on the end of my line!

Q
 
#9 ·
Here's a piece of advice that I learned a long time ago.....

If you want to catch big smallmouths (i.e., bigger than 16"), leave the small flies at home. While downsized flies have their moments, you'll catch the attention of more big fish more consistently with bigger flies.

Seems obvious enough, but I didn't start catching large smallies until I really adopted this attitude. What a difference!
 
#11 ·
Smallmouth Bass

Hi,

Just joined the board last week. Looking forward to comparing notes with fellow fly fishers. In the past I've been successful catching smallies on ultralight jigs using my spinning reel. One of the patterns that worked really well was suggestive of a crayfish(hackle feather tail, bugger-type body and a flared collar of two or three bunches of deerhair). On a light jighead this deerhair collar made the jig approach a neutral buoyancy. Knowing that the crayfish is high on the smallmouth's wish list, what representative type crayfish patterns do you use? I do not like fishing complicated realistic patterns as I find them far less effective and too time consuming to tie. Heads up to Danbo a fellow resident of Southern Ontario for listing this flyfishing for pike site on another board. I think many of you will find it interesting.
http://www.pikeflyfishing.co.uk/
 
#13 ·
Re: Smallmouth Bass

smallmouth said:
Knowing that the crayfish is high on the smallmouth's wish list, what representative type crayfish patterns do you use? I do not like fishing complicated realistic patterns as I find them far less effective and too time consuming to tie.
Welcome! If you prefer crayfish flies that are effective and simple to tie, then you really can't go wrong with a brown over orange (or similar crayfish color) clouser bounced along the bottom. They're cheap and quick to tie, which matters a lot because when fished correctly you'll be losing some to snags (even with the hook riding up).
 
#15 ·
I've tried them with bucktail, marabou, unique hair, and super hair. Naturally the two synthetic materials are more durable, but for the most part I stick with bucktail. I've not really seen a difference in success between any of the materials.

For a change of pace, do a search in the Striper Archive for "Deep Eel". This is a pattern developed by Juro for stripers, but downsized a tad it has worked for me on smallies.
 
#16 ·
I definitely go with Marks clouser recommendation. I played around with all sorts of caryfish immitations last season and they all worked but not any better than the good 'ole clouser.

The Housatonic is stuffed with crayfish. When you get one out of the water some of the colors are amazing - mottled olive fringed with an almost flourescent pale blue is prevalent on one stretch. The contrast almost hurts your eyes in sunlight but once they're back in the water scuttling through the rocks they almost disappear, so good is the camo effect.
 
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