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?
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.
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!
Sometimes you gotta finesse 'em with crappie-sized lilttle wet flys or streamers or nymphs! Sight fishing to one you can actually see also, makes it easier to tease the bugger to hit! Cheers.
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!
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/
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).
I read that somwhere as well. I'm going to have to give them a try. Do you always fish the traditional bucktail clouser or have you tried tying them with marabou?
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.
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.
been tying a lot of clouser and clouser knock offs...gonna be 72 and sunny here sat. and sun. creeks are looking great ....prespawn smallies already moving up into the feeder creeks...may have to take a vacation day on fri. !!!!!:razz:
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