smallmouth bass

I just discovered that the lower reaches of the river I live in has good
populations of small mouth bass.

I suppose my steelhead gear should work for them, but what about patterns?

Anyone have any favorites?

"Skwala" wrote in message
...
I just discovered that the lower reaches of the river I live in has good
populations of small mouth bass.

I suppose my steelhead gear should work for them, but what about patterns?

Anyone have any favorites?

You can't go wrong with woolly buggers. Olive or black have always worked
well for me. George does at least as well (usually better) with divers.
Last month, I killed 'em with gold bodied zonkers. Anything that looks like
a crawdad will serve you well.

Wolfgang

Gurglers tied in a size 4 for the surface. Bucktails tied in the blonde
style for streamers, and something that looks like crawdads for the
bottom. I often tie a heavily weighted rusty sparrow for that.

"Skwala" wrote in message
...
I just discovered that the lower reaches of the river I live in has good
populations of small mouth bass.

I suppose my steelhead gear should work for them, but what about patterns?

Anyone have any favorites?

Try Clousers; squirrel tail for Crawfish pattern and the good old chartreuse
and white. If they are hitting on the surface, anything noisy seems to work
(poppers, sliders, big gurglers). For hellgrammite pattern my choice is
usually bunny buggers or wooly buggers in black or brown. I also use brown
and olive bunny buggers for crawfish imitation with dumbbell eyes added;
white and black versions also seem to be a decent minnow pattern.

Mark

"Skwala" wrote in message
...
I just discovered that the lower reaches of the river I live in has good
populations of small mouth bass.

I suppose my steelhead gear should work for them, but what about patterns?

Anyone have any favorites?

Yeah. Black/Olive Wooly Buggers; Brown/Gold/Orange Clousers; Floating
Muddlers; Atlantic Salmon Bombers (believe it or not).
Dave M

Something that looks like a bee or yellowjacket. Years ago, we used to fish
the upper Russian River in California with yellow / black spot
Roostertails. Deadly on SM.

"Skwala" wrote in message
...
I just discovered that the lower reaches of the river I live in has good
populations of small mouth bass.

I suppose my steelhead gear should work for them, but what about patterns?

Anyone have any favorites?

"Bill McKee" wrote in
link.net:

Something that looks like a bee or yellowjacket. Years ago, we used
to fish the upper Russian River in California with yellow / black
spot Roostertails. Deadly on SM.

....which leads one to conclude that smallies will hit a wide range of stuff
thrown at them. Regular readers on ROFF know that I tout the Sneaky Pete in
chartruese by the Gaines Co. however this winter I'll tie my own. It is a
slider and just seems to **** them off into these heart stopping slashing
splashy strikes. Most of my strikes this year came immediately after the
bug hit the water Having said that, last week on the Androscoggin at least
half of my "hits" were sucked under very quietly, you really had to keep an
eye on the bug. I am first and foremost a topwater guy as it seems to me
streamers, etc. hit by SM tends to keep them dogging it instead of the
multiple jumps they display when hitting topwater. YMMV

Frank Church

On Thu, 14 Jul 2005 16:24:14 -0700, "Skwala"
wrote:

I just discovered that the lower reaches of the river I live in has good
populations of small mouth bass.

I suppose my steelhead gear should work for them, but what about patterns?

Anyone have any favorites?


One additional thing about woolly buggers -- try different colours for
your river until you hit one that they seem to like. I've found that
olive might work well in one river system but be only so-so in
another. As an example, multi-tone brown seems to be the ticket right
now on the Grand but purple will work too.

Lately we've been using our light steelhed gear as well but without
decent current, the fly doesn't move well enough to entice them. Went
back to a short single hander, a teeny 200, stripped fast and slayed
'em.

Peter

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On Sat, 16 Jul 2005 11:52:46 GMT, Frank Church
wrote:

"Bill McKee" wrote in
hlink.net:

Something that looks like a bee or yellowjacket. Years ago, we used
to fish the upper Russian River in California with yellow / black
spot Roostertails. Deadly on SM.

...which leads one to conclude that smallies will hit a wide range of stuff
thrown at them. Regular readers on ROFF know that I tout the Sneaky Pete in
chartruese by the Gaines Co. however this winter I'll tie my own. It is a
slider and just seems to **** them off into these heart stopping slashing
splashy strikes. Most of my strikes this year came immediately after the
bug hit the water Having said that, last week on the Androscoggin at least
half of my "hits" were sucked under very quietly, you really had to keep an
eye on the bug. I am first and foremost a topwater guy as it seems to me
streamers, etc. hit by SM tends to keep them dogging it instead of the
multiple jumps they display when hitting topwater. YMMV

Frank Church


I bought a slider a few years back in black and that thing was
dynamite on smallies untill a dastardly pike removed it from my line.
Should tie up a few more one of these days.

Peter

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On Sat, 16 Jul 2005 09:32:46 -0400, Peter Charles
wrote:

On Sat, 16 Jul 2005 11:52:46 GMT, Frank Church
wrote:

"Bill McKee" wrote in
thlink.net:

Something that looks like a bee or yellowjacket. Years ago, we used
to fish the upper Russian River in California with yellow / black
spot Roostertails. Deadly on SM.

...which leads one to conclude that smallies will hit a wide range of stuff
thrown at them. Regular readers on ROFF know that I tout the Sneaky Pete in
chartruese by the Gaines Co. however this winter I'll tie my own. It is a
slider and just seems to **** them off into these heart stopping slashing
splashy strikes. Most of my strikes this year came immediately after the
bug hit the water Having said that, last week on the Androscoggin at least
half of my "hits" were sucked under very quietly, you really had to keep an
eye on the bug. I am first and foremost a topwater guy as it seems to me
streamers, etc. hit by SM tends to keep them dogging it instead of the
multiple jumps they display when hitting topwater. YMMV

Frank Church


I bought a slider a few years back in black and that thing was
dynamite on smallies untill a dastardly pike removed it from my line.
Should tie up a few more one of these days.

Peter

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Yep, I bought a couple this spring and lost one to a pike and another
had all the rubber legs pull out. I'll have to build a few this
winter. On the other hand, ast night I was fishing the Secret Hole
(tm) on the Wisconsin and had two different fish take my deerhair
diver and swim away with it while I was otherwise occupied (once I was
untangling the fly line from my wading boots.the other time I was
watching my feet as I hopped from one rock to another). I don't know
if the fish would have held onto a hard bodied popper.
I also grabbed the wrong rod by accident and spent the evening
throwing bass bugs with a 4 wt. rod. It can be done but it wasn't
pretty and the casts were about 15' shorter than I usually fish. I
snagged one 18" fish in the pectoral fin and had a heck of a time
landing him. The rod bent right down into the butt. It was fun, I
guess.


g.c.