Smallies on the Fly

By: Levi Ladd, MooseKat Guide Service

My day job put me in Westbrook for a hefty portion of the week last week, and black flies were in full swing.  Black flies, though a painful nuisance, always get me thinking of fly fishing.  If you’ve read anything else I’ve written, you’ll realize that I typically have a non-traditional approach to bass fishing.  For some reason, I’ve always been a glutten for punishment in terms of trying to maximize my personal satisfaction in reaching my goals.  An example would be after shooting my first turkey, I spent the next two years trying to get one with a bow without using a blind.  This hunt continues to this day.

As any bass fisherman knows, smallmouth hitting top-water lures is beyond an exhilarating experience and how it could tire or bore any angler is beyond me.  Personally, the bass I caught as a teenager that sticks out in my mind more than any other fish I’ve ever caught was the first bass I caught on a frog.  The most rewarding experience any fly fisherman can have is catching fish on dry flies.  This brings me to fishing for bass with a fly rod.  After landing that bass, I considered how much fun it was to see that fish hit with such aggression and how hard the fish fought, I thought that that catch would have been even more rewarding on a fly.  If a 6” brookie can make a 5 wt. rod keel over, I could only imagine what the sheer power, exhausting runs, and aggressiveness a smallmouth can exhibit on the flimsy play of a fly rod.  If you’re not a fly-fisherman, but have read this far keep reading as some of these patterns can be run on spinning rods also.

While catching smallmouth on flies difficult, it certainly is no where near as difficult as dropping a turkey with a  bow and arrow while fully exposed.  If you can cast a fly, you can catch a smallie.  Consequently, if you can’t cast a fly but still want to give this a shot, wait until the rivers warm and drift your flies to downstream smallie habitat.  Smallmouth flies should be fished as you’d fish poppers and top-waters.  More often than not, you want to make a commotion on the water surface and use a retrieve that is fast and powerful, with irregularly spaced pauses randomly in your cadence. 

This time of year, the best pattern to use are frog patterns, particularly in the shallow weed beds of lakes and ponds as this is the time of year that almost all species of frogs and toads are in the water laying eggs, mating, etc.  Brown, green or white bodied green/brown tailed Wooly Buggers usually do the trick – be sure to add some floatant to keep that baby up there.  Poppers are also excellent when fished the same way.  Another good one is a salamander pattern (particularly black or brown Zonkers without tinsel or flash if you can find them). 

Olive Wooly Bugger 

As the water warms, frogs and salamanders can still be effective but equally effective are mouse patterns (Cabelas has some good ones – I really like the rabbit hare pattern below though).  Fishing a mouse is more difficult on a fly rod and the retrieve should be very slow, with little to no wake behind the fly.  Stop often and regularly and while stopped, wiggle the tip of your rod parallel to the rod surface to get your fly to wiggle – this simulates the mouse kicking its legs and squirming. 

Cabela’s Rabbit Hare Mouse 

Come July/August, the best patterns I’ve used are dragon fly imitations or big grass hopper patterns.  These are fished the same way which is cast, let it sit, give your line a twitch or two and then give your rod a snap up and down to get your fly to “hop” on the water surface.  Be ready – the strikes usually come on the return to the water off the hop!  Also effective this time of year are leech patterns with sinking line. 

Dave’s Hopper (Muddler –headed) 

Lastly, is what I like to call “old reliable” of the smallie in the fly arsenal: crayfish.  Specifially, the Clouser Crayfish pattern.  This pattern is the Rebel Crayfish of the fly fishing world.  Sinking line or a floating line with a 4’ sink tip on it.  Use in shallow rocky water.  Use long strips in conjunction with raising your rod tip, and drop it.  I like a long strip, then a long drop, then two short strips there after before another long drop.   The long drops is when the strike usually occurs – be watching your strike indicator (if you use one) or the butt of your main line where it connects your leader for erratic behavior.

Clouser’s Crayfish

The most important thing to fly fishing for smallmouth on a fly rod is the hook set.  Let the fish do the work- the rod has enough play in it that it’ll keel over then try to straighten itself.  Try to time your hook set with the rods natural tendency to straighten itself and don’t “cross its eyes”.   A simple snap of the wrist is all it’ll take to put that fish on for the long haul.

 If you’re not a fly fisherman but are curious as to the effectiveness of these patterns – give them a try on spinning or baitcast tackle using a float rig and slip bobber for the sinking patterns.  Keep your drag off so the float carries your leech or crayfish downstream properly and use as small of split shot and slip bobbers as you can find to minimize drag.  As for the dry patterns, you can also fish these with spinning tackle in current.  Go to the local fly shop and by some of the foam adhesive “line markers” or “strike indicators”.  Tie on your fly and then space 3 of these out on your line about a foot apart, beginning 16” - 18” above your fly.  Add floatant to your fly and let the current do the work while employing the methods outlined above. 

Float-rig set-up (without the slip bobber)