Fly fishing for smallmouth
 

Hey guys. Despite the poor weather forecast for tomorrow I think I'm going to try fly fishing in the early morning for smallmouth in the north branch. The hole I fish is pretty slow and about 4 feet deep. I usually use tubes, minnows, or crayfish, but I want to try catching them with my new fly setup. Any idea what type of flies I would use for them? I just started fly fishing this past winter for trout and I only caught one.

Re: Fly fishing for smallmouth
 

Betts Bass Poppers, they get hyper when you twitch them, drives bass nuts! Walmart has them-

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Betts-6pc...&wl13=&veh=sem

Re: Fly fishing for smallmouth
 

Streamers (olive or white) and poppers.

Get ready to catch a bunch of dinks and handhelds before you get lunkers- they're in there but tricky to pull out. I tend to find the bigger ones in the more-structural spots.

Sporting Life in Whitehouse carries some flies- nothing like Shannon's selection but the essentials.

Re: Fly fishing for smallmouth
 

Shallow. Rack of dawn , poppers good bet ! Faster water areas streamers good bet , crawfish or minnow patterns . Poppers shorten lead to 5' or so if ur not sure how to cast them it'll turn them over better , mini sink tip works well with streamers in faster water short lead as well , none of these leads have to be tapered .

Re: Fly fishing for smallmouth
 

Thanks for the responses. I do not have any poppers, but it looks like they work for smallmouth, so I'm going to pick some up. I do have streamers though, so I guess I'll try that for tomorrow, then poppers whenever I buy them this week. I have a hole that I get big ones, but usually only if I use live bait, so we'll see how it goes!

Re: Fly fishing for smallmouth
 

Black Ghost streamers or yellow Gains bug poppers.

Re: Fly fishing for smallmouth
 

Nothing imitates a crayfish as simply as a brown wooley bugger , just like a size 8 or 10 . Dosent have to be fancy , just crawl it over the bottom

Re: Fly fishing for smallmouth
 

SMB really aren't all that picky.. Poppers are good early am, streamers are always good, but IMHO either crayfish or hellgrammite imitators would be the way to go for the best action, and the best shot at some bigger fish.. any nymph patterns will take a lot of SMB, but nothing is as good as a Hellgramite pattern IF you can find them,, They aren't always readily available commercially, and a lot of guys tie their own... bob

Re: Fly fishing for smallmouth
 

Once again the almighty wooley bugger imitates them gr8 in black....Dead drifted rather than stripped....

Re: Fly fishing for smallmouth
 

Just the other day I missed a MONSTER smallie on a popping bug. Also managed to land about half a dozen up to 12 inches in about 2 hours of fishing before sunset.