Home Forums Fishing Flyfishing smallmouths on a flyrod, tips/flies

Looking to start working over the local smallmouths (local lakes) with a flyrod. Anybody got any tips on flies to start with and any other equipment or tactics to suggest? Thinking clousers off the rocky points is probably a good place to start. Smallmouths over 5lbs in some of the local lakes. Biggest I have personally seen was 5lb 8oz on a good scale (released). Typical fish are 1-3lbs. On my bucket list is a 5lb smallmouth on a flyrod!

Used to use clouser patterns, rubber legs, or crayfish imitations. Went spotted bass fishing a few weeks ago with my brother in law. We fished a fly rods and we use soft plastic pond smelt imitations instead of hair flys. Not traditional, but very effective.

I like small popper flies ...

Wooly Boogers work well on smallmouth bass.

I do some smallmouth fishing on the Shenandoah River in Virginia. Fly rod and spinning gear. Wooly buggers , poppers early morning and late evening, crayfish patterns and clouser minnows work well.

We rented a cabin on the Shenandoah last year and Wooly Buggers were working quite well. I tried a few poppers but no bites.

I like bead head wooly buggers, white with crystal flash for rivers, and non-bead head for still water. Black, gray work well too ( all with crystal.flash). White / "polar" muddler minnows are also effective.

My smallie fly rod was a St Croix Pro-Graphite 6/7 wt (8ft 6" ) with a Medalist 1495 fly reel (floating DT line). It broke this year, an St Croix honored the lifetime warranty, and a picked out a St Croix Mojo Trout 7 weight (9') to replace it. Nice fly rod.

I grew up right on the Shenandoah near Elkton and still live about 3 miles from it. River has changed a lot over the years. As a kid 75-100 smallmouth were no problem a day. Zero largemouth. Now 20-30 smallmouth and a good largemouth population with fish up to 8 pounds and some 45-48" Muskie in the deeper holes.

Deer hair minnows articulated or not. Poppers. Crayfish patterns. Or small game changer.

One of these days I’m going to pull the trigger and take lessons from Murray’s Fly Shop. They pointed me to some good brookie fishing on the WV line years ago.