Tweet
I am hoping to fish the Potomac at Brunswick this Saturday afternoon/evening if the weather cooperates. I understand heavy rain is in Friday’s forecast and that may make the upper Potomac unsafe for wading.
Ever the optimist and despite the forecast, I tied six size-4 streamers tonight after dinner – 3 wooly buggers and 3 Clousers.
I’m partial to black and olive wooly buggers for smallies. I don’t know what the smallmouth bass believe they are, but I do know from ample experience that they bite them.
Here’s one:
IMG_0252.JPG
Size 4 Mustad 9672 hook. Olive marabou tail. Red crystal flash. Olive chenille and black hackle. It’s weighted with 10 to 12 wraps of lead wire in the middle of the hook shank under the chenille.
While I can and do retrieve them, often I let them drift in the current like I am nymph fishing for trout. When I see my fly line stop moving I lift the rod tip and hope I have a hook-up. Sometimes it’s a fish, sometimes the fly is hung up on a rock!
For Clousers I cast up and across the current and strip the line back. The smallies must follow them because often when the fly makes a turn in the current, the smallmouth hit.
Here’s a close look at one in the vise:
IMG_0256.JPG
Size 4 Mustad 3366 hook and small lead eyes.
Years ago, a friend gave me a copy of an old book entitled, The Complete Book of Fly Fishing, by Joe Brooks, published in 1958. It’s a comprehensive look at fly fishing in that era. Actually, only the equipment has changed since then. Techniques are the same and in some cases flies are the same.
The book covers fly fishing for every species imaginable including smallmouth in the Potomac River. While it doesn’t provide fly patterns and tying instructions, it has many photos of flies. Brooks called poppers “popping bugs”. He said they were made out of painted balsa wood with a tail of bucktail.
I copied that pattern, using cork instead of balsa wood and calf tails. Here are two that I have used successfully on the Potomac in years past:
IMG_0247.JPG IMG_0248.JPG
Note their simplicity. No rubber legs, no hackle. Yet they work. Frankly, I don’t think smallmouth study a fly the way largemouth may in quiet water. Largemouth will hit a popper that is sitting still. Smallmouth are tuned into movement in fast water. I think the important thing for smallies is continuous disturbance the surface of the water and these poppers allow me to do that. Also they are easy to cast far since they have nothing tied to them to resist wind.
Please note that I did not tie them tonight. I’ve had them for quite a while. I made them with the same hook I use for Clousers.
So here are the smallmouth flies that I’ll carry if weather conditions permit me to fish:
IMG_0259 (2).jpg
I’ll throw them with a 9-foot 6 wt. rod, floating line and long leaders. Also, I added two of my more recent foam poppers. Those 10 flies should be enough variety and quantity for 3 to 4 hours of smallmouth action on the upper Potomac. I sure hope so.
Ever the optimist and despite the forecast, I tied six size-4 streamers tonight after dinner – 3 wooly buggers and 3 Clousers.
I’m partial to black and olive wooly buggers for smallies. I don’t know what the smallmouth bass believe they are, but I do know from ample experience that they bite them.
Here’s one:
IMG_0252.JPG
Size 4 Mustad 9672 hook. Olive marabou tail. Red crystal flash. Olive chenille and black hackle. It’s weighted with 10 to 12 wraps of lead wire in the middle of the hook shank under the chenille.
While I can and do retrieve them, often I let them drift in the current like I am nymph fishing for trout. When I see my fly line stop moving I lift the rod tip and hope I have a hook-up. Sometimes it’s a fish, sometimes the fly is hung up on a rock!
For Clousers I cast up and across the current and strip the line back. The smallies must follow them because often when the fly makes a turn in the current, the smallmouth hit.
Here’s a close look at one in the vise:
IMG_0256.JPG
Size 4 Mustad 3366 hook and small lead eyes.
Years ago, a friend gave me a copy of an old book entitled, The Complete Book of Fly Fishing, by Joe Brooks, published in 1958. It’s a comprehensive look at fly fishing in that era. Actually, only the equipment has changed since then. Techniques are the same and in some cases flies are the same.
The book covers fly fishing for every species imaginable including smallmouth in the Potomac River. While it doesn’t provide fly patterns and tying instructions, it has many photos of flies. Brooks called poppers “popping bugs”. He said they were made out of painted balsa wood with a tail of bucktail.
I copied that pattern, using cork instead of balsa wood and calf tails. Here are two that I have used successfully on the Potomac in years past:
IMG_0247.JPG IMG_0248.JPG
Note their simplicity. No rubber legs, no hackle. Yet they work. Frankly, I don’t think smallmouth study a fly the way largemouth may in quiet water. Largemouth will hit a popper that is sitting still. Smallmouth are tuned into movement in fast water. I think the important thing for smallies is continuous disturbance the surface of the water and these poppers allow me to do that. Also they are easy to cast far since they have nothing tied to them to resist wind.
Please note that I did not tie them tonight. I’ve had them for quite a while. I made them with the same hook I use for Clousers.
So here are the smallmouth flies that I’ll carry if weather conditions permit me to fish:
IMG_0259 (2).jpg
I’ll throw them with a 9-foot 6 wt. rod, floating line and long leaders. Also, I added two of my more recent foam poppers. Those 10 flies should be enough variety and quantity for 3 to 4 hours of smallmouth action on the upper Potomac. I sure hope so.
Comment