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Chia

One fly only?

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I fish a lot of smallmouth bass steams and hook the occasional other bass species and lots of pan fish, but this weekend really kicked my proverbial ass.

 

After spending the winter tying new and interesting flies, I have fished 5 patterns with very little luck while my friend, fishing the same place has cleaned up on orange woolie buggers. I am about to say the hell with it and tie nothing but bead head buggers!

 

I tried top water foam beetles, gurgles, craft fur minnow, bronze goddess, and a dumbell eyed woolie (the only one I caught on).

 

Any suggestions for not flushing all these flies?

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Those other flies may come into play another time, different conditions or in another location. It's just one trip out, it happens all the time. Any new pattern to me I just tie a couple till I know it will work someplace for me or some time for me.

 

But day in and day out, as a generic do it all fly, the woolly buggers are pretty hard to beat. I tie three versions, not very many different colors though. My main change is weighted inside the build, non weighted and bead head and size. I wouldn't say anyone of those is the defacto woolly, they serve different purposes in how they swim. For bass sometimes ( get that , I said "sometimes") non weighted is good because you can get them to pretty much suspend. The other types with weight should be self explanatory.

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Can't go wrong with buggers as Dave said, they cover a lot of situations & conditions. Clouser Minnows do also, and especially for Smallmouths.

 

You may want to try various materials that give better action. I tie many SM bass flies in sizes from 8 to 1/0, but 6 to 2 should be good for most streams.

 

Here's some you may like: They're all tied with smaller lead eyes, brass eyes or bead chain eyes.

 

Kit Fox tail over Polar Flash & white Red Fox or Arctic Fox.

100_6057_zpsewe3y3fz.jpg

 

Kit Fox tail over Polar Flash

100_6056_zpseadrt2mv.jpg

 

Red Fox tail tip hair over Polar Flash

100_6055_zpsyjxh9s03.jpg

 

Arctic Fox over Polar Flash

100_6054_zpskwm0aq6u.jpg

 

Orange dyed Grey Squirrel over Red Fox tail

100_6047_zpsfgdkxo7b.jpg

 

 

Kit Fox over Polar Flash & Arctic Fox tail, with pink bead chain eyes.

100_6049_zpsbeuzqyj9.jpg

 

Dyed Black Fox tail

100_6051_zpsn2uotltp.jpg

 

Olive over white Fox tail with gold & blue Krystal Flash

100_6043_zpsbu0ubqos.jpg

 

Black over white, Fox tail gold & blue K Flash.

100_6046_zpsjbcf3f1f.jpg

 

Light brown Coyote tail over orange Red Fox tail, w/ copper K Flash

100_6045_zpspgtrbhml.jpg

 

Coyote tail, dyed light brown over natural cream white/ light tan.

100_6048_zpssgmctwdn.jpg

 

All black ostrich herl fibers, very full with bronze Flashabou

100_5609_zpswfhmxi3f.jpg

 

Olive over brown over white, all Fox tail, w/ pearl K Flash & bronze Flashabou

100_6042_zpsej1ksa5h.jpg

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Yes. I've found smallie fishing to be similar to rainbow fishing in some situations, in that they eat similar foods sometimes. From my boat in this one particular pond off this certain point and 40 ft off shore if I cast a black Nosed Dace tied the way I tie Black Nosed Dace and use a moderate sinking line , I may well get one rainbow for every small mouth. Plus, you could fish that same spot with floating line and might not get a thing all day, till an evening hatch happens , be that bait fish move up in the water or a hatch starts. And I've caught smallies on Elk Hair Caddis while trout fishing.

 

I wouldn't read too much into one trip out ! Take from it what you learned, woolly buggers work and now you know why some of us tout them around here as a good generic pattern. But ya know ? Three of us have gone to Maine fishing Land Locks and trout together so many times that we have learned that sometimes it's the other guys turn to catch fish , plain and simple ! We have seen so much of it where we are all using the same stuff in the same pools and one guy is just nailing them. And the next trip down the river it might be a different guy and now and then it's actually a difference in fly used, we all put that on and we all get fish. Your buddy could have been in the prime spot of the pool too, that happens. Also I can't say how many times I thought I was to be skunked in a certain pool and all along a fish was waiting straight down stream and back in towards shore. We like to concentrate out in front or the typical 1/4 view down stream and neglect behind us, straight up and straight downstream. I missed this hog of a fish one time casting straight upstream from my position just trying to see how my drift was doing, if my fly was still floating, that angle being a good sun angle to view it. Never expected this thing to be holding in 2-1/2 3 ft of water. And I just plain old missed it.

 

It's called fishing.

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That's why it's called "fly fishing" and not "fly catching". Some days you get so many you think of yourself as a fishing god, that you could go on the road and fish tournaments for a living.

Then the next day, you realize that the fish were just fooling you into going on the road. They were hoping you'd go, not catch enough fish to win, run out of money and die of starvation.

 

Okay, maybe they WEREN'T thinking that, but they are laughing at you. They are the same fish that will hit your knots but not your flies next time out.

 

Okay, maybe they AREN'T actually being mean to you. It sure feels that way sometimes.

 

Some days you catch them, some days you don't.

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Around home you can't go wrong with wooly buggers in root beer, olive, or black. Weighted or un-weighted, and bead heads. If using a bead head use a cone, won't get stuck in the rocks as easily.

 

Another fly is a Clouser Minnow. We have a creek that has a main branch where the North and South Branch come together. In the North Branch blue and white works well. The South Branch likes a chartreuse and white.

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Early season = deep SMB. I only saw one weighted fly in your list. I don't see where you are from, but in Virginia, our rivers are still cold(er) after a goofy spring, and the local reports are indicating the ones having success are on weighted streamers/sink tips in deep, relatively calmer water.

 

Your results kind of told you what you needed to know...go deep.

 

90% presentation, 10% fly, or something like that at least.

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I wonder if they were keying in on the orange for some reason. I've had times when smallies show a real preference for one color over another. Also how heavily weighted were your friends orange buggers compared to your bronze goddess or dumbbell eyed woolie ? Were the sizes of your flies comparable to your friends buggers? What were the water conditions like ? Water clarity ? There are a lot of other things to consider before you flush your flies.

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Ive noticed orange to be a very productive color in stained water on any pattern. My flies with orange in them almost always produce in warmwater.

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Ive noticed orange to be a very productive color in stained water on any pattern. My flies with orange in them almost always produce in warmwater.

Especially anywhere with a healthy crawfish population.

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Around here the trout are just starting to hit up top on midges ( chironamids, I caught a couple rainbows Mon finally on size 18s and fish were rising , again finally ), it's been a very slow go this spring. Even the power bait guys went home LOL ! While there aren't many other hatches to bring the fish up till about the end of April or around now, we are weeks late on the midge action. I did see some little pale flies out too on Mon and was hoping the fish were not on them and they were not, I wasn't up for size 28 emergers.

 

I haven't spoken with any of the devoted bass guys around here but I have to imagine they are jigging on the bottom over structure. Water temps are weeks late to climb with any significance but finally coming around. it looks like one of our shallowest ponds around here rolled over the other day so we should be getting up and running here now.

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I was out again this weekend and caught a few. I do believe it is the color they are hitting on, however we had success with other flies too. I think there was just a lot of frustration with tossing the entire fly box at them.

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Brian Myers said: Especially anywhere with a healthy crawfish population.

 

 

 

I'm thinking this is the reason for orange working so well...

 

eric

fresno, ca.

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I was out again this weekend and caught a few. I do believe it is the color they are hitting on, however we had success with other flies too. I think there was just a lot of frustration with tossing the entire fly box at them.

At least in my experience, smallmouth will hit pretty much anything...until they won't.

 

I've fished a stretch of water one day where they were crazy for a black/dark red leech pattern I had...was really knocking them sideways and thought I'd lucked into the one pattern they were "on" that day. Eventually, I lost my last one and had to change it up. As it turned out, they took blue clousers, white zonkers, black buggers, tan clousers, and olive matukas just as readily. Pattern didn't matter. If you had a fly in the water, you were going to be into some fish.

 

A few days later, I went back to the same spot and didn't get one look all afternoon/evening. Tried everything that had worked so well a few days before...nothing.

 

I don't spend too much time worrying about it. If they're actively feeding and I can't figure them out, then okay, there's a puzzle to be solved...but when there's just nothing at all going on, I figure maybe they're just not hungry.

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