Giant Smallmouth Bass on Small Flies

 I had such an obsession with big streamers for many years. I just wanted to cast the largest possible flies for every predator fish species. I was using 8 to 12 inch streamers for largemouth and pickerel, flies up to 10 inches for trout, and the Biggest Beast Fleyes I could manage for stripers and was doing so regardless of conditions, the water I was fishing, and the time of year. It was pretty silly, honestly. There's no merit to fishing big flies no matter what. There is merit to fishing big, often huge flies when it makes sense, but that isn't what I was doing. While perhaps the best fish for me to use to describe why bigger isn't always better are trout, it was smallmouth bass that really proved to me that I should pay more attention to natural forage than the current trends in fly tying. 

Over a five year period, all but two of my ten largest smallmouth have been caught on flies less than 2 inches long, and half have been on flies about an inch long. For most of those years I was targeting big smallmouth almost exclusively with big flies, but I was hardly catching any at all. Over the last three years, I've stopped doing that, and suddenly I'm catching both more and bigger smallmouth. This year, so far, has been phenomenally illustrative. The 17+ inch smallmouth I posted about last week was the first and smallest of the bronze backs I've caught so far this season, and also on the largest fly, a mere 1 3/4 inch woolly bugger. Really hammering the point home is my second smallmouth of the year, a measured 21 1/2 inch fat beast of a bass. 

That fish ate a size 10 chartreuse jig streamer under an indicator in rough conditions, really ideal float n' fly weather. The take sunk the indicator, but not like one might expect a huge bass to sink an indicator. It was the epitome of gentle. The fight was anything but, and quite a stomach turner on 4lb tippet. That fish kicked my ass but I didn't let it win the fight. Obviously there was some celebratory cursing both when I got my thumb on her lip and when I watched her swim off... bass like this one don't come easy, and it may well be the largest smallmouth I've ever caught on the fly. 

That fish was a true elephant on a peanut. I wasn't fishing for something else either, I was specifically looking for a large smallmouth. 

A few days later a similar set of conditions presented in terms of frontal passage and temperature drop, though a few hours later in the day. This time darkness made fishing an indicator useless, so I instead fished an inch long woolly bugger on a slow crawl. The water was shallow and the bottom was sand and gravel, so I could creep the fly without hanging up. A subtle increase in pressure was all that signaled the take of an 18 inch bass. 

There's clearly something wrong with the "bigger is better" mentality, and it all boils down to forage. I've gradually come to the realization that location and conditions dramatically overshadow fly size when it comes to catching larger fish. If the primary forage being preyed upon is large; like the river herring or shad stripers often chase in April and May, fish large flies that imitate that forage. These smallmouth I'm catching are primarily feeding on juvenile sunfish that are no more than a couple inches long as well as a mix of insects. Maybe I'd catch one on a big streamer, but it makes much more sense to pay attention to the ecology of the location. At this point my confidence is in a fly that closely matches the size, profile, and behavior of the most abundant natural forage- whether I'm after big fish or lots of fish, such a fly is more likely to accomplish my goal. 

Until next time, 

Fish for the love of fish.

Fish for the love of places fish live.

Fish for you.

And stay safe and healthy.

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Edited by Cheyenne Terrien