Stream Smallmouth Bass
Smallmouth have chips on their shoulders, a bad attitude about anything that gets in their way. They fear no fish, or anything else. I can’t think of any fish that has more determination when hooked, or more moves and tricks to break free. They make heart-stopping surface takes, spine-tingling, explosive, tail-vaulting jumps, and leader-popping dashes. And they have frequent unpredictable and challenging mood swings that make them difficult to figure out. I’ll never tire of fishing for smallmouth bass, the best all-around, freshwater fly-fishing gamefish.
Smallmouth—some people call them smallies or bronzebacks—are more like trout than other bass, although they can be very basslike. For example, on a smallmouth river in Ontario’s Quetico Provincial Park, my wife Emily and I were working upstream in a canoe, catching fat 1/2- to 11/2-pound smallmouth that were porking out on hatching #10 cinnamon caddis. It was a ball, except we had expected to catch larger fish.
After a while, Emily cut off her Elk-hair Caddis and put on a Waker Sheep Minnow that looked like a small sunfish. Almost immediately she hooked a 41/2-pound smallmouth! The big fish was almost choking on caddis pupae but just couldn’t forget it was a bass, not a trout. It launched itself after the 3-inch-long surface minnow with a ferociousness seldom seen on trout streams. Such a big fly cast over rising trout would have triggered a panic and put all the fish down.
Many times smallmouth have brutalized my tackle and stolen my leader and fly with their bad attitudes and brutish methods. They have taught me a lot and forced me to hone my skills. Here’s what I’ve learned.
Show Them the Menu
Today’s menu for smallmouth aquatic insects, minnows, crayfish, terrestrial insects, frogs, snails, mice, leeches, smaller smallmouth, cicadas, aquatic worms, snakes, salamanders, and many other things that look alive in the water.
Most of the time smallmouth focus on the bigger foods on their menu, unlike most trout. Also, they prefer to dine close to bottom, not at the water’s surface, when the water temperature is below 60 degrees. As the water temperature rises above 60 degrees, smallmouth become more and more interested in surface feeding. When the water rises above about 85 degrees, the fishing declines unless the water is well aerated.
Smallmouth, which are a coolwater fish (preferring water temperatures from 55 to 75 degrees), have filled a niche like trout in colder 45- to 65-degree waters. They even co-exist with trout on the lower, warmer sections of trout streams, although they usually don’t grow large in coldwater streams.
Protection, Food, and Comfort
I’ve always emphasized to my fly-fishing school students and audiences that it is as important to know how the fish you target lives in a stream as it is to rig your tackle, choose a fly, cast, and present a fly. Here are some important stream behavior characteristics of smallmouth bass that can help you locate and catch fish.
Like any other fish, smallmouth live where they can find the best combination of protection, food, and comfort. They are comfortable in slower currents. They prefer to ambush, intercept, or chase foods—in that order. They prefer hard, clean structure, like gravel and rubble, and because they like shade, they seek out ledge rock, boulders, stumps, and logs rather than dense leafy aquatic vegetation, mud, or sand. Usually the coarser the structure, the more large smallmouth are attracted to it. Boulders from the size of a 55-gallon drum to a Volkswagen Beetle are best. If they can’t find overhead shading structure, they’ll lie behind or just beside the structure. They are less territorial than wild trout that occupy similar places; usually they congregate in groups of 3 to 25.
When smallmouth swim onto shallow shorelines or pool tailouts, it’s usually during evening, night, or early morning. They hunt minnows, crayfish, and insects. When a gang of hungry, prowling smallmouth jumps a school of minnows, pandemonium breaks out as the fish make wild, noisy, splashy, zigzagging dashes right at the bank. When you see this, put a minnow streamer or surface bug like a pencil popper or Waker Sheep Minnow just ahead of the splashes. The smallies will often hit immediately.
Because smallmouth prefer to eat large foods, dry flies and nymphs that imitate small (#16 and smaller) hatching insects usually are not good choices. However, when good numbers of #4-#14 insects (White Flies, for example) are on the water, that’s a different story. I’ve also found that unless the emerging flies are #10 or bigger, it’s best to use a nymph.
Hatches are also opportunities to catch big smallmouth on minnow imitations, especially surface-diving designs like Marabou Muddler Minnows, Waker Sheep Minnows, and Dahlberg Divers. These crafty older fish wait for their preferred prey of smaller bass, chubs, shiners, and perch to begin feeding happily on the hatching bugs. While the little guys gobble insects at the surface, the demon bass make swift, easy attacks from below. That’s exactly what was happening when Emily caught her big smallie during the Quetico caddis hatch. The caddis were appetizers for the bass until an easy sunfish main course came along.
Smallmouth will also attack hooked smaller bass, chubs, perch, and sunfish as you bring them in. When you see a bass chase your catch, bring the small fish in quickly, release it, and cast again to the area of the attack. You may get an instant hookup with a much larger bass.
Sometimes smallmouth can be downright indifferent, refusing to hit any fly. If you know that a spot has a concentration of bass, do whatever you can to hook even a small bass, sunfish, or perch in the area. The action of the hooked fish seems to excite every smallmouth within seeing or hearing range, and the show begins.
Copyright © 2012 Intermedia Outdoors
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