favorite smallmouth flies

I have a smallmouth kayak trip to Sw Missouri coming up. Does anybody have any favorite flies or techniques they would be willing to share:lol:. I have never fly fished for them.

Never fly fished for them, either. Read on other boards that they were being caught on dark colored woolly buggers, along with trout.
I'd probably use something like a size 6 or 8 in olive, orange, purple, brown, or black.

Bob9

Clousers & Buggers have always been a good producers for me with the smallies in my area.

Mike

Streamers, various colors to find the 'One' they want. Streamers from 2 inches to around 4+ inches. Depending upon what type of water you are going to fish, sink tip lines to floating lines, about 4 to 5 foot or so of leader. Relatively short casts, strip in the line but vary this to find what they will key in on. Look for structure in the water, drop offs, rocks, and such. They are an aggressive predator. I have had many 5 inch smallies attack a 5 inch streamer. Sometimes the takes are very aggressive but sometimes they are very soft so keep control of your line and don't allow slack and set the hook at the slightest indication of a possible take. If in a current, cast mostly upstream when possible and strip back downstream, they are mostly looking upstream. In still water, not a concern. Also, frog patterns can be very effective on the surface if they are feeding near the top of the water. Oh yea, have fun, smallies are a blast. Larry ---sagefisher---

In reasonably shallow water I like big marabou muddlers on a floating line. The fly will dive on retrieve and return to the surface. For deeper water try lead eyed wooly buggers with rubber legs added.

Clousers, Muddler Minnows, Woolly Buggers, Dahlberg Divers, a few different poppers, ants on occasion, Hornberg streamer (a particular favorite of mine),
or anything fishy or buggy looking. Smallies aren't real choosey in what they eat as long as it looks like food to them and is well presented.

Woolly Buggers will catch them. In addition to the colors already suggested, don't overlook CHARTREUSE! :)

I don't know if they will be hitting on topwaters when you are there, but definitely give them a try...its a blast!
http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c2..._SR_SMB_2b.jpg

I probably havefished for smallies more that trout, and agree with all the listed suggestions. As for flies, I will add a few, especially given the time of year you arefishing.
One is astandard Little Brown Trout bucktail. I know Clousers have been mentioned, andI use them too, but like the Muddler, sometimes a minnow that doesn't sink asfar is the answer - and also works with a sink-tip line. Similarly, Zonkers areeffective. Note that early in the season (at least in my area) bass attackschools of perch fry that hatched about 6 weeks earlier which are white andonly about 1.25" long (size 10 or 12 hook is fine – see PukeFly, it can be very effective without the bead-chain eyes too). The fry collectin the top inches of warmer water and are easily seen by the bass in theevening when the water is calm and the sun is low.
And lastly, smallies seem to like lures moving faster than you would expect. Several times I have worked an area for 20 minutes or so and then decided topaddle on. When the canoe/kayak is fully up to tempo and the line stretched outbehind me ... bang - that is when I get a fish. Good luck and have fun!

I've never fished for Smallies, so take this for what it's worth. What about crawfish patterns? I know Smallies LOVE crawfish.

Todd's wiggle minnow !!!!!!

Thanks guys. I will try and give a report when I get back.

Olive or brown Woolley Buggers all the way. Also, black or purple bunny leeches work great. Clousers in brown and orange, or olive and white.

I fly fish for SM all summer in the Shenandoah. I would take some chartreuse poppers (sky blue is hot here, but I have had good luck with chartreuse also) and some crawfish patterns. Check out FOTW archives for examples. I fish the crawfish under an indicator, drift them through the deep runs, close to the bottom, sometimes 7 feet below the indicator. When the indicator twitches, set the hook with all you got, both with the rod and stripping hand.

Well I am back. What was suppose to be a 3 day Kayak fishing trip turned into 1 because of snow , freezing temperatures and a nasty north wind. The river was a little high but clear, but the previous yrs flooding had lots of trees across the river. One of my buddies turned over about 1/3 of way into an 8 mile stretch.
We caught lots of Smallies in the deep pools': back eddies , slow lazy-suzan whirlpools ,and counter flows. Some times we would get out and fish and and sometimes we stayed in our kayaks. Even they my 2 friends fly fish they fished ultra light spin cast rods w/ jig head soft plastics w/ wiggle tails.
I did equally well with weighted rubber legged crayfish flies. One of the best ways for me w/ a fly rod in the 15+ foot deep pools was to anchor in the slow central current current and cast the rocky banks and hop and sit the crayfish down stream in the counter flows. I did catch a smallie or 2 on a brown over yellow Clouser, but my Clouser's did not get to the bottom quickly enough to suit me. I will post a picture or 2 once I get things sorted out.

Thanks for the help

Well, you're better off with the snow than I am with the flooding. I was all set to leave Wednesday to fish the eastern side of the Ozarks (St. Francis, Black, Castor Rivers) and spend a day fly fishing for bass and longnose gar (really) on Lake of the Ozarks, but that area has gotten two straight days of rain and the river I was most looking forward to fishing has record high flows. It has more water in it right now than the Yellowstone can and still be fishable, and it's normally 1/6 the size of the Yellowstone. I imagine it's close to "trees and houses" level.

So no Ozarks trip for me...