David,

I've used two approaches to fishing deep for smallies on the Mississippi here. It seems similar to your good sized river, except that the Miss is usually fairly clear. Both have worked well. These are on a 9ft 7wt rod. First approach, a WF7F line with a straight "leader" of 8 - 12 lb fluoro tippet, about 12 - 15 ft long. Awful to cast, but gets the fly down well due to the thin diameter. I generally use this with a fairly heavy fly like a Clouser, and don't use an indicator. Second approach, a 200 grain streamer express sink tip, with a short, 2-4 ft straight leader. This I fish with unweighted flies, for example a streamer similar to a Clouser, but no dumbbell eyes. Both setups will hang up some on rocky bottoms. The sink tip will wrap around rocks. On balance, I think the sink tip catches more fish for me, probably due to the action of the unweighted fly, but I find casting it to be more of a chore than the floating setup.

Spyderman