favorite smallmouth flies

[okflyfisher]

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

[Gigmaster]

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.

[pillcaster]

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.

[okflyfisher]

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

[Longs for Cutts]

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...