Top 10 flies for Smallies

[Bogey]

What are your top 10 flies for smallies? I know clousers and woolly buggers will be mentioned but please be specific in color. Other flies I have been tying are heavily weighted olive slumpbusters, conehead zonkers in olive and black and a fly to imitate green tubes. Any favorite crawfish patterns? Thanks and looking forward to replies,

 

[Dave_W]

Bogey wrote:
What are your top 10 flies for smallies? I know clousers and woolly buggers will be mentioned but please be specific in color. Any favorite crawfish patterns?

Specific colorrs are not that important but I would recommend mostly olive and brown earth tones and some in a mixture of black and chartruese. If you're looking to get a better idea of effective colors and color combinations, take some time to visit a store with bass spin gear and look at the colors that tube lures come in. This will give you some ideas of color subtlety.

Crayfish flies are effective and you can use any patterns you want. I suggest those with softer materials are better. Skip the versions with stiff claws made of squirrel hair or similar versions. Crays come in a variety of colors but dark olive and rust are reliable. Helgrammitte nymph patterns are also good. Helgy flies are often black, but the naturals are more gray or brown with black heads.

Have some basic poppers. I like the slender "pencil" style poppers. Best colors are yellow, white and chartruese. Some diver flies such as the Dahlbergh Diver are useful too (same colors as poppers).

 

[dc410]

I like to switch up materials sometimes from the conventional patterns. I've been tying most of my buggers with dumbell eyes (Clouser style) and rabbit strips for the tails in place of marabou. My favorite color is olive. The Smallies love them.

 

[jifigz]

I would consider myself extremely knowledgeable on smallmouth bass and I disagree color doesn't matter. Sure, most times it doesn't matter too much, but other times it really matters. Woolly buggers in brown, olive, black, and white are all necessary and have their place. Anything from a 3/0 or so down to a 10 or 12 may come in handy. Top flies are buggers, Clousers, gurglers, cork poppers, Chernobyl ant, deceivers, and any other baitfish/craw imitation you can think of.

Topwaters I love yellow and black. Clousers I like tan over white, olive over white, blue over yellow, black over tan, etc. Just start tying and fishing.

 

[Sylvaneous]

Slump busters are related to the rabbit fur/strip leech, which I use. A very simple pattern I fish in the Earth tones. Rabbit strip out the back and wrap the body with a fur strip with a cone at the head. Easy and effective. I use these tight lined through faster water/riffs. I don't use buggers. One problem i have with buggers is their reversed profile. The marabou tail is often wider than the front with the chenille. I'd advise densely wound webby hackle. Better yet, the '#censor# fly' as Al Miller called it: Estaz or Cactus chenille on the hook shank and a marabou tail. Weight with eyes or cone or lead wraps. Can't get a simpler fly. Do it rootbeer with some strategically placed rubber legs for a bottom critter. Run a hair strip over the top and off the back and BAM, you have the simplest Zonker on earth. Use dumbell eyes or a fat strip of lead wire along the bottom of the hook for keeling. I didn't like working with the adhesive backed lead sheet.

Those simple flies fished on the bottom will suffice for for crayfish. However, my actual crayfish fly is the dearly departed Shane Stalcup fly the Crazy-dad (if i remember correctly). I saw the fly in the Feather Craft catalog. It's no longer offered, but is simple and effective. Solid brass eyes at the hook eye on an inverted hook. Silicon legs out the back. A heavily dubbed body with Craw-Dub (or Crawdub. Whatever) you can dubbing-loop it but for ease, I clump-dub it and pull it out with scissors as per Scott Sanchez. You will use a lot of dubbing. Then for the top over shell, just tie in some matching bucktail at hook eye. No segmentation or anything: like a tube jig. THose work, right?
Then, to help the fly, I spread out the clump-dubbed body and squirt in some of that T-shirt sparkle paint. I use gold flake usually because it goes with the Earth tone fly well. I briefly poke around with my bodkin to work it in. I helps hold in the dubbing and adds some flash and contrast to the bottom. And it makes the profile more true to a real crawfish.

For the bulk of smallmouth fishing, I use one of about 3, sz. 2 Clousers, 1 sz 4 clouser, and an olive and pumpkin crazy dad on #2 or #4 3XL streamer hook.

Syl

 

[724flyfishing]

I've done well with a foam grasshopper, sz 8, on top. It's something similar to a Chernobyl ant. Yellow and green. I drifted it close to shore or let it drift under overhanging trees. They would crush it. Otherwise I just use my trout streamers. Im hoping to get after them more this summer. They're a lot of fun on the fly rod.

 

[RLeep2]

I do more large creek than big river smallmouth fishing. That probably influences my thinking on favorite flies. Additionally, I'd say I catch 3 bass either dead drifting or walking a fly along shorelines and high banks for every one I catch on an actively worked or retrieved fly.

Anyhow, I tend to favor:

- Fur leeches in all black or dark brown on Mustad 9672 or equiv. in #4-8. These have a long tail, a chenille body and the fur strip from the tail pulled up over the top zonker style. I carry them with lead eyes, moderate amounts of ,020 wrapped lead or completely unweighted depending upon what I need at any given time.

For a crawdad fly or bottom walker, I like the Holschlag Hackle Fly in brown or olive on a #2 or #4 3366 equiv.

I like the Harry Murray flies, particularly the strymph in black or dark brown and Harry's hellgrammite. These are tied on the same hooks as the leeches and in various weights.

For actively retrieved baitfish imitations or streamers, I like Murray's Marauder (just an estaz bugger with lead eyes) in pearl, black, root beer and yellow in dirty water. 9672 or 79580 in #2 to #8 with #6 being the most used size.

I've retired about half my bucktail Clousers in favor of using either craft fur or ostrich herl instead and then coloring them to suit with markers. If you can find the grizzly or barred craft fur (Hobby Lobby but not Michaels so far as I know..) you can really go batshirt (umm) and have a lot of fun using it in various Clouser color combos. I like olive/grizzly, yellow grizzly/gray, gray/white and olive grizzly/yellow where there are a lot of perch.

 

[shakey]

Gartside gurgler
Cat's whisker in gray or olive
Briminator
Black ghost
Mc Ginty
Foam beetle
Royal coachman
Generic buck tail
Pass lake
Any large soft hackle

 

[BrianMyers67]

Fishing mostly the Conestoga.

Backstabbers (size 8 & 6)

Black Ops (size 6 , good rock bass fly)

Crayfish (inverted hook (brass dumbbell eye) with fox squirrel tail for claws and top of shell ,sizes 2-8 , mostly 4 & 6 )

Soft hackles (sizes 12 + up , fished two in tandem under an indicator seems to work best for me. Caught an 18-1/4" smallie last year this way , best bass for me to date)

floating minnow (marabou tail , mylar tubing (silver or gold) over foam core)

carp candy

Generic streamers (natural colors such as squirrel tail or grizzly hackle for wing , white and/ or silver body , sizes 6-10 3xl hook)

Stealth bomber or gurgler (size 6 or smaller)

Generic carp flies ( modified backstabbers with tails in various materials )

Large buggy nymphs to represent hellgrammites etc.

Last ditch flies -
wooly buggers
clouser minnows

Wooly buggers and clousers just don't do much for me and only account for the occasional bass. I stand a much better chance of catching anything but small mouth bass on either of these. My brother is the exact opposite , hand him a box of size 10 clousers and he'll catch fish after fish.

 

[boychick]

I fish these patterns the most. Tried and true.

clouser minnow (white over white, chartreuse over white, and olive over white)

Slumpbuster (white, black, and olive)

Clouser crayfish

Mays full motion crayfish

Clouser crippled minnow

deer hair popper (white, yellow, blue with orange belly)

 

[Gone_Phishin]

I probably tie/have twice as many bass flies as I do trout flies. Inevitably, I always end up using a 2/0 chartreuse and white clouser minnow. It never fails. After that my favorite would be Leftys Red and White Hackle fly.

 

[chemsarge]

My top two would be the Tequeely and Shenk's White Minnow (and at times a black one).

 

[shakey]

and don't forget hornbergs!!

 

[BrianMyers67]

Brad Wrights Taneycomo Sculpin also has worked well in the past . Tans , dark olive , white and crayfish orange worked with grizzly chartreuse doing ok at times . Usually do the head out of coarse dubbing in a dubbing loop and hackle collar of pheasant. http://www.flysandguides.com/how-to-tie-brad-wrights-taneycomo-sculpin

 

[purplewoolly]

Just a couple I would ad to the list:

Gaines Sneaky Pete in Pearl
Wool head sculpin tan and black
And of course a purple wooly bugger
With red barbell eyes. Bright purple not the deep purple that looks black when wet.

 

[Bogey]

Thanks for all the great feedback..interesting how man times gurglers were mentioned over the sneaky Pete...I will definitely be spending a lot of time at the vise. I have never fished a gurgler and am looking forward to it. While I have many of the foam kit poppers tied, I am also going to try a blockhead popper from the foam sheets...anyone tye those? Any tips?

While buying materials for bunny/fur leaches and the crawdad, I did see Cabelas still offers that fly for sale in brown and olive. Looking forward to fishing those and a few sculpin patterns mentioned as well.

Thanks for all the great fly suggestions...great thread and very helpful...I can't wait to tye and fish these patterns mentioned

 

[shakey]

i think the beauty of the gurgler is how fast and cheap it is to tye.

if i was forced to pare my list down to three,it would be

gartside gurgler as my dry.

briminator as my wet.

cat's whisker with olive tail and wing,and gray chenille body as my streamer.
http://www.flyfishohio.com/The_Cat's_Meow.htm

all cheap,fast,productive tyes.

 

[melvinp]

DC410 was nice enough to post three of my small mouth creations on the current (What are you tying today)Page 10 There working so far this year.Kind of hard to tell but they are a mix of olive and brown.