Smallmouth Tips?
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Word on the ground is that someone went bucket biologist here in Georgia and stocked some smallmouth over by Augusta. I’m hearing reports that the fishing is getting good for fish up to 3 lbs. Strange as it seems, smallmouth are not native to any but the tiniest slivers of Georgia, nor have they ever previously been stocked:
I’ve fished for smallmouth here and there but I would certainly welcome an education from any of you who may know these fish more intimately.
Hopefully I’ll get a trip over there before fall closes in. As much rain as we’ve had, I look for a great fall mountain trout season, but that’s still months away.
Zach
Lots of fair to good smallmouth fishing in western NC, east TN, SW VA. French Broad, Pigeon, Little Tennessee, New, Nolichucky and other rivers. Harry Murray wrote a really good book on smallmouth years ago. Don’t now if it’s been revised/reprinted and/or is still available or not. But bigger water with nice smallmouth is not too far from you! Problem with too many of them is that they get muddy with every rain event.
Buzz
When fishing for smallmouth the item to look for is rocks.
Small to medium rock in the in river bed will hold crawdads, and this will attract smallmouth.
In the mountains you will want to look for rock ledges or small waterfalls, these are excellent places to work streamers.
In regards to “bucket biologist” that is a long tradition in Virginia. Such famous smallmouth rivers as the: James, Potomac and the Shenandoah were stocked with smallmouth by the 1870’s.Zach here are some tips that apply to the smallish rivers I fish that are too small for a boat.
A SUP provides a great (the best) way to get a better view of the river bottom and sight fish to Smallies in the shallows. Sight fishing to these fish is about as much fun as you can have with a fly. Don’t assume that because you’re too close to the fish that you can’t work them up and make em eat. I’ve regularly caught fish UNDER my SUP. The right fly helps. 🙂Look for humps in the river. This is the single most important thing about fishing these rivers to me. When you locate a hump anchor well above it and fan cast the front, middle, rear, if it. Alot of the humps where I fish stretch across the river so you need to spend some time working every angle where a fish might hide. These ledges are just rock (some solid, some broken) rock ledges that usually have some deeper water behind them. When the fish are staged on them I’ll paddle past just about everything to go to the next ledge.
Next up would be riffles. Fish usually can be found in the front of these and below as you would expect. Next would be wood structure and deep bends and deep bends with wood. Those places always hold a fish or three.
Getting them to hit I prefer to use large flies (clousers) first. I can cover alot of water with a clouser and I know when I get done casting an area that I’ve put one the best flies ever in their face. If you get a hit on a clouser or you see a fish flash it but miss try a few more casts. These fish aren’t picky and will often hit again if you just give it a little bit more erratic action. If that doesn’t work and you know the fish it still there try another fly. That usually does the trick.
Sight fishing sometimes is about as do nothing as it can be. Make a cast and the plunk makes the fish speed over to it and inhale it. Sometimes they head over to it and just stare. That’s when a crazy erratic set of short strips will usually trigger an eat. Again if the fish keeps refusing a clouser try another fly before moving on.
these fish are plentiful here in TN and we had an amazing early summer. Since posing pics here is different then my board I’ll just link to some of this years reports rather then rebuild all the img tags.
Most of these images are from a Nikon AW100 Waterproof P&S
http://trophyfishingtn.com/smf/index.php?topic=7672.0I grew up smallie fishing on the Shenandoah and Potomac. However now that we have snakehead in the tidal section I rarely go upstream for the shallow rock gardens and smallies. This weekend Orvis is hosting a float of 50-75 kayakers and canoers down the Potomac from Algonkian –> Riverbed. I’ll be tying up loads of flies for tomorrow. The standards for around here are CK Baitfish, Clawdad (Mossy Creek owners say that would be their only smallie fly if limited to one and its stupid easy to tie), hellgrammite, and Carolina blue sliders. They hold in similar locations to trout, in deep holes, behind rocks, and where oxygen and turbulence are plentiful. I’ve always had my best luck at dusk. The wife and I camped a few years back near Harpers Ferry and couldn’t sleep due to all the noise of them feeding in the middle of the night, as if it was raining potatoes over the water!
William sells the claws. I’ve used bike inner tubes to make my own when I couldn’t get the claws. His video shows how easy it is and with just a few ingredients.
He also sells the CK tails and more. Easterntrophies.com
For hellgrammites, you can’t go wrong with Bill Skilton’s. I’ve changed his up a bit to fit my needs and its killer for largies and channel cats.
Enjoy them while you have them.
Great tips all around. Since you are familiar with shoal bass, let me also point out that while shoalies often hold right in the current, smallmouth prefer the edges and eddies much more and usually aren’t right in the main flow.
Excellent discussion, guys – I appreciate it.
Mike what color and size of Clouser are you recommending? You said ‘big’ – are we talking crawdad size/color or what?
Jason I was thinking exactly that when I was reading this: I wonder how these differ from shoalies? I probably could wear the shoal bass out in my section of the Hooch, but they’re usually just incidental by-catch (and unwelcome at that) when I’m striper fishing. Every now and then an ambitious shoalie will inhale a striper fly, but they usually just short-strike the tails.
Rob, dude, that is a hell of a party float! You are going to have to post pictures of that. Is the idea to try to catch and kill as many snakeheads as possible, or are you guys starting to look on them as a sport fish? That might well be worth a post of its own since it’s a different topic…
Thanks for all the advice guys. Good to see some activity here on the board. I appreciate it.
ZachZach….I’m still in the smallie learning curve. I’ve applied all my shoal bass tactics and do pretty well. I’d suggest stocking a few wiggle minnows in different colors. Be sure to have some in “firetiger”.
@Zach
In addition to all that has been said pay attention to the bulged water in front of obstructions such as rocks and logs. Most of my big smallies have come from that type of water. And you can almost never go wrong with sliders and poppers at dusk.
@Rob I’d love to pick your brain regarding the Upper Potomac and boat access. Since I can’t seem to find/figure out any PM capacity please email me. Johntrish@comcast.net
JWSteve –
Are you actually hitting those over near Augusta? I’d be interested in your observations of how the fishery has developed.
Thanks,
ZachZach,
I’ve been fishing the smallie water in Western North Carolina……mostly streams and rivers. I just don’t enjoy fishing from a boat in a huge TVA lake.
I grew up catching shoal bass on the Flint and its tribs near Thomaston…..and this is quite similar with regard to tactics.
Some fly suggestions:
White diver/gurglers with rabbit strip tail, Wiggle Minnows–I really like tan crayfish or banded with brown marker, flashy flies, Natural greenish tan Puglisi flies banded with brown marker (Everglades is a great color), Heavy lead headed crayfish/bugger style bugs–Mohair, sculpin wool, or marabou–endless design combos on this type of fly.
Hope you find them in GA
Travis those are some really nice smallmouth man. Thanks for sharing and for the fly selection tips – obviously you’ve put in the time on this one.
Zach
Although this might seem dated, I would consider this the bible for fly fishing for smallmouth in Eastern streams.
Murray, Harry (1989). Fly Fishing For Smallmouth Bass. New York: Lyons and Burford Publishers. ISBN 0-941130-85-1.
Strategy without Tactics is a Slow Route to Victory, Tactics without Strategy is the Noise Before Defeat - Sun Tzu
The float trip was kind of a bust in the fishing department. AS the temps had been so hot in the past week the water was piss warm. The water was also about a foot higher than normal. The fish we did see were in shaded spots where water went over and around large rocks with lots of bubbles. Typical fish holding locations.
The only spots that had fish were drops in elevation where rapids went through rock gardens. I got some bites but only landed a sunfish. Most of the rest of the trip had similar results. I really have to give props to the Orvis shops for organizing this. With free hats and BuzzOff swag, a lunch, and a shuttle back up river the thing was one of the best deals out there ($50 per person).
As no snakeheads live up there we didn’t see any. Most of us have accepted them and I think they are a welcomed addition to the other non-native fish in the river. As I’ve averaged one every three years its not an easy fish to catch on the fly. Very few anglers have done so, we fished the potomacsnakehead.com tournament last month and got skunked in 18 hours of fishing.
Forgot I got this smallie in the tidal stretch during the shad run. It took a size 10 damsel nymph
I don’t have a lot of tips on tactics but I can 100% confirm that smallmouth bass are in the Savannah River in Augusta Ga. I live in Augusta and actually found a guy who guides on the river for smallmouth. We had an great trip. We mostly fished the deeper areas around rocky drop offs where the water went from shallow and swift to a deeper run. All the fish I caught were on a simple size 6 black wooly bugger with bright red hackle. I’m glad they’re here because it is quite possibly my new favorite fish to target.
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