This summer I spent most of my days on the water chasing the "Bronzebacks" of Ontario, the Smallmouth Bass. This was my first experience chasing them with a fly rod, I am usually chasing browns on the Upper part of The Grand.
Area's that I targeted most with buddies were the lower portions around Brantford and Paris. Targeting sunken logs, deeper pools, and large boulders along the river. The most sucessful flies used was the clouser minnow pattern that I purchased at Grand River Troutfitters tied up by Ken Collins. I fished the one day without taking the fly off the entire day, that is how effective it was, and well my first bass of the season managed to be the biggest smallie I have ever caught to date. It was pushing 22-23 inches and was just a hog.
Technique is fairly simple for smallies, as they are such an aggressive fish. I used a floating line with I would say a medium sink tip, 7ft in length with about a 3-4ft leader of 6pd Ultra Green. I would cast to my target and pretty much let the fly dead drift as it would imitate a wounded minnow, then on the dangle I would use different variations of stripping techniques on the retrieve.
This year I am going to try more crawfish patterns and try to work the poppers a bit more as well. I was learning to Spey over the summer so fishing time was split up with gatherings we had for the two-handed rods.
Here are some of my catches:
