Seeking Big Stream Smallmouth

[et84]

One thing...not all crayfish are equal as smallie food. The most common crayfish in most Ozark streams is the golden crayfish. It's colored a yellowish olive with very dark brown bands across its body and bright red highlights on its claws and body segments. It also happens to have some of the biggest pinchers for its size of any crayfish, and also has a very hard, thick shell. If there are any other crayfish in the stream that are available to smallies, they often prefer them to the golden.

Great info, Al- makes a lot of sense. Whenever I've tried fishing with chigger craws they HAVE produced fish, but not nearly as many as some of the other styles with smaller pinchers.

[Al Agnew]

Gavin, I know what you mean about clear water being tough for the flyfisherman because you really do have to make long casts. Another problem is that, often in very clear water, you absolutely don't want to give the fish any kind of good look at it. The fly rod lends itself to slow, deliberate presentations, but just about all the big fish I've caught in clear water came on lures fished very fast--either buzzbaits, my spinnerbait fished so fast it bulges the surface, or fast, splashy topwater lures. I think a big streamer or marabou muddler fished with long strips and kept just under the surface would work well if you get the right combination of strip and rod lift...and be able to do it on a long cast. The Sneaky Pete should work with that technique as well, but you have to be able to move it steadily but slightly erratically for 3 feet or more at a time.

I'm picturing the way I fish the spinnerbait--long cast, not too close to the cover where you think the fish is but a good five feet past it, start the retrieve the instant the lure hits the water, and burn it pretty fast until it gets about even with the cover, then while still reeling fast, give the rod tip a hard twitch. This break in the steady movement of the lure often triggers the fish. But if you stop it or slow it, rejection. Also, the way I fish walk the dog topwaters and Pop-R types, steady hard twitches at a cadence of about two twitches per second, so that it's constantly moving and also being pretty splashy, the splashes obscuring the lure body to the fish's sight to some extent. If you can adapt those presentations to fly rod stuff, I think it would work...BUT, the other thing is that I'd think the size of your fly rod "lures" has to be similar to my baitcasting stuff to really interest big fish.

I've tied up a bunch of big, bulky streamers, some with chamois strips in the shape of a curly tail, that I've been intending to give a real good try with the fly rod. But casting those things any distance is going to be problematical even with an 8 weight, the way I cast.

Chris, I used to do a lot of night fishing, and caught a lot of big fish that way. For whatever reason I haven't done it much in the last few years. My experience with it was that you needed pretty clear water for optimum results, at least 4 or 5 feet of visibility. But it's a great way to fool big fish. My three most productive lures were always the old Jitterbug, and the equally old Heddon Meadow Mouse. Later, I started using my homemade crankbait reeled just fast enough to make it wobble. At that speed it was more of a wake bait, like the Meadow Mouse. On bright moonlight nights in clear water, I wanted something that waked the surface without making much noise, and on darker nights or water a bit murkier, I wanted the noise of the Jitterbug. I tried buzzbaits quite often, and caught a lot of fish with them just as it approached full darkness, but caught a lot fewer fish once it got fully dark.

[Gavin]

Thanks for the tips Al...I think its just a matter of time till I get one over 20" on the fly...My wife and I gave it a go on a popular clear water creek near Onanadaga yesterday. We didnt catch any big smallmouth, but we caught stupid numbers of cookie cutter 8-12" fish.

We tried everything to get into better fish, brought my casting rod, and tried the spook, buzzers, big spinnerbaits, shallow, and deep cranks....My wife tried 4" tubes and flukes on the spin rod, I tried big poppers, sneaky, big shamu steamers on the fly rod......but in the end, the only consistant bite was for something 3-4" long in brown or olive...Didnt matter if it was plastic or fly..

Cast it out, let it sink for a second, twitch, smack...almost every cast..Multiple doubles...We saw a few nice fish, but the little ones were too fast....My wife hooked the fish of the trip on a fluke in a log jammed back eddy. Big Largemouth around 22" or so, she hooked it about 75' out over a big log jam and did a great job of keeping it out of the logs for a minute or so...till it gave us a nice tailwalk display and parted company...My best was a 14" smallie on a brown sparkleminnow. Guess there are too many dinks in that creek.