My partner and I had our first bass league night up north and fished mainly a smallmouth bass lake with some largemouth. I pretty much left my spinning gear at home and broke out the fat line. Out of 19 boats that showed up that night, we came in 5th place, not bad for being the only guys throwing fly rods, our team name is "The Long Rods"
There were some big females caught and released of course. Lots of big males and small males were boated as well. The average from all fish caught from all teams was about 2.5 lbs, now that is an impressive average of smallies.
If anyone gets a chance to try some smallmouth action, give it a shot. I can't get enough from fishing for them, although I still love my trout, the smallmouth is just an awesome fly rodding fish. We've begun working on a smallmouth video, hopefully we can get some good fly fishing action.
I'm always experiementing with different flies, but I found a new friend next to my wooly buggers, called the meat whistle . I cast it with a 6wt, but probably more designed for an 8 weight. This thing really get bass excited when they are not biting aggresively.
I've heard that Smallmouth fishing is excellent in the Mississippi from Elk River to St. Cloud. Is it wade - able? Whats a good access point on foot?
