bigorsmall

There is some sort of misunderstanding as to the intelligence and eyesight of the smallmouth bass. Generally it is thought that large gaudy flies requiring heavy rods are necessary to "hook up" with river smallies. Size 1 or 2 bunnie strips for exanple. Not true! I have caught many 2 to 3 pound smallmouth on size 14 nymphs. Smallmouth have excellent eyesight in any water condition and can spot a size 28 Black Midge from a distance. When fishing for smallmouth, one needs to determine what they're targeting for food at the time. Yes, just like trout fishing! As a matter of fact, I was fishing with my pals David and Todd the other day and they caught four good size rainbows on large tube baits with baitcasters while fishing for river smallies. Now should we say that

fly fishermen should be using large rubber tube flies for trout? Maybe. My point being that we have catagorized smallmouth with large flies. Back to the size 28 midges. One evening on the South Branch, I noticed smallies sipping the surface everywhere. I looked at the water at my waist and couldn't believe the midge hatch. The entire river was covered with black midges. The smallmouth were gorging themselves on them. They would not take anything else. Of courseI didn't have a black midge fly with me. Who would when fishing for smallmouth. Smallmouth are very much like trout. They target food.
Sometimes nymphs, sometimes minnows and other times mayfly adults. We need to deternine what the smallies are feeding on and " match the hatch".