Super fast smallie fly...

With the water FINALLY starting to fall it's time to think about some smallmouth fishing. Here's a super easy smallie fly you can whip out in no time...

Thread a bead on a size 2 or 4 hook.



Like with every fly wrap the shank with thread to keep things from sliding around. Then tie in a tail of mylar and just a bit of deer hair.



Tie in a piece of pearl core braid brown and wrap it forward to form a body



Next tie in a saddle feather and using hackle pliers wrap it around a couple times and tie it off



Ill often stop right there and use the fly as is. Sometimes I'll tie in a wing of mylar and a few whisps of bear hair for a different look.



I call the fly the Junction simply because thats one of my favorite spots on the river to use it.

A sucker for rough fish...

Many of our rivers hold an amazing bunch of fish that are largely overlooked by fishermen. Hard to catch, hard fighting and growing to nice sizes, you would think these fish would be all the rage. But they suffer from either bad press or no press and an even worse name...suckers. After all don't permit have the same downturned mouth, are hard to catch on a fly and grow to roughly the same sizes? But permit are a glamour fish and suckers are called, well, suckers. Many species are highly intolerant of pollution and used by biologists as canaries in the coal mine when it comes to water quality. Many suckers have special adaptations such as reduced swim bladders to help them stay in place in swift riffles. The hog sucker even has a head shaped to use the water like air on a race cars spoiler to create downforce to hold itself in place. And the hog sucker, like many suckers, uses big pectoral fins like a darter or madtom to brace itself in place on bottom in a riffle's swift water.











Suckers eat algae and small invertabrates and will hit a nymph if you can present it right in front of them. They will not chase a nymph though, the key is to present the fly right on the sucker's nose. I find the best way to do this is with stealthy wading and a high stick/short line nymphing technique just like you would use for trout in a swift riffle or run. Often in clear water, if you wade carefully enough you can see the fish you are presenting the fly to, but most times the swiftness of the water hides the fish no matter how clear the water is. With this in mind, work thoroughly, keeping in mind the fish will not chase the fly. A good presentation seems much more important than fly pattern, any good beadhead will get bit if you put it on a feeding suckers nose. I do tie some brighter versions of my standard beadhead nymphs to make them more noticeable to a feeding sucker. I find a long fly rod is better, it gives you more range to short line a nymph and a longer follow. A five or six weight is just about right. Suckers sometimes get a bit big to land on little three or four weights and seven weights and up are overkill. When shortlining a nymph you do not need a strike indicator but on longer casts set your indicator up the line just a bit farther than the water is deep. Setting the indicator this deep will insure your nymphs are on the bottom where they need to be. Plan on losing quite a few to snags, if you are not hooking bottom every now and again you are not deep enough. As best I can tell, there are sixteen different species of suckers in the Little Miami. Some like the white sucker are very common and some like the endangered blue sucker are among the rarest sish in the river. If you happen to be lucky enough to hook a blue sucker, handle it carefully and snap a quick picture to send to me before setting it free. Actually all suckers are an important part of the rivers food chain and should be handled carefully no matter how common they are. Other non-traditional fly rod quarry that will hit a fly include carp and buffalo. Both pretty much will eat the same flies as suckers with presentation again being much more important than pattern.



My sucker and carp fly selection.



A standard short line nymph rig.



A good rig to use where you are losing a lot of flies. The shot slides off if they hang up, saving the fly.



An easy way to add another nymph to your rig without retying everything.

guide to the most common insects/invertebrates found in various places along the Little Miami river:

Peters Cartridge Plant, Kings Mills --Hydropsychid caddisflies, baetid mayflies, heptageniid mayflies

Stubbs Mill Bridge --Hydropsychid caddisflies and baetid mayflies

Middletown Road --Elimia snails very abundant, Hydropsychid caddisflies

Constitution Park, Spring Valley --Baetid mayflies and midges

SR 350, Fort Ancient --Hydropsychid caddisflies, Psychomyia flavida and Elimia sp. snails predominant.

Beechmont Road --Rheotanytarsus midges and bryozoan, hydropsychid caddisflies, baetid mayflies, and flatworms

Wooster Pike --Hydropsychid caddisflies, baetid mayflies, Rheotanytarsus sp. midges, Elimia sp. snails

Behind Lake Isabella --Hydropsychid and philopotamid caddisflies, heptageniid mayflies, Elimia sp. snails predominant. Large mussel bed present

Upstream of the mouth of O'Bannon Creek in Loveland --Hydropsychid caddisflies, baetid mayflies, flatworms, heptageniid mayflies, Elimia sp. snails

Old Kings Dam site --Tricorythodes mayflies, Hydropsychid caddisflies

Downstream of Todds Fork --Waterpenny beetles, Hydropsychid caddisflies, Elimia sp. snails

Basic Fly Selection for the Little Miami

A warm water river like the Little Miami holds a tremendous variety of life when compared to a cold water stream like your average trout stream. The fish in the Little Miami are much more likely to eat a fly because it looks like something good to eat rather than an exact copy of a specific insect or fish species. I try to carry good generic flies like the parachute adams that might imitate any of a dozen things on the water at any one time. For smallmouth a generic stonefly/hellgrammite pattern cast upstream and across and allowed to tumble back like an insect caught in the current is most times a top producer. Early and late especially, a deer hair bug
fished in the slick at the tail of a pool and around structure can produce some exciting strikes. I like a slightly smaller bug than is normally thrown in ponds for largemouth. And I really like my smaller version, the googly, for non stop action. Here's my recipe for tying the googly-

First you tie in a tail of fox or squirrel and a peice of tinsel.




then you wrap the tinsel forward till it covers about 60% of the hook shank and tie it in.



Next tie in wings from a saddle,I like grizzly but in truth use whatever I have left over from tying dries.



Then you take some deer hair and loop the thread over it twice. As you pull the thread taut you release the hair with your fingers letting it flare and spin around the hook shank.





Repeat tying in bunches of deer hair till you fill up the hook shank completely.








Tye off the thread and trim the deer hair.



epoxy on your eyes and your done.




Also don't be afraid to use some flies usually thought of as just trout flies. A good nymph pattern tied in a variety of sizes will draw a strike from just about anything that swims in the river. A generic nymph placed gently in front of a buffalo or carp can sometimes draw a take from these fish usually only taken on bait.

The big one that got away

A whole day free. The wife had to work, no babysitting chores, I knew exactly where I wanted to spend it. There's this hole you see where the river makes a sharp turn digging a nice hole then a riffle and a long slow hole. It's one of the most consistent fish producing spots I know. You can allmost count on catching at least a half dozen bass every time you go there, I'd even caught a couple big catfish there on lures while bass fishing. The hole has one more thing going for it, it's really not that easy to get to. You have to walk a hundred fifty yards down a dry creek bed and then the hole fishes best from the far side so you have to wade the river above to do it right. I've never seen someone else fishing there during the day much less at night, so that's where I headed.





I got there early afternoon and took my time, gathered enough firewood for a nice fire and set up a nice little basecamp. I'd packed in a few special things too. A couple empty 2 liter pop bottles, some strong nylon rope, and a handfull of big 5/0 hooks. The makings of a trot line. Plus the two big baitcasting rods. You know the ones with the clickers and star drags, big enough to handle the fish you dream of catching , not the ones you actually do catch.




I then went to work, fishing worms on my light spinning rod and soon had a couple drum and a pumpkinseed for bait. I tied each two liter to heavy rocks with enough slack to let them float about chest deep and sunk them about 40 yards apart just below the rock bar where the hole first gets deep. Then I stretched nylon cord between the two bottles with a half dozen of the big 5/0 hooks on droppers spaced out evenly. I baited these with cut pieces of drum and the punpkinseed and as a finishing touch blew up and tied two balloons as floats along the main line. It was beautiful. I was sure would catch a giant. With a couple hours left till dark I then hid the two baitcasters up in the bushes and began lure fishing upstream thru the faster water with my spinning rod.











The bass fishing was fabulous, by dark I'd probably landed a dozen bass along with a couple more drum on a smoke metalflake grub. I then built a fire, changed into dry shoes, put on a flannel shirt and threw out the baitcasting rods to wait on a big catfish. The word wait should probably be followed by a couple lines that are just blank to convey more of the meaning of the word as the wait for a big catfish to bite can sometimes be epic. Every half hour or so another drum would hit just to keep things interesting. Plus two softshell turtles, one small and cute and one big enough to make me be extra carefull not to get withing range of that beaklike mouth. Sometime in the middle of the night I heard a tremendous splashing in the direction of the trot line. Grabbing the flashlight I got there just in time to see a very big fish roll once on the dropper baited with the pumpkinseed. Then before I could wade in to land it, the line went quiet. Two quiet, the big cat had come loose and gotten off. I had two nice runs on the rods but came up empty with the bait gone so I put on a nightcrawler trying to catch some smaller drum for bait. After a few minutes the line tore off in a rush and I was fast into a nice carp.





But no catfish, at dawn the score was 10 drum, 1 carp, 1 small gar, and a grand total of zero catfish. On both sides of me owls cried during the night. First the eerie unworldy cries of a screech owl then the familiar cry of a barred owl. I hooted back at the barred owl and he flew closer calling out off and on all during the night. At dawn I moved up above the riffle to the smaller hole above. Instantly a drum was on and they bit as fast as could rebait for about an hour. I even managed to catch a decent smallmouth on a nightcrawler fished on the bottom. I think I was even more surprised than he was.



Finally I went back downriver, took up the trot line, gathered my things and waded the river and headed up to the creek that was my way out. Just then a great fish broke water above me. Not in that way that big carp breech but in a huge tail slapping roll. It looked gigantic. Sneaking slowly up the bank, I crept up behind a weed bed and peeked over the bank. In the shallows were eight or ten big fish. Carp I thought, but they didn't look just right. Carp in the river are a gracefull streamlined fish and these were stockier rounder fish. I watched for a bit then it hit me. Buffalo! The world record is 88 pounds though much larger ones have been caught by comercial fishermen. I think the state record is a bit under fifty pounds. In this pod of fish there were two that were very big. I'd never caught a big one and am no person to judge their size but the largest looked a bit shorter than the 37lb carp I'd caught earlier in the year and at least as broad across the back. Since buffalo are a rounder, deeper bellied fish this was a very big fish. The water here was shallow and clear. The fish would spook if I made much commotion at all, so I hooked on a nightcrawler on an unweighted hook and crept forward behind the tall weeds. After a minute or two one of the big fish and a smaller one swam my way. I cast the worm out ahead of them and waited. They both swam right over the bait and the line twitched and began to move. I set the hook and was fast into a fish...the smaller one of course. Not that he was small, I guess around ten pounds but by the time I landed him in the shallow water every fish had left the pool. All in all a very fine fishing trip.

The Googly

The googly is my favorite fly for smallmouth bass in the rivers near my home. The googly has the double advantage of being deadly on smallies and simple to tie.



Here's my recipe for tying the googly-

First you tie in a tail of fox or squirrel and a peice of tinsel.




then you wrap the tinsel forward till it covers about 60% of the hook shank and tie it in.



Next tie in wings from a saddle,I like grizzly but in truth use whatever I have left over from tying dries.



Then you take some deer hair and loop the thread over it twice. As you pull the thread taut you release the hair with your fingers letting it flare and spin around the hook shank.





Repeat tying in bunches of deer hair till you fill up the hook shank completely.









Tye off the thread and trim the deer hair.



epoxy on your eyes and your done.