Smallmouth Bass on Hoppers and a Fly Rod

By this time of the summer the natural grasshoppers, crickets, and cicadas are large enough to attract the large smallmouth bass. In fact, recently my son Jeff caught one of the largest smallmouth bass of his life on the Murray’s Bass Hopper 8.
These big Murray’s Bass Hoppers are often most productive when fished tight to the banks along hay fields and pasture fields where the natural hoppers live. I do very well by fishing the Murray’s Bass Crickets tight along the heavily timbered banks especially early in the mornings. Cicadas are poor swimmers and I see many of them swept into the large back eddies below the riffles where the bass cruise along feeding on them.
My most dependable tactics with these three bugs is a two inch kicking action every five seconds.