Aquatic grassbeds provide smallmouth bass with food, cover and shade. Thus you can see why I go out of my way to fish them—basically stated; they seldom let me down.
The aquatic grassbeds hold great populations of shiner minnows and some of the first grassbeds are those along the river banks. My favorite way to fish these is to wade downstream parallel to them 40 feet out in the river. If the water along the outer edge of the grassbeds is less than 3 feet deep I use a Silver Outcast Streamer size 4. If it is over 3 feet deep I use the Murray’s Heavy Shiner Streamer size 6. I start at the upstream end of these grassbeds and cast my fly tight against the grass and strip it out 6 inches every 5 seconds until it is 10 feet out from the grass, then pick it up and cast it 5 feet further down the grassbed. By wading slowly down the river and placing each successive cast 5 feet further downstream all of the way to the end of the grassbed I catch many nice bass.
A little later in the season the river-crossing ledges in mid river which reach close the the surface of the river or just beyond it develop thick grassbeds which hold many shiner minnows. I fish these with the same flies and tactics I use on the grassbeds along the banks. However, due to the abundance of deep water close to these grassbeds and the possibility of many large bass feeding here, I take my time and fish these areas very carefully.
Many slow river pools which are 3 to 6 feet deep produce very heavy weed growth which reach up close to the surface of the river. In a recent school I took a student into one of these pools where he caught dozens of large bass. The cue to our tactics was presented when we spotted many adult damselflies resting on the tips of the grass. He put on a Shenandoah Damsel Popper size 4 and had great fishing. By wading slowly upstream the grass bed helped hide our approach while it provided both shad and food for the bass.
I’m so sold on aquatic grassbeds that there are sections of large rivers where I wade all the way across the river to get to a good grassbed on the far bank.
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