Spring (Early Season April to mid-June)
Let’s discuss the early season smallmouth bass fly fishing on Virginia’s rivers. The river is warm enough that the bass will feed heavily on the natural hellgrammites that live in the riffles. Many students catch their bass by casting a Murray’s Heavy Hellgrammite (black) size 6 across stream and swimming it back slowly across the stream bottom.
The two to three feet deep gravel bars along the riverbanks hold unbelievably large populations of shiner minnows and the bass feed heavily upon them in a hit and run manner. That is, they swim onto these shallows and eat several shiners before returning to the deep water close by. Cast a Silver Outcast Streamer out in front of the anticipated path and strip it right in front of him.
Many large smallmouth bass find great feeding stations in the back eddies that form on the slow side of the river opposite the heavy riffles. These back eddies may range from 20-50 feet in diameter and from 4-8 feet deep.
The reverse flow of the current in the back eddies make it easy for bass to find ideal feeding stations. Plus there is an abundance of natural minnows located here.
These back eddies can be fished successively by floating the river or by wading carefully along the shallow bank. Effective flies in these eddies are Murray’s Tungsten Cone Head Marauder size 4 (pearl, black, or olive). An effective technique is to swim my Marauder across the stream bottom by stripping them six inches every 5 seconds. READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE>>>
Early Season Smallmouth Bass Fly Assortment at Murray’s Fly Shop
Learn To Fly Fish–Summer Fly Fishing Schools at Murray’s Fly Shop