Low Smallmouth Rivers

Now that the smallmouth rivers are getting low and clear the large bass are becoming wary so I like to give myself any edge I can.  One tactic which helps prevent spooking the bass is to punch out long cast.  Since I like to fish on the surface at this time of the summer this means going to deer hair surface bass bugs because I can cast a streamlined hairbug 20 feet further than I can the same size popper.  Some of the best designed streamlined deer hair surface bugs I know are the Tapply Bugs and the Shenandoah Hair Poppers.

Another great advantage of deer hair bugs is that apparently they feel much like a real living food to the bass because they hold onto them much longer than a hard popper, thus giving us time to set the hook before they detect it as a phoney and eject it.

Here is a slightly different technique which has given us many large bass whether we are wading of floating the river.  In the last 100 feet of the tail of the pool cast your hair bug tight against the bank at a 20 degree angle downstream.  Pointing the rod down the line swim the bug slowly off the bank with a six inch pull-pause-pull action until it is 10 feet off the bank then pick it up and cast it back against the bank 5 feet further down the bank, repeating this all the way to the riffle.  In addition to this, fish your deer hair bugs the same way you would your poppers but with longer casts and you’ll catch many large bass.