Smallmouth Skating Streamers

After extensive testing last summer on the North Fork of the Shenandoah River we completed our new Smallmouth Skating Streamers series. These are new minnow imitations that are tied in a manner that help us fish them with a riffle hitch (sometime called Riffling Hitch) in order to mimic dying or wounded minnows struggling on the surface of the river. These minnows are quite vulnerable and the bass attract them with gusto.
The riffle hitch is easy to tie because it is simply two half hitches tied right behind the hook eye. It can be tied in a manner that causes the leader tippet to come out on either side of the fly or below the fly. All of these produce a different action so just experiment.
We tie these in three patterns. the “Shad” which mimics a hog sucker and shad minnow, the “Golden” which matches sunfish and the “Flash Streamer” which matches the dace. These will often give you bass that refuse other flies.