As the smallmouth rivers get low and clear I find that I can prevent scaring the largest bass by wading upstream and fishing upstream ahead of me. An effective technique with streamers such as the Murray’s Magnum Hog Sucker Streamer is to fan the casts across the pool ahead of you and strip it back just slightly faster than the current so you can feel the strike. With nymphs such as the Murray’s Skunk Road Kill Nymph I use a slow rod lifting bounce retrieve to swim it along the streambottom. This gives me a tight line to the nymph so I can feel the strike. The Shenandoah Chugger is a great hard head surface bug to fish upstream because you can fish it gently back downstream or strip it loudly to bring the up from the deep cuts. One of the students in my smallmouth school caught over thirty nice smallmouths in one large pool using this last tactic.
