The Males Do Most Of The Work

Smallmouth bass are in full-tilt spawn mode across much of the Great Lakes region right now. Depending on location, smallies may spawn in anywhere from 2 feet to as much as 12-15 feet in depth. Beds will be fanned out by males so that a layer of clean gravel is uncovered to hold the eggs until they hatch. The males stay with the nest and keep the eggs clean of silt and sediment. After hatching, males will guard the fry from predators until they can fend for themselves.

Room for Everyone

Long thought of as strictly the realm of gear & bait anglers, the Great Lakes provide world-class fly fishing opportunites for a variety of both warm- and cold-water species. With thousands of miles of shoreline available there is plenty of room for everyone to chose and use the method of their choice. Lot's more on Great Lakes fly fishing to follow.

Door County Red Eyes

Just returned from a trip doing "research" for my upcoming book on Great Lakes fly fishing. Finally got a chance to fish in Wisconsin's Door County, one of the prettiest areas in the Lakes. We found the smallmouth just moving up to spawn and had great success wading shallow areas. One technique that worked well was to look for larger rocks in deeper areas just off the shallows and fish to them. Many of these were holding bass that were staging to move up onto beds. This fish hit a perch/crayfish colored pattern tied with a Fish Skull.

For info on fishing Door County, talk to Charlie or Tim at Tight Lines Fly Fishing in DePere, WI. These guys will point you in the right direction!

Love Those Skulls!!

Here are a couple new patterns I tied up recently for Lake Erie and beyond. These utilize the Fish Skulls from Flymen Fishing Company. Fish Skulls are proving to be a great addtion to nearly any streamer pattern. They are much more versatile than beads or cones, having easily added eyes and with their keel-like shape, can also make the fly ride with the hook inverted.

These sculpin/crayfish/goby imitators were tied to ride hook up and utilize a variety of materials including , grizzly marabou, rabbit, emu, and australian oppossum to get their look. The hook is a Daiichi #2461.