Pacific Fly Fishers' Fly Fishing and Fly Tying Blog

How to Tie The Mega Craw - Crayfish Bass Fly

How to Tie Bennett's Mega Craw Crayfish Bass FlyIn this article, Michael Bennett shows step-by-step instructions and the pattern recipe for tying the Mega Craw crayfish bass fly.  Also, Michael highlights the fly lines and techniques used to fish his most productive pattern for big smallmouth and largemouth bass.

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Video: Fly Fishing for Smallmouth Bass

Filming the WDFW video on Banks Lake while fly fishing for smallmouth bass. Watch the video.

I recently had the opportunity to help with the filming of a short video on fly fishing for smallmouth bass on Banks Lake. The video is part of a series of videos the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife is producing to promote the amazing variety of fisheries found in Washington.

Bruce Bolding (WDFW Warmwater Fish Program Manager, Olympia, WA) and Danny Garrett (Biologist and video producer extraordinaire, Mill Creek, WA) were the representatives of WDFW and the ones producing the video. David Williams, author of the soon to be released book, Fly Fishing for Western Smallmouth, and I were the anglers in the video.

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Banks Lake Bassin

This Banks Lake smallmouth ate the Meat Whistle fished on a 6wt rod and full sinking line.  The flat bay where this fish was taken was about eight feet deep with lots of rocks on the bottom.  It appeared to be an important (and wind-protected) bay for the fish to spawn in and they were staged and just about ready to go.  Didn't see very many spawning beds yet.  Probably will start spawning in the next week or two, I would assume.

If you’re looking for something different, give Banks Lake a shot for great numbers of smallmouth bass. Mid- to late-May is a great time to fish Banks for the bass that are in pre-spawn mode. They are typically in five to fifteen feet of water and staging in or around rocky flats where they will eventually spawn.

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Lake Whatcom

Blake with one of his first fish ever on the fly rod… a little smallmouth that ate a orange Crazy Dad.

I guided on Lake Whatcom on Monday with customer Arne and his two sons, Blake and Dakota. We had a great day and good weather. The fish were pretty tough but we got plenty of little guys and had a couple good-sized smallmouth up to the boat but they managed to get off. Overall, we caught smallmouth, yellow perch and a few really nice cutthroat throughout the day.

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Banks Lake Smallmouth and More

Fished Banks Lake for a couple days in May. I was primarily there for smallmouth but encountered a few other fish of interest along the way.

The first day, Vance B. met me over there around mid-morning. Earlier in the day, before he arrived, I was messing around with carp on a large, shallow flat. It was loaded with carp! I tried to sneak in there as best you can with a 20-foot boat, and managed to find a few fish that appeared to be feeding. One of our customers is a carp fanatic and has been incredibly helpful in providing information on just how to fool these difficult fish. He also armed me with some of his favorite carp flies!

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Easter Sunday Bass

Those of you that frequent Pacific Fly Fishers know that there are few days when Ben and I both have the day off. Well, that’s the beauty of major holidays when the shop is closed, and we took advantage of Easter Sunday to try and repeat our success at a local bass lake.

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Sammamish Lake - 7/6/2010

Hit Lake Sammamish and had a great time catching around 12 to 15 quality smallmouth. The lake got pretty windy in the afternoon plus the waves from all the water skiers, but the morning bite was great.

Ben joined me in the afternoon and, although it was much slower than the morning and early afternoon, we still managed to catch a few more fish. The big fish of the day was a smallmouth of around four pounds and the average fish was probably two pounds. I was primarily fishing dock pillars in around 10 to 15 feet of water with a 6-weight and a type IV full-sinking line . I did loose about three fish that broke off in the docks… one of them was a solid three to four pounds and another I never did see but it felt like a big-un!

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