Smallmouth are near the top of my list of favorite fish to target on the fly rod. I picked up Smallmouth: Modern Fly-Fishing Methods, Tactics, and Techniques by Dave Karczynski and Tim Landwehr to up my game for the upcoming season and it did not disappoint.

About the Authors

Dave Karczysnki is a Michigan based author, regularly contributing to outdoor magazines and outlets like Outdoor Life, Fly Rod & Reel, and The Drake Magazine. His co-author, Tim Lendwehr operates Tight Lines Fly Shop based in De Pere, Wisconsin and has been guiding smallmouth in the Midwest for the majority of his adult life. Between the two, they have decades of experience fly fishing for smallmouth and offer their expertise in their 2017 book, Smallmouth: Modern Fly-Fishing Methods, Tactics, and Techniques.

While dozens of technique-driven books have been written about fly fishing for trout, significantly fewer have been written about fly fishing for smallmouth bass- especially one describing modern techniques. This is one of the first fly fishing books to dive into the modernization of fly fishing for smallmouth bass using (as the title suggests), modern tactics and methods. Fly fishing has come a long way in recent years, with upgrades in gear, technology, and fly materials and this book is one of the first to apply those advancements to smallmouth bass.

About the Book

Smallmouth: Modern Fly-Fishing Methods, Tactics, and Techniques describes in-depth strategies to target smallmouth bass in rivers, using clear language and structure to educate the angler. While their focus is mainly on Midwest rivers, their lessons apply to any smallmouth angler out there.

The book is broken down into six chapters, the first being an introduction to the authors, followed by a general overview of bass behaviors in rivers during the main seasons of the year- spring (pre-spawn, spawn, post-spawn), summer, fall, and winter. They then break down their approach to catching fish into three more chapters, describing the sections of water they target- The Surface, The Middle Column, and the Lower Column.

Karczynski and Landwehr do a great job offering detailed methods on how to fish certain flies in these different columns of the water. They give thorough stripping techniques of their favorite flies and how they apply to each section of the water column. Using their years of experience, they offer different cues outside of the ordinary ones to describe the most effective retrieval techniques for varying styles of flies. When describing subtle topwater flies, their cue of “bend the legs” is one that will forever stick with me.

Takeaways

Throughout the book, I was really impressed with the creativity of how they structured their directives. A simple Google Search on fly fishing for smallmouth bass yields solid results, but is broken down in an-overly simplistic fashion (i.e. “this is a good smallmouth fly”, etc.) while Karczynski and Landwehr’s breakdown of the water columns gives a much clearer, more complete approach to targeting smallmouth on a fly rod. Visualizing fish and their behavior at each depth paints a more comprehensive understanding of how to best catch them.

The creative framing of the core tactics of how Karczynski and Landwehr target smallmouth in rivers was another key takeaway from this book. Traditionally, anglers talk about casting either directly at the shore and stripping flies out, or drifting flies along with the current when targeting fish. Karczynski and Landwehr call these the “X-Axis” and “Y-Axis”, and while initially I was irritated by the introduction of math and geometry into fishing, this creative framing of the methods actually helped me understand their points much better.

By structuring the book by an analysis of each section of the water column, their X/Y Axis approach, and unique cues with how to fish flies, I closed the book with a much better understanding of how to target smallmouth on the fly rod. Smallmouth are among my favorite fish to target and I picked up this book wanting to improve my smallie game, and upon completing the book I am not only much more confident in my current techniques, but also look forward to applying the new things I learned.

At the end of the book, they also provide short interviews with well-known smallmouth anglers like Larry Dahlberg and Mike Schultz. Hearing their perspectives about their home waters was another feature of the book I really liked and took something away from each of their approaches.

Conclusion

Smallmouth: Modern Fly-Fishing Methods, Tactics, and Techniques is a great book for any fly angler, from beginner to advanced. If you are new, you will learn the basics of how to target smallies on the fly rod and if you are a seasoned angler, you will pick up several new approaches and techniques that will lead to not only more, but bigger smallmouth on the end of your line.