The Smiling Minnow

This is not a trout pattern, although I am tempted.

The smiling minnow is the glorious result of bad memory. It's a miniature version of the clouser floating minnow. We had a stretch of very dry weather on a local smallmouth river, and I had a day when my usual topwater flies sent them flying in abject fear. I wanted to try something smaller and less intrusive, so I thought I would tie up some clouser floating minnows. I did not have the recipe, so I came up with a bastardized version that was way too small, and probably substituted some materials.

1. Use a size 8 Tiemco 5212 hopper hook.
2. Cover the hook shank with white tying thread and whip finish.
3. Coat the flat side of two foam bluegill spider bodies with zap a gap and press them together over the hook shank to form the body. There is a trick to this. Put the far side on first, and position it so most of the body is above the hook shank. If you don't do this you end up with a narrow gap between the hook and body that will not hook fish. Do not ask how I learned this. Then put the second half on matching it to the first.
4. Tie on a sparse tail of bucktail or calftail, and tie in a few strands of pearl flashabou. Make it sparse.
5. Use a sharpie to make eyes and a little smiling mouth. If you do not add a smile the fly will not catch a thing.

This is my go-to low water smallmouth fly. It is insane that something so small and insignificant catches fish, but it does. I use it in late summer, or anywhere I am bass fishing under clearwater conditions. I do a dead drift with the occasional short twitch. The surprising thing is how fish take the fly. If you don't watch it constantly, you will miss a slight disturbance that means a bass has sipped it. I had a night last summer where smallmouth were acting like browns on Pennsylvania limestone stream during a trico hatch. One minute the fly would be there, then a gone in a little dimple. I missed several fish before I caught on.

I have tried other color combinations, and no longer tie it in any other color. White on white for this one. And rock bass and large bluegills love it as well as the smallmouth do...

UPDATE: I found a version of this fly that is more effective than white on white. Use light blue bucktail and blue holographic tinsel/flashabou. Pick colors that make it look like an adult blue damselfly. Works even better. I took 70 fish one day last summer until the one I had in my box had the hook break off. Still waiting for Orvis to call me with licensing information, but all my friends have started to use it so it must be good.