Southern Tier Fishing - Fly patterns for the Chemung River

Southern Tier Fishing	"Fly patterns for the Chemung River"
How-To Series

Here are some flies I've found to be effective for smallmouth bass and carp in the Chemung River.

The white strymph is is my top producing smallmouth fly. I fish it dead-drift through small runs, and also swung across the funnel or V at the end of a run/top of a riffle.I learned to tie this from Harry Murray's book "Flyfishing for Smallmouth Bass". It's basically a dubbed rabbit fur body, white ostrich herl tail, and a hackle collar.

This simple foam minnow is one of my own creations. This is the fly when smallies are in a feeding frenzy at the bottom of a riffle. Swing it or drift it over the fast water and especially in the pockets of slack water in between.You can tie it on a streamer hook, but I've moved to tying it on a piano wire body with a small treble hook because the fish hit it so hard the larger hook was doing too much damage to the fish. Tie the foam on and segment it using thread, tie a little flash on the treble for a tail, a hackle collar, and that's it.

The white fly emerger is another original pattern I made up. I tie this as a dropper behind the foam minnow when the white flies are hatching. Doesn't actually float on the surface, but suspends at mid-depth. Rabbit fur body, hackle tail, and a strip of foam for the wing case.

I bought this gigantic Irresistable at Hesslesons in Elmira Heights. I've caught smallmouth and carp on it, usually in late evening when it's hard to see smaller flies. It's tied on a # 4 hook -- bass bug size.

Two more original patterns here. The damselfly nymph is just a bead chain eye with an olive marabou body, segmented with half hitches of thread. Finish at the end of the tail with a couple of half hitches in one place and add a drop of glue. Tie it clouser style with the eyes on the top of the hook. This has worked equally well in standing and running water, when the damselflies are out and about.

The second fly I simply call my "carp fly". It's just a piece of barred purple "Chick-a-bou" wrapped around a #10 or #12 hook, and counter-wrapped with copper wire. The one in the photo is a little beat up, but when wet just looks like a little non-descript nymph. The small size is important. Carp will shy away from large flies. Has worked well in still water when carp are working over weeds for small nymphs.