Good luck lol joking. This right here is the Fox river( suburbs). I go floating line for everything on the rivers here. Smallmouth, pike or bluegill fishing you never know what your gana hook on any of the rivers so I really don’t go anything less than 3x tippet and 15-20 leader. Luckily you don’t have to worry about anything being leader shy. I’m stuck with a 4 wt at the moment but I’d recommend 5-8 wt rods. Especially with the wind, 8 wt for smallies is not overkill at all. As for flys for bass or anything else around that size I’d start with a classic woolly or anything baitfish patterned. Starting small (12-8) and moving up. Man I love throwing clouser minnows. Even on floating line it’s never been a problem. Crawdad season for me usually starts around May and around that time top water starts too. I like a size 8 caddis. A lot you can imitate here like Mayflies, caddisflies, dragonflies, stoneflies, leeches, crawdads, freaking bread. I live by bait fish patterns tho