Originally Posted by
James Smith
While I also occasionally catch good sized bass on smaller flies, as a general rule large bass want large food. I'll share a story to give you an idea of how large a food that big bass will take. While fishing for crappie a couple of springs ago I found myself catching lots of bass in the 14 inch range. The water was very stained and as I got one of the fish about three feet from shore, he went straight down to the bottom and stayed there. I figured he was burried in weeds, so I lowered the rod tip to about a foot from the water and smoothly "lifted" the fish towards the surface. What came up was a VERY large bass that had my 14 inch fish half way in her mouth head first. When I got her to the surface, she saw me, spit out the "little" bass and swam away. If you stop to consider how big a 14 inch bass is when you're thinking bait, you get the idea that you will probably never cast a fly that is too large for a big bass to take. Just food for thought...
Jim Smith