Bass fishing fly suggestions???

As the fly fishing season winds down around here, I begin to think about my tying for the winter season. This past summer, I did my first bass fishing and want to do more of that next season. In the past, I have mostly fished for trout, with some time on panfish, so my tying in the past has been geared mostly in that direction. This winter, I'd like to put together a couple of boxes dedicated to bass fishing.

My question is, what should be in those boxes? I'm interested in patterns, sizes, and colors that would be effective for a beginning bass rookie to fish.

My fishing would be mostly in midwestern streams and smaller rivers, along with some small lakes and ponds. I mostly wade the waters when I fish, but sometimes have taken the canoe out for a fishing trip. I hope to invest in a pontoon someday, but don't know how soon that will be.

Also, any books or videos that would help me learn more about bass fishing would be appreciated as well. I like to keep myself busy on those long cold winter nights.

Thanks in advance.

CJ

clenske,
Here is a link to a site with some good bass flies http://www.warmwaterflytyer.com/corner.asp There is also a section about books there. I have the Terry and Roxanne Wilson book on bass fishing, as well as their bluegill book, and have found them to be quite useful. If you are doing any smallmouth bass fishing, Harry Murray's book is a good one.
Steve

Here's what I've been using

clousser minnow
woolie buggers (olive, brown, black)
poppers (green, yelow, orange)

I've caught a couple bass on parachute adams and copper johns.

Here's the way I like to think of the difference between Bass and Trout:

Trout eat like a finikie cat. Bass eat like a fat man at an all you can eat BBQ stand.

They both eat all the time and eat a lot. The trout can be pretty specific, but he will eat a lot of what he likes. Throw something that looks like food in front of a bass and he's going to eat it with gusto..

What I find as a lot of fun is to try different things and sometimes unconventional things.
Think outside the box.

Jeff

CJ,

Lots of good bass patterns out there.

You don't need all of them, and many will do the 'same' job.

When you decide to tie flies for bass, do your best to cover the entire water column, surface down to as deep as you want to fish.

Also, make sure you tie some flies that will work well 'vertically' since bass tend to respond well to falling baits.

Some basics:

Bass have large mouths for their length and consider any prey up to about half their length as fair game. A 12 inch largemouth can easily take a fly tied on a 5/0 hook.

Use 'large' hooks for your bass fly tying. You can tie the same length fly on a 4x long #10 streamer hook as you can on a 'standard' length #4 hook. The #4 has a larger gap and will hook more fish for you.

Bass tend to inhabit places with hook grabbing obstructions in abundance. Weed guards are a good idea if you know you will be fishing in grass or brush. Simply tying your flies so that the hook point rides upwards will eliminate lots of snags.

Look for 'action' in your flies rather than 'imitation'. Bass aren't trout. How a fly moves is always more important than how it 'looks'.

And, finally, have fun with this. Experiment, play with stuff, try new things. You may come up with the next really great bass fly.

Good Luck!

Buddy

find out what most people are using, then use something totally different that youre pretty sure none of the others have used. works like a charm for finnicky bass.

Hey, Dubuquer, if you want to have some fun check out a Tom Nixon book from the library. Lots of old fashioned warmwater flies the likes of which have not been seen in a generation. They're fun to tie and still effective. JGW

CJ,

I agree with the flies Jeff recommends. For clousers, red, olive or purple over white work well for me. Like Buddy wrote, you really don't need many flies for bass. But if you enjoy tying, there are enough patterns to keep you busy all winter. For something different, check FAOL's Old Flies section for the Ozark Minnow. It's one that I doubt many bass have seen. By the way, it's pictured up-side-down in the instructions.

The Sea Ducer in red and white is also a very good pattern, and I've had good luck with the Texas Bullfrog that is listed in the FAOL Fly Archives.

Finally, one fly that I'm never without is the Sneaky Pete in yellow or chart.

Good luck,
Tracy

I also like a Sneaky Pete style fly. My best color is fluorescent yellow, but white, fire tiger and black with a copper belly also work. I tie them from size 4 to 1/0 for bass. I prefer pencil poppers over fatter poppers. I tie them from 1 1/2 to 3 1/2 inches long. Fluorescent yellow, white, fire tiger, orange tiger, blue tiger and shad are the colors I carry. I also like Crease flies, since they can be fished either on top or subsurface with a sinking line. Shad, sunfish, fire tiger and light blue or light green back on holographic silver or MOP body.
For baitfish, I just use the flies from my salt water box. Flies that imitate bay anchovy, silversides, sand eels and peanut bunker work well in fresh water. Also, Siliclones, Hollow Flies, Semper Fleyes and Snake flies can catch fish.

Here are a few I always carry for smallmouth stream fishing.

Clouser Deep Minnow White/Chart/Black
Rabbit strip Dahlberg diver natural gray rabbit/natural deer hair and olive rabbit/olive deer hair
Strymph in two colors olive and brown.
Grizzly Matuka
Thunder Creek Yellow Perch
Rabbit strip Conehead Combo in olive

these flies cover large nymphs, leeches, and baitfish. Three foods that are present in the systems I fish. All are subsurface from the bottom hugging coneheads and clousers to the just under the surface Matuka, except the Dahlbergs, and they can be that way. I personally have had little luck with crayfish patterns myself, so I rarely use them. I am sure others will offer different opinions. Movement or action, as has been stated is also key, and that is one reason I like to use rabbit alot. It has alot of inherent movement in the water. wiggly, jiggly zonker strip tails, and breathy, flexing rabbit hair bodies really get 'em going IMO.

cklenske;

jeffnles1 is right on the mark with Clouser's, Wooly Buggers and Poppers in various color combinations and Buddy Sanders is right on with those (with the exception of Poppers) tied with weighting or dumbell eyes for fishing the whole water column.

After you tie or buy Poppers in several sizes (10 to 1/0), and they don't have to be painted, fish see a silouhette when they're looking up to the sky, not green with red polka dots (Lefty Kreh ties them with plain bottle corks and a little tail material), Clousers in several sizes and colors, and Wooly Buggers in a few sizes and colors, you'll have a large fly box filled and ready to catch as many bass as you can per outing.

Keep it simple; "it ain't the fly, it's the presentation." Dave Whitlock refers to his flies as not fancy reproductions but "looking like any skuzzy critter that lives in the water."

Regards, Jim

A lot of excellent suggestions above. I would like to add the Clouser Swimming Nymph to the list above. There is a tutorial in the FAOL archives for this, and other versions out there as well. This one is a real killer in fast moving as well as slower waters. The rust brown version has been particulary deady, but the blonde is good as well. Bob Clouser has a nice kit available, and you can call him at his store - a real nice person to talk to and do business with. Good luck with it - Smallies are the king of warmwater!