Big Flies for LMB?

[Wild One]

I still consider myself a rookie warm water fisherman (only been doing it since last season and this season). Transitioning from a Rocky Mountain trout angler to midwestern flat-lander has been a tough transition for me. I remember the first time I actually fished at a pond for LMB. I used a size 6 (probably 2x or 4x long) wooly bugger because it was the biggest fly I had ever used in my life. At the time I thought it was huge. I still have a hard time tying on big flies b/c it just feels so foreign to me. I do have a couple larger flies that are tied with some crazy yarn or bunny strips that extend to about 3 inches long, but I just have a hard time convincing myself that these flies will actually work. Because I don't have confidence in these flies, they don't work, obviously.
Well, what brings this up is that I spent Saturday morning fishing with my father in law who I've been trying to convert to the long rod since I moved here. We went to a couple local ponds chasing LMB. He brought his spinning set up with a plastic/rubber worm that was about 9 or 10 inches long. They were black with a chartreuse tail. In the 1.5 hours we were there I managed 1 blue gill and 1 OK sized bass (1 lb. or so). He finished the morning with 11 bass including 2 that were pushing 3 lbs and one that had to be almost 4 lbs. I know I was as deep as he was fishing the same water column, with almost an identical presentation. The only things I can think is that his "lure" was almost twice the size as mine, and his "lures" have that power bait scent.

Now I am really starting to question how big of flies I should be tying/casting for these fish.

Do you guys who typically target LMB fish flies that in excess of 3 inches long?

[James Smith]

Wild One,

There is no question that most of the time, larger bass target larger food. It's a simple equation of effort expended vs protien gained. They have to work just as hard or harder to catch a dragon fly as they do to eat a six inch long sunfish or a baby duckling for that matter. If you want to target large bass, you have do a couple of things consistently.

1. fish where they are - think cover, drop-offs etc.
2. fish when they are feeding - think early morning and late evening and at night
3. use large baits - for fly fishing I tie my large streamers (6 inches or longer) out of Icelandic sheep fur (usually all black). It is easy to tie with, has great action in the water and does not absorb too much water so they're easy to cast. Long Zonker strips soak up so much water that they are like casting a wet sock to me and not worth the effort.
4. be prepared to not catch many fish. In effect, you're hunting big fish and you simply will not catch as many.

Quite often, I compromise and use a 3 inch long all black leech pattern or a 4 inch polar fiber minnow tied in olive/chartruese over white and have caught hundreds of bass ranging in size from little 12-14 inch schoolies to some decent bass in the 4-5lbs range. My largest bass was right at 10lbs caught on an 8 inch long all black streamer in very stained water.

Just one man's opinion/experience.

Jim Smith

[namekagon]

As a general rule the larger the fly...the better.
Fly rodding for bass, at least where I live, is not the best way on average to take large
bass (4lbs or better)...but then, that's not what fly fishing is all about...nicht wahr?

Thinking lake fishing...a man with a fly rod just can't compete with a free spool bait-caster with an arsenal of top, mid, and bottom lures....
then there's the added ability to cover a lot of water fast!

[Big Bad Wulff]

I catch them on a size 4-12 wooley buggers. Size 6 seems to do very well.

[biot midge]

Some of the flies that I fish for LMB are pretty big. The wool-head deceiver pictured here is tied on a #2/0 hook.

Steve

[Eight Thumbs]

If you want to answer the question about big lures for big LMB all you have to do is look at the bass pros on the tournament trail. Most use hefty lures. Many use huge lures. Lure size is one of the factors that limits fly fishermen to smaller fish between 1/2 a pound and 2 pounds MOST of the time. Our flies just aren't big enough to entice the big boys. Just my 2% of a dollar. I'm sure others will disagree. 8T

[cycler68]

Big flies definitly are the ticket for bass. I've caught little bass in the 2-3 inch range on flies almost as large as they were. Now if a little guy can take a fly that large how big a fly could a large bass take? I don't think my 10 wt could throw one that large......

[namekagon]

My biggest bass was taken on a Rebel WEE-Frog (a shallow running crankbait) which is about 2.5 inches long.
It's all relative! My largest bass on a fly rod was probably 4 lbs...on a #14 popper...I didn't
land her of course.
Size matters... but so does presentation, selection, structural fishing, and ...let's face it...a fly rodder is at a distinct disadvantage...when it comes to bass.

[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

[FishnDave]

I've caught 17" bass on 7" bluegills...and had a smallmouth bass (I'd guess in the 17"-18" range, since I saw it, but never landed it) grab and swim around with a 6" smallmouth bass I was reeling in!