flyfishing with plastics

Just finished reading Jack Ellis' Flyrodding for Bass where he advocates using a 4" plastic worm or plastic lizard for bass. I know Tom Nixon also advocated using plastics, and even spinners (gasp!) while fly fishing (that is my next book to read). How many of you use plastics while fly fishing? Do you find it to be succesful? I am worried about the plastic "lure" tearing up on my backcast. How do you find plastic "lures" hold up on the fly rod? I'm wondering if this could be a fly fishing alternative to the senko and drop-shot rigs that have taken the bass fishing world by storm. I'm thinking I might give some of my old plastic worms, lizards, grubs, and other creatures a try this spring. I hope you'll forgive this post that some might see as "blaspemy" and share your experiences with me.

Kevin Smith
Ferriday, LA

Hi, Neighbor!

Hope you're not too cold up there. It's miserable down here along the coast.

I experimented with plastics for awhile. Four-inchers seemed too much for me, unless you're throwing them with a big rod. Ellis I think recommended anchoring the plastics with a toothpick through the hook eye, or a bit of heavy mono? I found that worked, but never could really get the "feel" for it. I fished plastics for years with bait casting tackle.

What was easier was a pack of mini plastics I found at Wally-World. Easy to rig, even came with tiny worm hooks. Never caught a thing on them, though.

I actually thought Tom's ideas were more feasible, though I never tried them. The Tom Nixon Spinner is pretty well-proven, according to many. I think Catch Cormier is one of them.

Pardon me if I'm remembering wrong, but didn't we email once about fishing around Jena? I never made that trip. Either way, maybe we can wet a line together sometime.

Best,
Roger Stouff


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[url=http://www.native-waters.com:24efe]http://www.native-waters.com[/url:24efe]



[This message has been edited by RStouff (edited 02 February 2005).]

Thanks for your reply Roger.

We did email about fishing opportunities near Jena. Sorry to hear you haven't made it up this way. Let me know when you do and we'll go fishing! Concordia parish has as much water as land!

I'm thinking about using 4 inch plastics on my 7 weight and 2 inch grubs, tubes, and crawfish on my 5 weight. With weightless tubes, worms and senkos so hot for Bass, I think this could be an alternative. We'll see, I may give some plastics a try this spring.

Kevin Smith

[nowindknots]

Kevin, actually I've dubbed mine the Heretic. BPS sells a 1" plastic curly tail grub. When rigged with a bead head on a #10 hook, on my waters here in Texas it is so deadly on bluegill and redears it should be outlawed. I use a tapered leader terminated with 4# test mono.

It holds up fine during casting. Just open your loop up some and strive for a smooth transition. Most of mine are destroyed by "short" strikes and wind up loosing their curl.

Jim

[rrhyne56]

hey Kevin

All the blasphemers are over on some other board somewhere at [url=http://www.self_righteous.com:46abd]www.self_righteous.com[/url:46abd]

Lots of fine upstanding fly anglers use plastic flies, spinners, heck there is even an article somewhere on this site about the fine art of work fishing. And a whole crew of Texans recently committed heresy by dunking minnows on spinning rods when that was all the yellow bass would hit![url=http://www.texasflyreport.com/forums/m_34239/mpage_1/key_minnows/tm.htm#34239:46abd]"forgive us for we have sinned" on Texas Fly Report[/url:46abd]

Heck, I say go after it and let us know how it goes.

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RRhyne56
[url=http://www.robinscustomleadersandflies.com:46abd]http://www.robinscustomleadersandflies.com[/url:46abd]
IM = robinrhyne@hotmail.com

[white43]

I was going to offer the tip of tieing on a hunk of thread and sliding a beadhead down with the thread liberally juiced with glue. Then you simply slide one of those skirt tube things over the top. Someone was advocating that here last year, and I made a couple of 'em up but failed to get them into the water. Having too much fun with the gurgle pops. JGW

I've found a good way (I think- remains untested due to the winter) to keep plastics on a hook while fly fishing. The author (can't remember where I found it) tied several small pieces of 20 lb or other stiff mono on to the hook in such a way as to form barbs to hold the plastic. The mono was tied on the bend end of the hook so that the plastic could slid up on the hook but the open end of the mono served as a barb to hold on the body. Hope that makes some sense (its easy to do but hard to explain). I plan to try it this spring.

nowindknots,
I have some 1" grubs and little plastic crawfish that look to be bream killers. I also have what I call an "ugly bug" also called fiddle legs which are 1/2 inch small plastic bodies with 4 legs that I caught lots of bream on when using as a bettle spin. I can hardly find them now but I still have a few.

rrhyne56,
Glad to know I am not the only blasphemer! My grandfather taught me to fish in the marshes of Southwest Louisiana. We ONLY used a #2 peck's popper with a 4" creme natural worm with two snelled hooks 2-3 feet below. Always caught a lot of fish and a mixed bag of bass, bream, catfish, and even sac-a-lait (crappie).

white43,
I love gurgle pops too and tye them with 2 strips of faom (double gurgle pops) and hang a jon's generic or jitterbee or other nymph 18-24 inches behind as a dropper. Works great as a strike indicator and even more fun when I get a double!

Thanks for your replies.

Kevin Smith

[nowindknots]

Kevin, a drop of superglue is all it takes. I'd post a pic, but "myfishingpictures" is down.

Jim

Some good ideas I hadn't thought of. A revolution in warmwater fly fishing at hand?

Wal-Mart had a little kit I bouught of plastics in the shapes of frogs, lizards, minnows and the like. I might have to give it a try in conjunction with some of these ideas!

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[url=http://www.native-waters.com:6551f]http://www.native-waters.com[/url:6551f]

[idabelangler]

I'm not much into Ellis (too much gloom and doom for my taste), but I'm a big Tom Nixon advocate. In my experience, regarding soft plastics, a 4"er is about the max for a fly rod lure. Luckily there are boat loads of new plastics coming out that seemed to be made for light tackle. I've yet to find a crawfish fly that I really like so I use soft plastics instead. YUM has a 2.5" craw that is great. The Berkley Power Trout Craw is 1" and is pretty good but lacking in the right color of the local crawfish. These craw baits do great for smallmouth fishing. I fish them dead drift to imitate an injured or stray crawdad. Berkley also has a 1" Power Nymph that looks promising.

For plastic worm fishing I like to use L045 1/0 eagle claw hooks. These hooks in the 1/0 size have a more rounded bend than others I've found. They are almost like a circle hook. It's hard to set the hook with a fly rod on a deep fished soft plastic worm. These hooks act MORE like a circle hook and will hook the fish when it turns away from you. That is most of the time. You'll still deep hook a fish now and then but not as aften as a standard worm hook. I got the idea when I started watching Mark Sosin fish bait with a circle hook. He let the fish set the hook and hardly ever deep hooked a fish. I don't like to fish with plastic worms because of the gut hooking, and setting the hook issues but this method with the L045 1/0 will help.

Spinner flies/baits and flyrod spoons have a long and grand history as a fly rod lure. I use these lures more often than soft plastics. I have found a great spoon lure that can be easily cast on a fly rod. They sell it at one of the local fly shops and it has incredible action on a fly rod. I can't remember who makes them off the top of my head. If you're interested in making a spinner fly check out my [url=http://www.beaversbendflyshop.com/bbs/messages/4431.html:42649]Pete the Rooster page[/url:42649] .

But my all time favorite "nontraditional" fly rod lure is a microjig.

Mike B