I used a bee pattern fly over the weekend and caught a ton of large bream(sunfish, insert your word for it here______________ ) and rock bass.
Basically it is:
-10-12 nymph/streamer hook.
-yellow chenile at the front half
-black chenile on the back half
-black hackle over the front half of the fly.
Very simple and very effective.
I’d cast it and let it sit a few seconds to let it barely start to sink. If it didn’t get hit by now which it did a lot of the time I’d very slowly pull it thru the water. I wouldn’t call it ‘stripping’ by any stretch of the imagination. It would get hit about every cast by something.
Cast it close to shore under an over-hanging branch, near a dock or any cover these fish take.
Of course I was in a boat. I never knew fly fishing would be soooooooooo much fun from a boat!
Do most fish really eat bees or do they think the bee patterns are something else? I ask because i’ve never seen a real bee get taken by fish, but heard of a lot of bee patterns working.
What we humans may call a bee pattern is because it looks like a bee to us, but, to the fish it may look like something else. I may just have to tie up some of that pattern and give it a try. When I catch a fish, I will ask it what it thought the pattern was and I will report what the fish said!
Of course, the fish may be tight lipped and not care to tell me!!
I have seen bees taken many times when the wind starts blowing harder they will get to far from the hive and not make it back. They get taken so fast that the are not around long for folks to see them.
I like a black and yellow popper during the summer.
Color may well play a part, presentation certainly plays a part.
Sometime take some small insects or invertebrates of some sort, drop them in the water and observe the bluegill activity. The stronger the struggle, the more contemplative they seem to be. As wiggling decreases so does the bluegill boldness. A slightly twitching bug seems to draw more strikes than the furiously struggling one. They just like an easy meal, like anybody else.
