I am looking for opinions as to what is the best way to fish productively for bass and the smaller sunfish (and pickeral too, for that matter).What are the favorite flies and sizes out there for catching bass and bluegills? Anything unusual, or just scaled down versions of bass flies? Is there anything that really doesn’t work to fill the gap?
I have checked out the byrdultrafly website, which I like a lot, but I was wondering what other favorite in-between flies ya’ll use.
Russ in NC
Hey Russ,
I grew up in NC myself. This time of year
I’d be throwing some of the white poppers
with legs from Walmart. They should account
for good numbers of all the species you
mentioned. For the chain pickeral, black
and yellow bee patterns seem most effective
for me. Warm regards, Jim
Russ,
I fly fish almost exclusively freshwater in southern New Jersey; LMB, yellow perch, pickerel, black crappie, several variations of the sunfishes, an occasional golden shiner and white bass.
Although, a group of us from my TU club lit out for the Little Lehigh in PA, and, I got lucky on my new bamboo rod with some browns and rainbows, I prefer warmwater.
If it’s not real windy and the water is fairly calm, it’s small poppers, of any variation. It’s the action, not the color or design. I’ve made some of Bill Byrd’s water spiders and still prefer poppers. Fish 'em s-l-o-w.
Then, black, white and chartruese #10-#6 chrystal cheneille wooly biggers.
Let the offering sink as many times you get bitten on the drop. This is especially hard for converts (spin & cast to fly), they tend to continue working an offering at supersonic speeds. Just try to emulate the action of what you’re trying to offer.
Have fun…Jim
I agree with Jim on the Walmart poppers this time of year (although I use the ‘Miss Prissy’), but don’t forget to put a bead headed nymph on behind it. Last week they didn’t like the popper, but inhaled the nymph. I make mine on a size 10 or 12 dry fly hook and use phesant tail fibers for the tail and body (look in the ‘crafts’ section for phesant tail feathers) with a fine copper wire wrap. A few wraps of .020 lead will do if you don’t want to use a bead head.
Try a brim killer in about a 10 or 8. I caught a 3 pound bass last week while fishing for brim. To target the pikerel, try a medium finger retrieve. Let the fly sink about 3to 5 seconds, depending on the depth your fishing, and then retrieve.
Swamp
Hi Russ,
You need to tell us a little more about yourself by filling out your profile. It helps people to give you better information.
I don’t know if you tie your own flies or not but I would recommend that you try fishing #12 Gurgle Pops in white, yellow, and chartreuse for brim etc. Go a size or two up to #10-#8 and you have a good lure for small to medium bass. I would also add black ones to my arsensal for bass. Go to size #4-#1 and you have a good lure for BIG bass.
The Gurgle Pops are cheap to make; two or three dozen won’t cost you more than a buck or two. They are durable; I’ve caught over 60 fish on the same GP. Boy do they catch fish. There are excellent tying instructions right here on this web site and Gurgle Pops are easy for a beginner to construct.
Try 'um, you’ll like 'um 8T
You had better learn to be a happy camper. You only get one try at this campground and it’s a real short camping season.
Thanks for the advice. I also filled out my profile, which I have neglected to do (I have been a member for a while, but rarely post).
I used to fish for bass with a 7 wt., and caught some decent fish but a lot more small ones. I like to target bluegills when the bass aren’t biting, but they aren’t much fun with a 7 wt. So, I switched to a 3 wt, which I really like as gills and small bass are a lot of fun.
However, the bass catching has slowed. I have had to switch my primary waters, and my other favorite pond has been heavily fished lately, so those are my excuses. But I figured I should think of approaching my 3 wt. fly selection from scratch and knew FAOL’ers would have good answers.
Thanks
Wooly worms, size 14 caught me a mess of bluegills and small bass the past couple days. Try using ice dub and fish them wet.
~Adam
Russ
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Locally it seems like white or red and white poppers are attracting the bluegill.
Peter M., the last couple of times that I have been out at the Warner Parks, I have seen enough smallies to make me think that it is a different river. Most of the ones that I have seen are small, but some of them are 12" plus. Life is good!
Two flies that work equally well for me for bass and bluegill and even catfish are woolly buggers and Clouser Deep Minnows. I just vary the sizes, but I even caught a 9 1/2 pound catfish last summer fishing for bluegills using a #12 bugger.
Russ,
I have been fly fishing for bass and panfish for most of my life. I wish I could say that I had all of the answers … heck I’d even like to have SOME of the answers. But I do have a little advise from some of my trials and (more than I care to admit) errors!
One thing to keep in mind is that Gills will eat just about ANYTHING!!! Most gills wil take just about anything into their mouths. But if it doesn’t taste like food to them, it gets spit out VERY quickly. Now with that in mind, there is no point in trying to use small flie for them, heck if they can fit it in their mouths, it gets eaten!!! Another good reason for not using small flies is that they tend to inhale the flies QUICKLY!!! Too small a fly, and you either end up killing a fish, or losing the fly to them!!! I try to go no lower than size 12 for them on dries, and now lower than 14 on nymphs.
Now for some help on fly selection. One of my all time favorites is with a popper. I have been tying some soft foam poppers that (I think) Mr. Castwell has shown us. It uses a dremel tool as a lathe for making some foam heads. Next to this style of fly, I have been tying (some rather ugly) dries. The patterns I have been using are Wulffs (yellow and royal,) Humpys (yellow and royal,) simple Adams (in body colors of gray, olive, or white.)
The top water stuff is very exciting, and a fun way to challenge yourself all day long. But if you are into numbers of fish, not just giving yourself the challenge, you can use a WIDE variety of nymphs! I have used BH and regular Princes, BH and regular Pheasant Tails, Gold Ribbed Hair’s Ear, and a fly I was shown years ago called the Chenielle Gnat. I have been using a fly shown on here known as Crappie Candy. I have been using it only a few months, but with GREAT success so far!!!
Now a fun thing to do, especially for late evening fishing for LARGE gills is to use a popper and nymph combo. Take a popper, and drop a clouser, or nymphs with similiar colors to the popper, about 1.5 feet below the popper. A lot of time I have found that gills might miss the popper on the first strike, then “find” it again as the clouser. I have used this to GREAT success in the last 30 minutes of light! I mean right before dark!!! The fun thing, and VERY hard thing, to do is to wait for the weight of the fish. You’ll find that you will hear the smack of the strike on the popper when you can BARELY see it. Instinct will tell you “fish on!!!” BUT!!! You have to wait!!! After a second or so, you’ll see the popper a little better and generally right about that momment, you’ll see it disappear!!! Talk about a emotional roller coaster ride!
Most of my bass fishing is done at the same time as gill fishing. Most of the time, I get bass on the popper and gills on anything. If I am specifically going after Bass, well I generally go with a popper (black, yellow, or white,) a Dahlberg Diver (same colors,) or wooly buggers (black tail with olive or black body, white tail with white body, or olive/white mixed tail with chautreuse body.)
Gills will eat just about anything, bass will eat anything a that is just a little bigger than gills can get to first.
Just my thoughts,
Reg
Up here in the Great White North, we too have some of the toothy & not so toothy critters you’ve mentioned. The flies I use for both smallies & chain pickerel are lt blue/white deceivers, chartreuse/white deceivers, CohoBlue(Haig-Brown salmon fly), and a saltwater Shadducer. As for topwater stuff, I use a few poppers, but they get hammered to pieces by the pickerel.An epoxy tube slider of my own design is also a favorite. I use HUGE eyes on it to push water, and for the noise. I also use 50lb Spiderwire for a bite tippet. I lost what would have been a provincial/Canadian record a few yrs ago when a huge pickerel sliced 20 lb Maxima like it was air.The deceivers are up to 3/0, usually 1/0 , and other stuff around size 1 for the smallies. My 6 wt light action rod has had many a bend in it from hungry smallies. Might just go out tomorrow!!! Jamie
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