What size hooks should I use for 2-3lb LMB. I have a small lake chuck full of them. I was thinking 1/0?
That’s the size I use. I actually tie them on Mustad 34007ss saltwater hooks. I use them for stripers, too. The heavier hook counteracts the air resistance of the foam, so they cast a little easier. I pinch the barb down and sharpen the hook, as they are pretty dull out of the box. If you get a good dragonfly hatch, match the color of the dragons with some chenille wrapped around the shank under the foam. Works pretty well.
Charlie
I really don’t enjoy casting large flies unless I am using a 8-9 weight rod which is too big for the fish you’re catching in my opinion. I use size 2 or perhaps 1 streamer hooks for my gurglers and have caught some very nice bass on them. I don’t care for stinger hooks either as I’ve had too many of them straighten out on me when trying to keep a nice bass out of brush.
I also tie my Gurglers with an upper and a lower lip. I start with a strip of closed-cell foam about 3/8 inch wide and 3-4 inches long. Start your thread a the bend in the hook and lay an even layer of thread up to the eye of the hook. Now, hook the foam about 1/4 inch from the end and slide it up to the eye of the hook so the lip is bleow the eye of the hook. Next, place a good coat of super glue on the thread and lay the foam the length of the shank. Wrap the thread down the length of the foam so that the foam wraps around the hook shank. At this point, I tie in eyelash yarn with 3/4 inch long fibers at the bend of the hook. Take the thread to the eye and wrap the eyelash yarn to about 1/4 from the eye and secure with the thread. Now. pull the foam back over the shank of the hook and secure it at the eye. Trim the lips to the desired length and you’re ready to go. I feel that the two lips creates more disturbance in the water which attracts the attention of the bass.
Jim Smith
Allen,
Use the largest size hook you can cast effectively with your gear.
Bass that size have a mouth that can handle ANY size hook you would be likely to cast, and the larger the hook the better job you will do in hooking the fish.
If you use ‘standard’ length hooks, you can get a larger hook gape for a shorter shank length. This gives you better hooking potential, as well as keeping the gurgler balanced properly. That little extra weight of the larger bend and point seem to make the fly work and cast more effectively. Look at 1/0 through 3/0 worm hooks or Mustad 3366s.
Good Luck!
Buddy
Tie a few smaller, say #4, too.
Most of our local pond bass are in the 2lb range, too, and I use #4 3366s for Gurglers; not too bad casting with a 6wt. I caught one about 4lb and the fly looked lost in that bucket of a mouth.
Regards,
Scott
Thanks! I have two Redington Preditors in the 7’10" length. Ones an 8wt and ones a 6wt. Forgot to mention I’ll be on a kayak so its more of a lobbing technique. I was wondering about the hook to mouth size ratio.
Allen,
Back when I was still fishing with conventional gear, I caught a lot of 10 to 12 inch largemouths on spinerbaits with 5/0 hooks in them. Sometimes you will catch little 12 inch fish when fishing with 10" worms (usually using a 5/0 worm hook). Small bass will routinely hit and be caught on 1/2 to 3/4 ounce jigs that feature 4/0 to 6/0 hooks.
A 2 pound largemouth bass will be a bit over 16 inches long. The oral cavity on such a fish will be about three inches across and open to about that in height, the depth when open will be a bit deeper than that. Thats a pretty big space. A bass will consider anything up to half it’s body length as prey. Since they aren’t too smart, being fish, they often err in this and I’ve seen bass try to eat prey much too big for them to swallow.
With typical bass fly gear, you can seldom throw a fly that will be ‘too big’.
Buddy
That’s for sure. It’s not unusual for local anglers to catch 1.5 to 2lb bass with ten inch long swimbaits that imitate the trout that are stocked in local lakes in the winter.
The largest gurglers I tie for freshwater are tied on a size 4/0 Mustad 3407 hook and they overall fly length is 6 inches. The foam body and lip are a about 1.75 inches an the rest is tail. Bass eat their prey by flaring their gills and expelling water via the gills, creating a suction that draws in the prey. Even a one pound bass can eat these six inch long 4/0 hook gurglers as the tail just collapses and the body fits in that big mouth with plenty of room to spare. I cast these larger patterns with a 10 wt line on an 8 wt rod or using my Sage Smallmouth rod with the matching line. I tie gurglers in smaller sizes down to a size 1 3407 hook. If I go even smaller I will use a hook designed for plastic worms or something like the Mustad 3366 or Tiemco 8089. Bass wont always eat the big patterns so I carry gurglers in different sizes ranging from about 2 to 6 inches long.
Sounds like a big range in sizes will do - #4-4/0. You will find a guy like Lefty Kreh who says that size in surface flies is not so important becaus the ruckus made by the bug disguises the size. I will go with that up to a point. Last season the overachieving bluegills in my favorite lake woouldn’t leave my #4 popper alone. I switched to a Stealth Bomber on a #2 hook. The crappie liked it and the bluegills continued to hit it. Next time out I used a Lefty’s Bug on a 2/0 3x hook about 4 inches long including tail. After a cast or two a 7" gill hooked up even though the bug had a double wire weed guard. My rule of thumb for lake bass is any fly should be at least 3 inches long with 4 or more preferred. I do not think a bass will not take a #6 or smaller offering; I just want something that the small fry will leave alone.
I often use Mustad 37187 Stinger Hooks. The hooks have such a wide gap that even the size 10 is larger than larger sized hooks in other styles.
I have 2/0 stinger hooks but rarely use them for gurglers because they are quite large. I have, however, caught a bass on a popper with a 2/0 hook where the popper (with tail) was as long as the bass.
More often than not, I go to my “old reliable” Eagle Claw 066NF – a not too expensive salt water hook that comes with an offset (you straighten this in the vise). It is 2x long and for LMB I usually use a size 2.
My go to hook for Largemouth Bass is the Gamakatsu B10S 1/0. I use this size for all my Largemouth Bass Bugs. ~Parnelli
I also use Gama B10S for my gurglers to but I also been using Mustad 3366 hooks.
Jim, I tied one up trying to follow your instructions as well as I could from memory. I also included a marabou tail. I tried it out last night on a pond that the past few years of fishing have suggested has a relatively SMALL population of bass. It was crazy! From just one trip, I can’t be sure if it was just the fly, or the weather, or time of year…or some other factor…but the fish were ALL OVER this pattern last night! I landed 7 bass, lost probably 5 others, and also caught some NICE bluegills, a green sunfish, and a few crappies on this. I was having so much fun! The way I had it tied, the two lips are sort of curved so they look like an open mouth. This REALLY creates a ruckus on the surface…and the bass went NUTS for it.
Thanks for posting your instructions!
Question: what purpose does the eyelash yarn have? Can I just use chenille?
Also, after sliding the foam to the eye, and laying the super glue on the thread, how much of the foam do you tie down?
Chenille will work. The eyelash yarn DOES give it some extra bulk and weight, and maybe some movement in the water. But I bet using chenille will not deter any fish. Last night they seemed to just be going berserk for the commotion that the"lips" were creating. The wet chenille will also add some weight and bulk.
As for tying down the bottom section of foam…I don’t know what Jim does…I personally tied it all down to within 1/8" of the eye…but my “lips” extended out beyond the hook eye at least a 1/4". A guy could do that differerently by having the hook eye out even with the lips or even sticking out beyond the lips. Even with the hook eye recessed like I had it, tying to the line was no problem…the foam just flips back out of the way while tying on the line, then I flipped them back forward to fish it.
Dave,
I’m glad the pattern worked out for you so well. As far as the eyelash yarn goes, it hangs down in the water like legs providing movement when the Gurgler is sitting still. Sometimes, this is just the ticket to get the bass to nail it, especially when they’re feeling a bit finicky about eating. I have eyelash yarn in several colors, but the black or dark brown seems to work the best for me.
Jim Smith
#2, brown
It’s 3-4 inches long. Getting it wet tomorrow, so we’ll see what happens.
FWIW. I have had access to a private 35-40 acre bass/bluegill/redear/crappie lake, that has LMB to 11 pounds, for about 20 years now. Given the array of species in it, my fishing buddies and I (there are three of us who have access) have finally settled on ‘bugs’ in the #12-#6 range, with most in the #8 size. These sizes enable us to hook most anything that takes our offerings. (Incidentally, I make most of my bugs on Mustad 3366 hooks.) We have all caught our fair share of 5# LMB on these bugs, to say nothing of the boat loads of 2-3 pounders.
Over the years, we have made a couple of very interesting observations about the ‘bugs’ in this size range: 1) the bass do not ‘smash’ them; they simply ‘suck’ them in, much like a bluegill; and, 2) 99.44% are either hooked in their tongue, or the roof of their mouth. As the tissue in these areas is soft, a “yank their heads off” strike is not necessary–nothing more than a hook set for bluegill or trout does the trick—as is often the case when using much larger bugs, and you have to set the hook in the bony part of the mouth of LMB.
We do most of our fishing with 5 and 6wt rods, and have great success with what some might consider to be bugs that are too small for LMB.
I suppose it depends on what the fish want. Smaller topwaters, even bass-sized foam poppers, haven’t worked very well for me on this particular pond the past couple of years.
I used a #2 Streamer Hook for the 2nd one I tied up, making it slightly larger than the first one. It worked even better than the previous one. Caught a 17" bass, and a 19" bass on it, before a 3rd bass broke my line on the hookset. Looks small in the fish’s mouth!
17-incher:
19-incher:
