Hi All;
I’ve gone fishing in my local pond three times this month and on each occasion, a yellow size 10 gurgle pop has been the hot fly pattern. I’ve caught Bass, bluegill, Crappie and lost a decent Pickerel. On all three occasions, I’ve caught in excess of 20 fish in less than two hours.
I keep meaning to try subsurface patterns but don’t see a reason to change
What’s been working for you??
Wayneb
White and yellow boa yarn flies, black furl tailed leech, and some new patterns that I have been messing with.
materials were on the desk and got all mixed together.
Rick
Rick’s furled tail mohair leeches and a little nymph I’ve come up with/modified… soon as I get a new partridge skin, I plan to do a Fly of the Week submission…
Allow me to encourage you to tie a dropper on to your gurgle pop. Two bull bluegills at the same time will convince you its the right thing to do.
My most recent outing I had great success with a #10 Elk hair caddis. I tied up a few for bluegills, but it brought in bluegills, LM bass, and pickerel, one after the other. I think I’m going to tie up some #8 or even #6’s just to see how they work.
Up here in New Jersey black dragonflys and light green hoppers, both in size 10, are knocking them dead so far this year.
Clouser minnows. Small ones. 10’s and 12’s with kiptail and squirrel tail instead of bucktail. They’ve been working on everything that swims around here.
Patriot with a very sparse wing and Robert’s Drake (tied small ~ sz14 2 xl), but that was on rainbows. The 'gills drifted up, looked over my offerings, and snubbed me. 
Ed
The hot flies for me have been Flymph or soft hackle mayfly imitations on the small streams I fish.
Sad to say, the Zugbug isn’t doing as well as I’d hope… but I still fish 'em for the fun of it 
A foam-bodied spider with rubber legs has been working well for bream. Also a chilli pepper or just a copper-n-brown wooly bugger in size 10 or 12.
I have been fishing foam flies this year and have done well with the bluegills an crappies. After fly tying and flyfishing for 30 years, I can’t believe I am tying these “foam things”… but they work and are fun to tie.
Hi Wayneb,
Uncle Jess is a wise, wise man and I have to agree with his response. Try breaking into subsurface flies with a dropper fly off your Gurgle Pop (my favorite fly too. BTW). Try tying a size #8 or #10 Wooly Bugger about 18-24 inches off the bend of your Gurgle Pop! Fish the Gurgle Pop normally and set the hook if the Gurgle Pop moves strangely or just disappears. You won’t be disappointed. 8T
Backstabbers tied in green or black. Gold barrel eyes with a grey poly dubbed body, rootbeer krystal flash and green or black marabou wings. Been getting LM,SM,rockbass, perch. blugill, sheephead, carp and creek chubs.
Been doing pretty good on poppers (green and yellow) with size 12 BHPT as a dropper. Bluegill have seemed to be hitting both. Caught a 18" catfish on the BHPT dropper as well as a 16" bass. Go fisure, biggest fish of the year so far have been on a trout nymph dropper.
Jeff
just hi
my goto fly from april to november for blue gills is a # 12 black wooley bugger with a silver flashabu tail (4 to 6 strands) with 6 wraps of .020 lead .
i think the silver flashabau is the key.
gerryg
I’ve been drilling them lately on a Chartreuse Fly Rod Hula Popper with a Prince Nymph as a Dropper. Catching bass on the popper and sunfish, occasional bass and channel cats on the dropper. Also, had a lot of luck several weeks ago on on a local lake using a Chartreuse Woolly Grubber. One day I caught a mixed bag with that pattern including bass, drum, channel cats, and walleye - great fun!
Caught a few smallish smallies the other night on gray/white clouser. Then went to a gray deceiver with yellow 3D eyes and two much larger smallies came to hand, one being a heavy 16 incher. Fishing is just starting to pick up now after a very wet and cool spring/early summer. Water is still 6 inches above normal and the color isn’t as good as it could be but at least things are looking up.
Backstabbers? It looks a lot like a Crazy Charlie, or Gotcha. I tie small versions of these for bass and bluegill. They work great, especially in Crawfish colors.
I’ve been doing good with several patterns.
Bluegill/Redears-Black Foam Crickets, Black/Yellow Chernobyle Ants, Club Sandwich, Peacock Soft-Hackles
Trout-Red and White Clousers, Olive Woolly Buggers
LG Bass-Puglisi Bluegill, OD and White Clousers
SM Bass-Brown/Orange Clousers, OD Woolly Buggers
Striped Bass/Hybrids/White/Yellow Bass-Puglisi Shad, OD and White Clousers
Crappie-small Puglisi Minnows, small Chartreuse and White Clousers.
Carp-Freshwater Gotcha in pink, or brown, Clouser Swimming Nympth.
Catfish-A treble hook with Danny Kings Punch Bait on it. Below the tailraces, I just cast upstream and let it drift until it takes off in a catfishes mouth. If no takers after a 40 yard drift, I just recast back up stream. DK Punchbait stays on the hook until you remove it. I use my 10 wt with a Shooting Taper, and cast right up into the gates if possible. Drifting it through eddies works good, too.
I have so much luck with a bead head black mohair leech that I’m sometimes afraid that I’m becoming a one-trick pony. I fish it all year round and it always produces. Simple to tie, very durable and a real fish catcher. The bead I use is the red flourescent plastic bead used by bass fisherman for Texas rigging a plastic worm. A black rabbit fur tail, a few wraps of lead-free wire and a body of black mohair yarn, teased out to be nice and bushy. I tied it on a size 10 4XL streamer hook and let it sink for 3-4 seconds before I start the retreive unless I’m fishing brush or very shallow water. Great for jumbo bream and picks up it’s share of bass as well, the largest being a 5 1/2 pound bass I caught last week.
Jim Smith
