Basic assortment of bass Flies

[Red Owl]

I have some Deer Hair and hard body bass flies but I've never used any subsurface flies. One reads about several different types in books/magazines but I'd like to know what some of you rely on day in and day out, the pattern, color, size, etc. and what size bass they take? Most of the bass in my area are 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 pounds and right now on the deer hair a thumb nail body size seems about right. Thanks.

[Bob Lang]

I seldom use anything other than poppers or grasshopper imitations when I fish for bass. However, depending on the water, I will on occassion use a small crawdad (blacks, browns or grays) usually no smaller than a size 10. Normally, I am in a rocky creek, but I have had success in farm ponds and lakes. Get the ones that have the hook looking up. Otherwise they tend to hang up on the bottom. I think I still have one or two with a weed guard and they work well also. Obviously, when using them I use a sinking tip line and leader. I've tried various streamers, but have not had much luck with them.

Most large mouth bass I find in ponds are in the two to three pound size. If I remember correctly the largest one I've ever caught on a crawdad was pushing four pounds.

The smallies are in the creeks and a two pounder is as big as they normally get. Due to over fishing I have not been to those creeks in a long time.

[peregrines]

Red Owl.

I don’t fish a lot for bass as often as I’d like- not many opportunities around here, so some of the experts may have better suggestions. But I’d try and cover different layers of the water column, and try and match the natural baits in your water- at least for some of the patterns. As far as sizes go, I’d try and cover a range of sizes, up to the largest you can comfortably throw with your rod. Typical bass sizes would be 8-1/0, mostly I throw 6 and 4 with 6 weights, and 4-2 with 8 weights, (occasionally up to 1/0 with an 8) . You couldn’t go wrong with balck white and chartreuse , but I’d try and mix up the colors a bit, with some additional stuff in yellow olive and brown

Top water (don’t know if color matters too much)
Foam/cork Poppers
Deer Hair Bass Bugs

Floating /Diving-
Dahlberg Diver- a great fly to fish like a floating Rapala, twitches will pull it under, stop and let it pop to the surface. Yellow, olive or natural

Suspending- mid depth
Marabou Muddler- it pushes a lot of water, and has tons of action. (My favorite is black size 6 or 4 for bass but white and yellow work well too for bass)
Lefty’s Deceiver or similar baitfish pattern - white if you have shad, red over yellow is a good attractor color, chartreuse id you fish in a lot of stained water. I like these better than EP type flies since they’re a bit easier to cast and tend not to get mangled after a fish or two.

Deep water- depends on depth of water as to how heavily weighted
Pig boat- black- This looks just like a rubber skirt bass Jig.
Lead eyed rabbit strip fly- Don’t know the proper name for it, but it’s basically a rabbit strip tied Zonker Style with a X-cut rabbit strip collar and lead eyes to take it deep. My favorite colors are black with purple collar, white with grizzly (rabbit) collar and natural (brownish/tan) with grizzly rabbit collar. These can be a pain to cast when wet, and is more of a chuck n duck, but can be very effective.

Hope this helps,

mark

[twospots]

for smallies

[HuronRiverDan]

Two Spots, nice looking pattern...got a recipe to share? For subsurface tye up some helgrammite imitations, Smallies love them. Tye up some small crayfish imitations also.

Dan

[twospots]

Originally Posted by HuronRiverDan

Two Spots, nice looking pattern...got a recipe to share? For subsurface tye up some helgrammite imitations, Smallies love them. Tye up some small crayfish imitations also.

Dan

Those were what happened when I was attemptng to create an easy hellgie pattern.
Segmented
lots of black bubbing and lots of pheasant tail on the back...

[aroostookbasser]

my hot fly right now is the zoo cougar........but have taken monster bass on on Whitlocks cray all season long the last few years!

[BigCliff]

For subsurface for bass, I tend to stick with bead/cone-head buggers, clousers, and various rabbit strip patterns. For the latter, boufaces, slump busters, meat whistles, double bunnys, and redneck rabbits all produce. For clousers I like chartreuse and white or light blue and white, for the others, olive, black, grey or white.

[Red Owl]

BigCliff: If I am not on the surface then I think what I would want is sort of a bunny pattern with a long tail that was more subsurface- say about 1' -2' below the surface and would suspend and very slowly retrieved along a weed line, etc. Any particular favorite type flies of that description? pattern, color, size? Thanks.

[Diver Dan]

I fish Smallmouth alot. If I was limited to 4 flies for the rest of my life they would be the Clouser Minnow, Marabou leach, Crayfish pattern, and the Funny Bunny Emerald Shiner. The Funny Bunny Emerald Shiner is actually a Steelhead fly, but I have nailed about a metric ton O' smallies with it.