philly
Well-known member
I rediscovered the Calcasieu Pig Boat a couple of years ago. It's caught a few bass and chain pickerel for me. I just updated it a bit using modern materials.
Best Bass Flies
- Thread starter teamtrout
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trev
Well-known member
That looks good philly, I simplified mine by leaving the head naked and use lure skirting but smallmouth still eat them.
philly
Well-known member
I haven't had a chance to fish them for smallmouth yet, just caught largemouth with them. That one's a bit too big for the smallmouth in my local creek. A friend asked me to put a new skirt on one of his spinner baits and I fancied it up a bit. I liked how it looked so decided to use the same materials for the Pig Boat. I find them easier to tie if I use the whole spinner bait skirt. Eyes, that's how I was taught to tie bait fish imitations. I even put them on my larger woolly buggers. I think they're more important on salt water patterns than fresh water but add them out of habit to my fresh water patterns. As long as they're catching fish it don't matter.
dennyk
Well-known member
I love fishing these Drunk and Disorderly streamers, the action is incredible. Plus they work!
Denny
Denny
Flyrod Buddy
Well-known member
Here are some of the bass flies I use, depends on the time of year
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dennyk
Well-known member
Great Thread! Lots of new ideas here!
Denny
Denny
This site has no search function which sucks.
philly
Well-known member
Let me add a couple of newer Calcasieu Pig Boats. I might get a chance to fish them toward the end of October depending on how I recover from last week's knee replacement surgery.
joe_strummer
Well-known member
A black Backstabber is a good bass fly. It's not a fly I go to when I'm looking for LMBs but I do turn up LMBs when I'm blind fishing one for whatevers. I've found just about everything will eat a Backstabber, channel cats to grayling. I don't even really think of it as a carp fly anymore, although it is my go-to for the carps.
On a side note, I once drove the couple hours to a particular grayling spot only to find I had not brought a single fly box. I scrounged the jeep and found one Egan's Headstand, which caught grayling all day. I am either thinking more of carp flies these days, or less of grayling...
On a side note, I once drove the couple hours to a particular grayling spot only to find I had not brought a single fly box. I scrounged the jeep and found one Egan's Headstand, which caught grayling all day. I am either thinking more of carp flies these days, or less of grayling...
bigjim5589
Well-known member
Joe, good post! One of the problems with all the marketing and labeling that is done with flies, is that folks don't consider many for other fish, besides what the marketing calls them. This is particularly true with folks new to the sport, and especially new to fishing. The fact is there are many excellent flies that will work well for bass, and other fish species, that aren't sold for the purpose.
Used to be that flies tied for bass were sold for gamefish, whether it be bass, Stripers, Pike, Muskies or whatever, but today everything seems to be more specific. These fish don't read and don't follow the social media, or marketing ads.
Various flies that I've tied & fished for different fish species could have very well have been tied & used for several other fish species. Most of my flies serve double duty, and many multiple duty. I could very well see carp flies doing well for bass, as they will eat some of the same things. I've seen various carp flies that I thought would work well for the inshore saltwater species such as Redfish, Seatrout, Black Drum or Flounder, and certainly both LM & SM bass. The only real difference being that the hooks were not made for saltwater.
If bass flies are needed, and a person keeps an open mind about what flies they'll try, that opens a huge variety of potential fly types & patterns.
ryc72
Well-known member
philly....love the pig boats! sent you a pm about them.
Panfish
Well-known member
Pretty Snappy there Philly. Love the reddish gills on the first one. What size are these generally?
philly
Well-known member
They're 3 or 4 inches long. Those are tied on 3/0 hooks. The gills are just red hackle twisted with the body material.
trev
Well-known member
Typically all the fish we target eat the same things, insects, crustaceans and other fish; so any imitation of any of those foods can and should catch fish of several species, I sort my flies by size and type not by species.
On a marketing description though you can take several dozen of the same flies and label them different and sell more flies. We can have Bass Wooly Buggers, Trout Wooly Buggers, Carp Wooly Buggers, Chanel Catfish Wooly Buggers, and Catfish Wooly Buggers and all can be identical but for name and price. And when we fish them they are apt to catch suckers or brim.
joe_strummer
Well-known member
Yeah, true, and carp are the omnivorest of the omnivores. Those flies should catch anything.
In the LMB arena is when the fly guys borrow heavily from the conventional folks and obviously there is nothing wrong with that.
The Pig Boats (nice ties BTW and youi tie them so well they look like commercial conventional baits) are spinner baits without the spinner bait. I could fish those on my conventional bass rod with a creature bait trailer and crush bass. The Game Changer fly is a fluffy crank bait. : ] Good stuff!
trev
Well-known member
Those are Philly's, I don't have any pictures of mine but they ain't pretty. But I saw the Pig Boat before I saw spinner baits so I don't know which came first.
I does irritate me for spinning gear to be called conventional though, that stuff came out about when TV did and fly rods were the conventional rod and reels for a century or two before that, and wet flies were the traditional flies.
dynaflow
Well-known member
Some nice ties there.Here "Down Under" Purple and Black (Bass Vampire) are go-to colours in a wet Fly.