striper flies

[Wolfie2nd 0]

What are your top 10 bass flies?? Colors night/day???

Tying to build a good arsenal I'm new to stripers on the fly..

Any help would be much appreciated...

[tidewaterfly 0]

Deceivers, Clouser Minnows, Seaducers, Rabbit strip Eels, Murdich Minnows, Gurglers & big poppers are the flies I've relied on most over many years for fishing for them. There are many other styles or patterns that also work well, but these all continue to be productive, year in & year out.

 

Favorite colors for deceivers & clousers are chartreuse & white, all black, olive ( or any green shade you like) & white, gray & white, or all white. These cover most baitfish I might encounter. For the Eels, black, dark gray, and dark greens work well, but white also works even though it really may not look like an Eel.

 

Seaducers can be tied in many colors. The basic white or yellow with red fronts work fine, but so do chartreuse & red, chartreuse & orange, or the Electric Chicken color of chartreuse (or fl. Yellow) and pink. Even all black or brown, or either with a contrasting color work well at times. It's a good style for when you want a very slow descent, but is also a versatile pattern. I like tying it with an underbody of Estaz, and with both saddle hackle & wide neck hackle in the tails. This gives different actions & appearances.

Also, I'll add bead chain or barbell eyes to some of them.

 

Murdich Minnows are mostly flash, so I like to vary them, and use a lot of pearl & holographic flash. Silver, gold, copper all have their place in this pattern.

 

Gurglers & poppers. Can't go wrong with basic white, and I always carry them in black. You can get as colorful as you wish, but IMO, for top water flies it's not necessary.

[Peterjay 0]

Wolfman, you don't say what kind of striper fishing you'll be doing. Surf? Boat? Estuaries? Ponds? Sight-fishing the flats? There's a set of flies for every occasion. What might work in a quiet bay might foul on every cast in tumbling surf. One thing I'd forget about entirely is the epoxy minnow-type fly, or any of the hard-bodied stuff.They'll do OK during blitzes when the fish are in a frenzy, but most of the time, you'll get a lot more fish on flies made of soft materials. A striper will track a fly for a long time and they'll pick up any unnatural movement or lack of movement. Bass are extremely wary fish when they're not all worked up. Realistic hard-bodied minnows are great for lightning-fast fish like tunas that only get a brief glimpse of a fly, but not so good for slower-moving fish like stripers. They're looking at motion, the more natural the better.

 

I wouldn't go out without a box of crystal buggers. (woolly buggers with flashy bodies) They can be made to imitate any small baitfish, not to mention worms. On many days, they'll out-perform the fancier stuff by a mile.

 

Tabory's snake fly is another general can't-do-without. It's also a fouling machine unless you use a mono loop for a tail support.

 

As far as specific patterns go, the forage changes a lot as the season progresses. Where I'm from, we go from river herring to sand eels to worms, to silversides, to bunker and anchovies to mullet to sea herring, etc. There's a lot of overlap, especially late in the season when almost anything can turn up. Throw eels, crabs, shrimp, sea robins, cunners, lobsters, juvenile flounder, needlefish, etc., into the mix, and it's a complicated situation. Stripers will eat almost anything and they're nearly always hungry, but when they're keying on a specific bait, it's hard to get them to touch anything else.

 

Let us know where you're gonna be fishing. It'll be a lot easier to pin down specifics if we know what conditions you'll be seeing.

 

Above all, pay attention to Tidewater's advice. The man knows his stripers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Wolfie2nd 0]

Yeah I guess that would help... Ill be fishing the surf and bay from land here in nj. Sorry for the vague post

[mikechell 0]

New Jersey salt water stripers ... you need some shrimp patterns and some sand eel patterns.

[Wolfie2nd 0]

So far I've tied Deceivers in chartreuse/white white with peacock hurl upper olive white and clousers in the same and some cinder worms. If I can figure out how to post pictures tonight ill post em. Cause I have a eel that I would like to get some comments on.

[Peterjay 0]

You're definitely on the right track. Clousers are a good sand eel imitation - sand eels always swim with their heads down so they can dart into the bottom when a predator is sighted. American eel flies will also catch a lot of fish under low light conditions. They're often overlooked by flyrodders. (but not by the bait and lure guys LOL) Deceivers can be tied in any size and shape to imitate whatever bait's around. Everything from anchovies to silversides (spearing) to herring. Sounds to me like you're really doing your homework. BTW - Bob Veverka's book "Innovative Saltwater Flies" is an invaluable resource for striper patterns. There's enough stuff in there to keep you busy for years. It isn't cheap, but it's worth several of the less comprehensive pattern books. Also, Alan Caolo's book "Sight Fishing for Striped Bass" adds another dimension to striper fishing that a lot of anglers don't even know exists. Alan's got quite a few patterns in his book that are extremely effective, and he avoids the "flavor of the month" stuff entirely.

[Wolfie2nd 0]

Yeah I'm not at all new to bass fishing. I beat the water with conventional gear for years with good luck. But this fly fishing for bass is so far the greatest challenge I have faced. I have no guide or mentor in this realm of fishing. All trial and error. And it hurts the ego.

[Peterjay 0]

Heck, your experience with conventional gear means you've got three-quarters of the battle already won. You don't have to learn how to read water, and you're already familiar with the bait scene. The mechanics of fly casting will come quickly with some practice. And just wait till you're banging fish with tiny anchovy flies and the plug guys are standing around shaking their heads. Your ego's gonna soar. One thing I've noticed over the years is that flyrodders pay a lot more attention to the fish that are right in the wash than the conventional guys do. A lot of times, you'll see guys heaving plugs way out past the surf line when the bass are cruising 20 feet from shore.

 

BTW - being in Jersey means that you've got some of the best shore albacore action on the East Coast. If you manage to hook a few of those babies on a fly rod, you'll forget all about stripers as long as the albies are running. I've never seen it fail yet. (LOL)

[Wolfie2nd 0]

Well yes I can read water and realize that you don't have to cast much further than 50' the fish for the most part are at your feet. Jetty surf and structure. I've been exclusively fly fishing for the beginning of last fall and only managed to hook 3 fish and that's fishing hard 3 days a week. I knew that if I had gone home to get my plugging gear I would at least get a hook up. I guess I just need to stick with it and live and learn. I think I may hire a guide for a day and see what I can learn. Flies stripping options and so on. Granted that all my fishing is land based no boat