April showers start bass bedding...Monthly Swap

[vicrider 0]

Okay, this month's theme is bass. Bass will eat about they can get in there mouth, and occasional things too big for their mouth and end up choking on it. Poor guys. Anyway, most any fly will do but as long as you have the materials it's best to go a little bigger than trout or panfish sized fare. Surface, streamers, crayfish, big nymphs, hellagramites, you name it and they eat it. I'll be tying a pattern I found called a skipping shad that has good foam floatation but you can't see the foam. If it works like they say a good strip hops it out of water like a shad running from a bass. We have one lake near us with a big shad base and I'm excited to try it there.

Just a note. Trez had to drop out of swaps for awhile and his spot will be taken by J-Kno.

Vicrider.................ready

1. Add147..............arrived

2. Joseph Russell...arrived

3. Jolly Red............arrived

4. J-Kno.................arrived

5. Crackleback.......arrived

6. Michael Ray.......arrived

7 .Breambuster.....arrived

8. djtrout................arrived

9. Bassbugn..........arrived

10. border collies..arrived

11. kennebec12....arrived

12. Bambudday.....arrived

[Dave G. 0]

Bass fishing can be pretty cool, we have good small and large mouth populations here. You speak of bedding bass, well so far we still have ice on the ponds around here except for one. I just went out again this morning to check my favorite places, the ice is breaking up around the shore now, it looks to be 3 " thick and the main body of lake / pond has that floating in and out of shore. Supposed to be in the 50's today with rain later on. Windy too, I suspect by Mon, we can fish. It will be cold water species till May I'd say. The good news, same ponds/lakes have plenty of trout. My waders are ready, the canoe is ready and i charged the battery for the boat two days ago. I'm ready, the waters are not !! LOL

 

Around here the way to fish for early bass is sinking line. i use a 6 wt for that with large woolie buggers. I tie them with peacock herl bodies, grizzly hackle and black tails. But early bass are sluggish so you might just as well fish for trout which are not sluggish. Later I change to pan fish poppers with my T&T 8 wt ( some of these bass get really big here). In a popper anything chartreuse with rubber legs will work, the small mouth head and tail on those, large mouth could explode on them. Hex hatches are king later in the season, be there early evening and fish into the night with hex nymphs. If you go to the same pond in early morning you will see hex casings piled up against the shore by the thousands. One place I go has huge bass and Brown Trout, good sized rainbows but everything in the lake is up on those hexes so you might just as well catch anything from sunfish to a 7 lb something or other. I always say in a hex hatch toss the nymph and hang on tight because you just don't know what will hit it !! And I can't wait, that happens about the end of June on till Sept. This year is my first year retired, I don't have to get up at 4 AM to get ready for work this summer, hurray i can stay on the lake later at night !

[Jolly Red 0]

Sent mine in to you a few days ago. Might already be there. The pattern is called a "Woolfolk Minnow" from the "Fly Tying and Fishing for Bass and Panfish" by Tom Nixon. Have wanted to tie this for some time, but never got around to It till now. These take some time to make. but they look like they are worth taking the time.

[vicrider 0]

Yep Tom, I have you marked as the first arrived. Great looking minnow. Didn't check, is it a floater or sinker? Looks like a lot of delicate work. Also has the look of the early rapalas when old Laurie was doing each one by hand. Has the foil look to it. Light enough I'm thinking it's a floater but will hopefully find out soon for sure. I'm thinking it might be a real crappie killer also since their primary feed is minnows about that size.

[Crackleback 0]

I'm stacking up some hair bugs. Not sure if I'll do poppers or divers or sliders. If anyone has a preference I'm open to suggestions.

 

-Mike

[vicrider 0]

Crackleback, if I had an icon showing me bowing down to you I'd do it. I've been in a couple of swaps where guys put in hair bug and I always felt guilty because it's something I can't do and don't feel like devoting the time to learning since I'm busy enough as is. Since you were the one who brought it up the hair bugs I've received to date have all been poppers or slider. I would VERY much like to add a diver to the box. I've gotten so desperate to try one on the local ponds that I might even order a couple but if you can stack and trim them I'd love to have one.

 

Nick

 

ps...Let me edit to add that I'm working on one going the other way. If it works as advertised it is supposed to skip up out of water the way a shad does just before he gets eaten. The prototype I finished looks good whether it works as advertised or not and could see it being used for some of those late night brown trout fishing some do.

[Jolly Red 0]

Nick, the fly is made with carved balsa and #2 nylon twine. I is supposed to float. I coated the body with a couple of coats of Fabric Fusion, so it should be fairly sturdy. The original recipe called for model airplane cement, but I don't have any so I used the F.F.

[djtrout 0]

Here in VA I'm all about smallmouth. Brooks, Rainbows, Browns are off-season trips for me. Coming now into the season and getting hyped up for floating rivers.

In contrast to my trout fishing, I use only 3 or 4 flies for smallies.

For this swap I'm going to try an articulated version of my go-to baitfish pattern, meant for mid-water column stripping, in white and red. I've never tied or fished an articulated pattern, but I'll succumb to the latest and see if I can create a worthy pattern.

My array for smallmouth consists of the baitfish streamer, a clouser bucktail, a crayfish pattern (seldom used), popper, cicada. I have a ton of flies I tied that I'll never use. 3 years ago I lost 2 full boxes of flies in a canoe tipping on the New River, but I never replaced those flies because they weren't my go-to.

For fly fishing I stick pretty much to top and mid depth with streamers and surface stuff. If I want or need to go deep I go to the spin or baitcast rod and throw senkos and tubes. My river kayak is loaded with my 7 or 8 wt flyrod, a spin rod, and a baitcast rod.

I am still in search of the perfect fly crayfish pattern. I have tied an arsenal of clouser crayfish and clawdads, but I never use 'em. Go figure. Crayfish was my first pattern to attack when I first tied bass flies 15 years ago, so I also have a collection of "precious memories" ... good for not much else ... :-)

Looking forward to receiving my soft hackles and getting going on this month's contribution.

[michaelray 0]

I'm heading from California to Louisiana to chase Reds for a few days toward the end of the month, then shooting up to the Ozarks to spend a few days on my favorite Smallmouth streams, so I'll be tying bass flies for the next few weeks.

I'm not sure what I'm going to tie yet, I have to check my hook reserves. I've been tying mostly big flies for two months straight, my bigger hooks are startign to dwindle. I might pull out some baitfish, but it'll likely be a sculpin pattern of some sort.

 

I'll let you all know asap. I'm looking forward to seeing what everyone else does!

[kennebec12 0]

Hey guys, just wondering what size (aka how big) some the flies your sending are? I want to send mine out with return packaging big enough that Nick doesn't have to squash the flies into the return and damage them because the box is too small. Most of the time an altoids tin works good but I think it would be a tight squeeze on this swap.

[vicrider 0]

You are thinking along the right lines Kennebec. What I kind of figured I'd have to do is put what I can in Altoids box and put rest in envelope in a baggie. If someone can send something a little bigger this time it would be a good idea. I know mine is going fill a 1/3 of box by itself, and if we do get a hair bug or two that about wipes out the box. I can always do the baggies idea for those flies that don't fit in box so we'll do okay. Looking forward to these just like every swap.

[djtrout 0]

My baitfish will be 3-4 inches on a size-to-be-determined bass bug hook, probably size 1/0 plus or minus 1 size.

I need to get going ... :-)

[Fisherboy0301 0]

Djtrout,

 

Check out the El Crawcito by FlyFishFood. It's pretty sick. And looks like a great crawfish pattern.

[joseph russell 0]

I started making some poppers before you posted this . Then I read for bass so I'm changing to a Hang Time optical minnow. The poppers I was making were brim size.

[michaelray 0]

Mine are all tied up and will be in the mail Tuesday or Wednesday. I went with a 4 or so inch EZ Body Baitfish.