Philly

There are four patterns that I mainly use for panfish. I prefer fishing for them with top water. I'll leave the others to offer you some sub-surface flies to consider. The first two are fairly easy to tie. All are made from craft foam. They're all tied on size 6 hooks. Floating Mop fly(mop fly on the left, mop style fly on the right) You can turn this into a sinking fly by replacing the foam head with a bead or small dumbbell eyes Tony's Froggie This was shown to me by a tyer named Tony Spezio. The original was just the body with the marabou tail. I find them more effective with legs. I also supersize them for bass. This one has no name. I used a large soft foam body you can get online or at a fly shop as a template for the body. This also gets supersized for bass. This one was shown to me by Harry Steves. I modified it by widening the mouth. The body is a heart shaped piece of foam. So I call it the Heart popper. I also supersize it for bass My most effective colors are yellow, fluorescent yellow, white and chartreuse. I normally tie them, since they work, 6 to 12 at a time. I would suggest tying 3 to 6 of a pattern. If the pattern works for you then you can tie more. As already mentioned, experiment.

Nice ties. I was wondering about the size. I'm sure trout size ones would work. I've caught sunfish on them when fishing my local creek for stockies. It's just PITA to dig the small flies out of them. I'll be going up to the Poconos for a few days fishing in mid-May. I'll tie some up and give them a shot.

I think this is for a particular type of fly fishing which is fishing a nymph under an indicator. I don't use indicators and I fish a lot of small clear streams where I can see my nymph and I've never noticed one riding hook point up, weighted or unweighted. The drag on the line doesn't appear to allow the hook to flip so the point is riding up. I don't use down-eyed hooks for my nymphs, so that may have an impact. The other thing I noticed is the flies he's using are tied in the round, so it doesn't really matter how the hook rides. The profile is the same whatever position the hook point takes. I know jig hooks are a hot item these days, but they're not going to perform the same way an actual jig would. Most times we just slide a bead on and it ends up against the vertical shank. The hole in the bead is centered, so it's weight is evenly distributed. If you look at jigs, which I use when I want to tie a jig fly. The weight is in front of the vertical shank and below the hook shank. The "balanced" fly attempts to duplicate this by placing the bead in front of the vertical shank, but as far as I can tell, the bead's purpose is to off-set the weight of the material, so the fly sits horizontally below a "strike indicator". The only we can come close to tying a fly that will imitate jig action is using dumbbell eyes tied on the bottom of the shank close to the vertical shank on a jig hook. You can do that with a straight shank hook.

I don't have the skills to make a board and then do a furled leader. I do have a nice collection of thread furled leaders, including a couple made for bass. I also brought a couple made of fluorocarbon for bass. I use both with either my 6 wgt or 8 wgt. Consider the rods you're going to use, but also consider the size of the flies you're going to use. What is it going to take to turn over those flies. The bass thread leaders I have are made with heavy thread. I would say A size or D size. It's harder to tell with the fluorocarbon ones, but at least 8 lb fluorocarbon. I would experiment with different sizes of fluorocarbon. Try 6 lb, 8 lb and 10 lb and see which one turns over your flies. Generally, I use a 20 lb tippet with both the thread and fluorocarbon leaders. The combination turns over any of my bass flies.

Nice job. Never thought about using sparkle chenille or Estaz for the body. I'll second what cphubert said. I usually tie them with longer tails. I usually make the skin portion where its tied in at the back the length of the hook shank. Here's a couple of examples. The first one is unweighted. The second one is weighted If you do decide to do a longer tail, you'll need a piece of stiff material which extends past the hook bend. It will prevent the tail from wrapping around the hook bend when your casting.

There's a good article on tying Zonkers on the Global Flyfisher https://globalflyfisher.com/tie-better/zonker-tying . It gives the history of the fly along with ways to tie it. In the fly catalogs I get it's listed as "rabbit fur strips". They come in various widths, usually 1/8" or 1/4". You can get squirrel fur strips and I would imagine you could cut your own strips out of other furs, beaver or mink come to mind, if you had them. I use them for the claws on my crayfish patterns. or as a tail on this bass pattern I'm not sure if it was on this board or not, but someone on a board I frequent tied a fly using a "zonker" strip as a tail and wrapped the rest of it on the shank as a body. The strip has many uses. I have a fly box of Zonkers that I use for bass, largemouth and smallmouth.

I've may have used Octopus hooks for some small baitfish patterns. I do use drop-shot hooks for smaller bait fish patterns. I don't have a problem with off-set hooks. You can leave them that way or carefully straighten into in-line hooks. My problems with the Octopus hooks is the sharply upturned eye. The hooks are designed to be snelled and fished with bait. You'll have to be careful when building the head of the pattern to insure you don't block the eye. For bait fish and streamers I prefer a straight eye hook. The shanks are shorter than I like them for tying a bait fish pattern, especially a large one, like a hollow fly. You're going to have to stuff a lot of material in that space. As far as penetration, I'm not sure the thickness of the hook makes that much difference. Debarb them which will help with the penetration and bass don't have what you would call a hard mouth. Here's a picture of a bass I caught, you can see how the hook penetrated. In larger sizes the hook would be considered a heavy hook. It's a Daiichi 2461, size 6. You can also see the fish has been caught and released before. I like the Gamakatsu B10S Stinger hook for bait fish patterns. It should be available in your area. If not look for straight shank worm or spinner bait hooks. If you're got the Octopus hooks, tie some flies and see how they work. I don't fish huge patterns for bass, my bait fish patterns range from 2 to 6 inches. I have some streamers that run to 8 inches. See what size lures and soft plastics the local bass guys are using. What are the forage fish in the lake. Good luck with the hollow flies, you have more patience than I do.

I pretty much do the same thing Captain Bob does. It works. When I'm done with the spool. I either pull the thread back through the groove with a long enough tag end to grab next time I use it or use a small rubber band to secure the thread.

Welcome. Lot of folks on here fish for bass. I'll give it a shot with the suggestions. Hooks- Gamakatsu B10S, I also use their straight shanked worm hooks. I use some VMC spinner bait hooks. Eagle Claw Aberdeen Crappie hooks, gold and bronze. Daiichi 2461. I've been using lot of the Ahrex hooks. Nothing smaller than a size 6 for any of them. I also use 1/32 and 1/20 oz jigs Threads- usually heavy thread 3/0, salt water. Colors, white, yellow, chartreuse, black and orange. Clear polyester thread that you can find in craft stores. I use that mainly for Clousers, Zonkers and bait fish patterns. Materials- Buck Tail, Marabou, Feathers(saddle hackle and schlappen, Chenille( regular, crystal, sparkle and Estaz), Zonker strips. Foam sheets, 2 mm, 3 mm and 6 mm. You can usually find the 2 mm and 6 mm in craft stores. 3 mm I usually order from fly fishing catalogs, but I'm sure you can find it on Amazon. Foam cylinders. Foam colors, white, yellow chartreuse, olive and black. Large Mop pieces. Silicone, spinner bait skirts or skirt layers, also known as "Sili Legs. Miscellaneous- UV resin, super glue, permanent markers to add color and markings to the patterns. I'm sure I've forgotten something. These are some of my bass flies, top water and subsurface.

I just noticed your favorite fish is walleye. Haven't had much luck catching walleye with a fly rod. I've been going to a lodge on a lake in NE Ontario for 38 years. I've been fly fishing 22 of those years and I've caught four walleye on the fly. The rest have come on either jigs or lures. The jigs in the picture are tied on 1/32 oz jigs and also tie them on 1/20th oz jigs to use with my 6 wgt and 8 wgt rods. I also tie them on 1/4 oz jigs to use with my spinning gear. These are some of the 1/4 oz jigs I use for bass and walleye in Ontario.

I'm lucky in that I'm not allergic to the stuff. If it's touching the resin that's causing the issue have you tried using latex gloves when handling the resin. That might help.

I'm whip finish challenged. What I do is put a light coat of super glue on the thread and make three or four wraps with it. When it dries a cut the thread and, these days, use UV resin for the head on streamers and on the wraps for jigs. One thing I do is use clear polyester thread that I pick up in craft stores. If you're using two colors for the streamer or jig they show through the wrap.

I use the Eagle Claw Aberdeen Crappie hook on some of my flies. I like the long shank and the wide gap/gape. I use 3/0 ones for my crayfish patterns. I use them for streamers, woolly buggers and some of my poppers. Either the gold or bronze ones. I like the idea that if you get snagged and get the fly loose you can straighten the bend back into a useable position, at least a couple of times. Size 6 is the smallest size I use.

That's a limited pallet to work with. Most of my panfish patterns are tied with foam or other artificial materials and I usually don't fish smaller than a size 6. I do use marabou and bucktail jigs but they include some flash materials. Bass flies, I do tie them up to 3/0. A bucktail Deceiver is one possibility, a sculpin pattern, the Clouser minnow has already been mentioned. Most of my bass flies are a mix of natural and artificial materials and include some type of feather. For a 2/0 fly you could use Zonker strips(strips of rabbit fur). There are also squirrel zonker strips, but they're more suited to smaller patterns. Back to size 2/0 using rabbit fur Zonker strips. You could tie a pattern with a Zonker strip for the tail, and then wrap another strip around the shank for the body. You would just have to make sure you stroke the fur toward the back of the hook as you wrapped it. I don't tie them so I don't have a picture to post. You could do the same pattern and use bucktail for the tail and a wrapped Zonker strip for the body. What weight rod do you plan on using to throw the 2/0 flies?

Nice thing about being retired, I can stop whatever I was doing and do a bit of tying. These are a couple of quick ties that might work as a goby pattern based on the idea of tubes being used. Materials Hook- Daiichi 2461 Tail- Brownish Olive Marabou w/3 strands of root beer Krystal Flash Weight- medium dumbbell eyes tied in Clouser style Body- Root Beer Estaz(large) wrapped and trimmed. Head area is trimmed on top and bottom, full on the sides. Gobies have a wide head. Hook- Ahrex Predator Long Size 1/0 Tail- Brown w/Copper Flash Spinner Bait Silicon Skirt Layer(Sili Legs) Weight- medium lead wire, 10 wraps middle of shank Body- Root Beer Estaz(large) wrapped and trimmed. Head area is trimmed on top and bottom, full on the sides. Head- Brown Thread coated with UV Resin Just a couple of styles beside a sculpin pattern that might be worth considering. Some combination of olive with brown would probably work also.