Bass Fly Fishing
If you are considering using fly fishing tactics in order to catch bass, you must act and think like a bass. Bass fishing requires stalking them just as like they stalk their prey. The trout is more refined, a gentle fish if we may say so. Trout in a lake, you wait for; you can troll, but most lake trout fishing activities require keying into the basic fact that the fish are constantly on a move. They do however some stalking from the time to time but cannot be compared to the explosive body/muscle type which makes the bass attack similar with a linebacker through the weeds and into their prey.
It is advisable to attempt to anticipate any potential ambush point – a small rock pile, logs diving into water, a stack of brush half-submerged into the water and other similar locations. It is recommended to pick one up out of the water and then you will observe what a top-notch messy little moving shield they offer to the bass. The main idea behind this idea is the propensity of the bass to lie and wait for their prey should be also practiced by the fisherman, that is why we said that bass fishermen should think and act like a bass.
The bass fishing activity has all the ingredients of the other freshwater fishing activities but on a larger scale as it offers a lot of water action, lively strong fights and large sized fish. It is advisable to use light bass fishing rods, to be more exact a 6-weight should do the trick. Luckily, for bass fishing you do not need a bunch of expensive equipment. However, there are a few issues that every bass fly fishing enthusiast must know like the fact that the small rods will make it harder to cast those bass bugs the size of robins.
Some people use double-taper line as they do not need to cast long distances but any store clerk will tell you that you must purchase a bass tapered line or similar weight-forward line. It is not obligatory if your flies are scaled down and it is also a matter of taste. For bass bugs, the best material would be the deer hair because of the size of the bugs you can create as well as the wide variety of methods to trim the fly conformingly to your casting and your feel regarding what the bass wants to kill. If you attempt to tie something with dry hackle you will most likely end up wasting half a bird skin prior getting the thing to float well.
In order to discover how small or big a fly you can cast with a fairly light line is by tying a few bass bugs and taking them on the water along with a pair of fly tying scissors. After making several casts, you will most likely consider that the bug is too big. What you need to do is to start to trim the bug until it starts to cast better for you but make sure that you keep the general dimensions of the original shape. Luckily, the bass are not too particular regarding an exact type of commotion on top of the water, basically if something moves; the bass will most likely come. Even the small sized flies are able to create sufficient commotion on the water but it cannot be compared to a buzz bait in the hands of caster with a 5:1 retrieve ration on his reel.
This strategy of moving a fly is only one of the many; some prefer slowing down the retrieve to a creeping rate. Another popular strategy is designing flies which have the appearance of size with very little air and weight resistance. These are usually made out of a rather closely trimmed marabou body with a single 2 inch length of hen feather tied on as a tail which usually sinks very slowly. The best way to improve the technique of casting is by practicing, you know what they say: practice makes perfect.
Last but not least, we strongly advise you to fish using your steelhead rod for casting a bass bug and eventually it is best to “overline” the rod just a little bit. Most of the bass species regardless of their size can be casted to from 20 – 50 ft as long as the fisherman does it in a very silent manner.