05-21-2003, 06:15 PM
[cool]Until the water is warm enough to get the fish looking for topwater stuff, you will need to use a sink tip or full sinking line, to get your bass flied deeper. Use leeches, wooly buggers and crawdad patterns inched along the bottom, with the twisting line strip retrieve. For midwater to topwater, use light colored wooly buggers or minnow-imitating streamers. Vary your retrieve from slow and steady to using the rod tip to sweep or shivver the flies. Patterns are not nearly as important as size, color and presentation.
When bass are moving, they often respond to "action" on the flies. There are few things more exciting than a surface strike by an aggressive bucketmouth. If still slow from the cold, they might only suck it in, and it is difficult to feel them on a slack line retrieve. A good retrieve for both bluegills and bass is to point the rod right at the fly and keep your fingers in contact with the line at all times. That way you can feel the slightest tick, or hesitation. When you do feel something, start the strike by just pulling the line with your stripping hand. If there is a fishy feel on the end, go ahead and raise the rod to complete the hook set. If there is not the resistance of a fish, you don't waste a cast or spook fish by sweeping back on the rod and ripping the fly through the holding area.
Fly-roddin' bassers live for those crazy days of summer, post spawn, when bass always have their vision pointed upward for butterflies, moths, dragonflies, big hoppers, mice or other goodies that land on the water in their "killing zone". This is when big hair bugs, hoppers and poppers can produce "pacemaker" action. At this time, the streamers and wooly buggers formerly fished deeper, can also produce when "waked" across the surface, like feeding minnows, big bugs or small rodents.
During the hottest part of the summer, the bass feed early and late...and dive into the weeds to sulk during the hot part of the day. Get after them at daybreak, dusk or after dark. If you wanna talk about heart-stopping fishing, try having a big largie blow up on a big hair bug just as you are lifting it from the water to make another cast, on a dark night, while you are all alone on a small lake in your float tube. THAT'S WHAT IT'S ALL ABOUT.
TubeDude
[signature]
When bass are moving, they often respond to "action" on the flies. There are few things more exciting than a surface strike by an aggressive bucketmouth. If still slow from the cold, they might only suck it in, and it is difficult to feel them on a slack line retrieve. A good retrieve for both bluegills and bass is to point the rod right at the fly and keep your fingers in contact with the line at all times. That way you can feel the slightest tick, or hesitation. When you do feel something, start the strike by just pulling the line with your stripping hand. If there is a fishy feel on the end, go ahead and raise the rod to complete the hook set. If there is not the resistance of a fish, you don't waste a cast or spook fish by sweeping back on the rod and ripping the fly through the holding area.
Fly-roddin' bassers live for those crazy days of summer, post spawn, when bass always have their vision pointed upward for butterflies, moths, dragonflies, big hoppers, mice or other goodies that land on the water in their "killing zone". This is when big hair bugs, hoppers and poppers can produce "pacemaker" action. At this time, the streamers and wooly buggers formerly fished deeper, can also produce when "waked" across the surface, like feeding minnows, big bugs or small rodents.
During the hottest part of the summer, the bass feed early and late...and dive into the weeds to sulk during the hot part of the day. Get after them at daybreak, dusk or after dark. If you wanna talk about heart-stopping fishing, try having a big largie blow up on a big hair bug just as you are lifting it from the water to make another cast, on a dark night, while you are all alone on a small lake in your float tube. THAT'S WHAT IT'S ALL ABOUT.
TubeDude
[signature]