05-07-2004, 05:10 AM
[size 2]A bass's mouth says most of what you need to know about the differences between fly-fishing for bass and fishing for trout.
Trout have evolved to sip insects with limited mobility. Bass, with mouths as round and deep as a well-worn catcher's mitt, snarf up things that swim, slither, splash, hop, scuttle, and even walk. At the same time, a bass' mouth is rimmed with bone and cartilage, causing all but the sharpest hooks to skitter and fall out. That's doubly true with the heavier-wire hooks used in bass fishing.
[/size] [size 2]A trout anglers can set a number 20 dry fly hook with a flick of the wrist, but a wrist flick rarely works for bass.
So, the challenge is clear if you’ve got your heart set on hooking up with a bass: first, learn to swim a fly that may represent a minnow, frog, mouse, crayfish or leech. Second, understand the techniques you’ll need to know how to set a hook in the equivalent of a radial tire tread.
[/size][size 2]Both tasks start with proper form after the cast as you begin your retrieve. Whether wading a smallmouth stream, standing on the deck of a bass boat or sitting in a canoe, point the rod straight toward the fly. Touch the rod tip to the water. If you're right-handed, extend your right arm comfortably. Crook your right index finger under the fly line.
Work the fly by stripping line, not by twitching the rod. (To this, like everything else, there are exceptions. I say this partly so that when you see me on the water, twitching my rod tip, I'll have an out.) Strip line with your left hand, pulling the line between the thumb and forefinger of your right hand. Coil the line in your left hand or let it fall to the deck or bottom of the boat, or to the water.[/size]
![[Image: basslady.jpg]](http://www.mwfly.com/images/basslady.jpg)
[size 2]When you fish strategically and cast accurately, the rewards are tremendous. [/size]
[size 2]When a bass takes your fly, don’t rear back on the rod right away. Strip line with the left hand to take up slack. Snub the line with your right index finger. Pull your right hand toward your chest. Then, and only then, raise the rod tip—hard. Hard! This isn't trout fishing. When going for bass, you'll probably be using a tippet testing 6 to 15 pounds. You almost certainly won't break off on the hook set.
POPPER-OLOGY
Cork, foam or deer-hair poppers are a great first fly, whether fishing for largemouth or smallmouth. They are easy and fun to work and the strike is easy to see.
After the cast, let the popper rest a few seconds. Then, sharply strip six inches to a foot of line. A well-designed popper should issue a good round, full-bodied plook. Keeping the rod tip low, strip line to make a pop here, a couple pops there—about a pop a second, on average. When the popper is still about 30 feet away, lift the line and bug off the water with the rod tip, false cast once or twice to work out line, and lay out another cast.
A word about starting your back cast: Because of their size, bass bugs offer far more resistance in the water than most trout flies. Cup-faced poppers and divers actually may dig in to the water. Strip in slack while the rod tip is still at the water's surface. Lift the rod tip slowly at first to start the bug skittering across the surface. Then lift the tip briskly to initiate the back cast.
When fishing poppers, start with the fast retrieve I just described. It enables you to cover more water than a slower retrieve and is far less tedious. But sometimes, slow is best. Cast to good cover and wait. Wait 20 or 30 seconds. Then give a single pop. Wait some more. Pop again once or twice.
Wait. If nothing happens, rip off a few more pops and cast to a new spot.
Poppers ring the dinner bell for smallmouth bass on streams. Look for quiet, slow water with depth, over a rocky bottom. Throw in a log or two and you have the picture of bass heaven. Cast and pop just as you would on a lake.
When you've worked through fishy-looking water, or when the current has dragged the fly line and popper downstream, pick up and cast to a new place. Because current—even gentle current—carries the bug out of fish-holding water, a very slow retrieve usually isn't possible. Because their world is continually in a rush, river fish seem to make up their minds in a hurry, so a slow retrieve doesn't seem necessary anyway.
Here's an exception: In slow current over a deep pool, let the current carry the popper downstream from where you are wading or anchored until the line trails straight downstream. Work the popper in place, alternately popping it and letting it drag in the current. The sight and sound of a noisy bug locked in the firm grip of the current is often too tempting for a bass to resist.
What is the attraction of a popper? What in nature could a resonant ker-plook possibly imitate? I have no idea. Perhaps a pop, like the throb of a spinnerbait, resembles nothing at all but simply stimulates the fish's vibration-detection sense. I do know that a popper at times triggers strikes like nothing else.
Once I waded in behind a friend—a very good angler, by the way—who had been pounding a deep pool in a small creek for 20 minutes or more, catching only basslets on jigs and spinners. My first cast with a popper produced a two-pound bass. My second cast brought another. A few casts later, I caught a third.
DOING DIVERS
Divers are shaped to float at rest and dive several inches deep on the retrieve. Some are made of deer hair; others of cork or foam. After the cast, alternately strip line (most divers will pop) and let the bug rest on the surface. Then, strip in several feet of line in a smooth motion to cause the bug to dive and swim underwater.
Sweeping the rod tip a foot or two to the side during the strip helps me to keep tension on the line, extending the swimming motion and keeping the bug underwater a bit longer. Let the diver rise to the surface and pause for a few seconds before lifting the line for the back cast.
In streams, the two-fold popping and swimming action is a real advantage. Cast to deep, still water near shore. Pop the diver through the calm water of the eddy. Then, as the current bows out the line and tows the diver downstream, it will dive and swim through the water like a streamer.
Use a sink-tip or sinking line and four-foot to fish a diver fast and deep - sort of a fly rod crankbait. Pop the bug the moment it hits the water; pause to let the line sink several feet and fish the diver back toward you by stripping line a foot at a time.
SLIDERS
Other surface bugs—sliders, mice, frogs—have blunt noses that neither pop or dive. They are made to swim quietly at the surface. They can be effective when a loud pop seems to scare fish rather than attract them. Work them much as you would popper and divers, alternating between short strips, long slow strips, and pauses.
STREAMERS
If you were to take wildlife art to be an accurate representation of real life, you'd believe that bass live mostly on frogs and dragonflies, preferably snatched in midair. Old magazine covers notwithstanding, bass—especially large bass—are primarily fish eaters. For that reason, fish-imitating streamers, such as Clouser Minnows, can catch a lot of bass.
Fish streamers on a fairly long leader and floating line to reach a foot or two below the surface. To go deeper, switch to a short leader and sink-tip or sinking line. In calm water, cast to your target—a log, a deep shoreline, a pile of boulders, or the outside edge of a weed bed. Let the fly sink and then strip the fly back toward the rod tip just as you would a popper or diver.
In moving water, cast to a deep shoreline and give the fly a few strips. Let the current bow the line downstream, sweeping the streamer across the current. Often it pays to let the fly hang in the current directly downstream before lifting the line for another cast.
CRAWDADS, LEECHES AND OTHER CRITTERS
Woolly Buggers, leech patterns, crayfish imitations and other critter flies an be fished like a streamer. But they can be really hot if they are weighted on the nose and worked in short strips on or near the bottom. Many anglers weight these flies with lead wrap or split shot on the leader near the eye of the hook. The best way to weight them, however, is simply to tie them on a light jig hook. Why be shy about fly fishing with jigs? Duck on the forward cast to keep from ripping your ear, especially with the wind at your back.
In moving water, fish these flies as you would dead-drift nymphs for trout. Use a floating line, 6- to 10-foot leader, and a small foam strike indicator pegged several feet up the line. Cast upstream and slightly across the current to a deep bank or to the head of a deep run. Mend line to get a drag-free drift, but otherwise keep the rod tip at the surface.
Since bass foods, such as crayfish, tend to swim vigorously, it doesn't hurt to twitch the drifting fly several times during the retrieve. As the fly sweeps toward your position, lift the rod tip to fish the last few feet of the drift. (Another of those pesky exceptions to keeping the rod tip low.) Shoot a few feet of line with a roll cast, pick up, and cast again.
After learning to cast weighted and wind-resistant flies, the retrieve is the hardest aspect of fly fishing for bass for many beginners to master. But once you learn to keep the rod tip low, keep the line under control, and follow a strike with a strong hook set, you'll begin to catch bass, whether you ply the surface with a cup-faced popper or probe the depths with a weighted crayfish.
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