Bass on the fly- thoughts, techniques, recommendations?

Pretty new to fly fishing and have mostly targeted trout thus far but in the interest of finding something close to home my wife and I checked out this tiny pond by our neighborhood and voila, the bass were biting! Only out there about 30 minutes and just caught a small one but it was fun to fish walking distance from home. I’m still learning fly fishing and know almost nothing about bass but there was what looked like a caddis hatch going and I caught a fish on an elk hair attractor pattern with rubber legs.

Any advice on what I can do to better target these neighborhood bass in a tiny pond?

If they won't hit on top remember a woolly bugger will catch almost any freshwater fish. Try white, black and olive to start.

Snopro said:

If they won't hit on top remember a woolly bugger will catch almost any freshwater fish. Try white, black and olive to start.

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Thanks Sno! I haven’t tried a wooly bugger on them yet, will give it a shot next time I’m out.

It was fun but a little frustrating in retrospect, the pond was exploding with top water action as twilight came- so much action that had they been trout I’m confident I would have brought in a handful easily. My wife was matching the hatch with a size 16 Elk Hair Caddis without much luck, should we go get some poppers instead of matching bugs?

Blue Lining said:

Thanks Sno! I haven’t tried a wooly bugger on them yet, will give it a shot next time I’m out.

It was fun but a little frustrating in retrospect, the pond was exploding with top water action as twilight came- so much action that had they been trout I’m confident I would have brought in a handful easily. My wife was matching the hatch with a size 16 Elk Hair Caddis without much luck, should we go get some poppers instead of matching bugs?

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Frog or mouse poppers.

Still water bass poppers are tons of fun. Recommend stringing the popper on the leader. Tie a large knot at the tip of the leader, that stops the popper from coming off. I tie a surgeons loops, and cut the tag and the loop off.

This allows the popper to spin freely around the end of the leader. If its a fixed knot I find that everything spins on its self starts to tangles the line.

Leach patterns are also a good alternative to a bugger

Bead Hares ear nymph out of local pond caught on Tenkara Rod.

Northwesttenkara said:

Bead Hares ear nymph out of local pond caught on Tenkara Rod.

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Nice fish! I’ve never tried Tenkara but it seems like a really interesting way to fish.

I have caught bass on everything from a size 14 possie bugger to a 5/0 chenille worm tied on a huge soft plastics hook. There’s a time and place for both. If I had to lean towards a few it would be a large wormy leechy creature fly or giant wooly bugger style fly a huge baitfish made out of rabbit/ dubbing brush or a bucktail like a clouser. And then a surface fly like a foam frog or dragonfly, mouse, dahlberg diver, or a popper. I’ve also had success fishing balanced flies near structure under indicators.

with all of these preferences considered, the most success I’ve had fly fishing largemouth bass in specific is with the large weedless creature/leech looking flies in shades of olive/black/purple/chartreuse. Cast out, let sink for a while and watch for take on the drop, if no take, use a strip,strip, short pause retrieve. Make your strips about 8-10 inches and about a second apart not too much not too little, pause for just a couple of seconds.

with topwater and waking flies, cast out and let it sit until the rings around the fly settle. A lot of times a fish will grab if you let it sit. Then I start a short, hard consistent strip back to the boat/tube/bank that creates a wake or trail which the bass seem to love. I adapted all of this from my buddy who use to fish bass 24/7. So a lot of it is taken from the pages of spin anglers but definitely holds true with flies as well.

here are some bass on the fly photos from years past



-Brandon