Well, I haven't posted in a while... but I kept looking, and I thought I'd share my new favorite thing. Due to the conditions on our favorite rivers this spring, I too decided to exploit the warm water venues closer to home and started fishing for bass. Lots of new stuff to learn! It's harder and more technical than I expected... Many fishless (or almost) outings, reminds me of when I started (fly) fishing for trout a few years ago. Guess one has to pay his dues... But it's been a fun ride so far. And I even caught a few bass. These fish can be very exciting.
Nice job there Bugger. That smallie in the first photo was probably ripping out some line! I like the red eyes on the small mouth. I have found if you drag the flies along the bottom they will pick them up and just hook themselves. Smallmouth are known to eat smaller baits and bugs. That float tube has some good Karma, I have seen Emerger Cliff land some very big trout on Putah with it. I am hooked on Bass fishing as well.
yeah Otter, when I bought that float tube I was buying good karma as much as a tube... it's been good to me. That smallie looks bigger on the pic than the 12" that it actually was... it took a size 12 prince nymph behind a small bugger... But I also had a fat 20" smallie bust a big deer hair frog on top and bend my 8wt in half and take me for a ride. That will make your heart pound for a little while. The bucketmouths are fun too... the one on the pic was caught sight fishing and jumped 3 times! These guys definitely prefer bigger "flies". Rabbit strips are my new favorite material. One thing I learned is more often than not they seem to prefer a subtle presentation...
