{"id":15634,"date":"2022-11-01T10:14:27","date_gmt":"2022-11-01T08:14:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fishbook.co.za\/?p=15634"},"modified":"2022-11-01T10:14:27","modified_gmt":"2022-11-01T08:14:27","slug":"fly-fishing-for-bass","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fishbook.co.za\/?p=15634","title":{"rendered":"Fly Fishing for Bass"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n\t

A species that is often overlooked by local flyfishing fanatics, I feel, is the Largemouth Bass. There is a contingent of trout hunters that see them as the enemy or a pest, especially when they share the habitat with our beloved stippled beauties.<\/p>\n

I'll admit that on occasion, even I have cursed a green fish or two when it was not my intended quarry, more frustrated at my angling ability than the willing bass, I suspect.<\/p>\n

Full disclosure though, I love bass, I think they are a wonderful sportfish and during spring and summer, I often pack the car with streamer boxes, some poppers, flippers, and 8-weight rods, to go hunt lunkers.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>

\"\"<\/div><\/div><\/div>
\"\"<\/div><\/div>
\n
\n\t

Bass is the perfect fly-fishing quarry. They have been introduced to many large impoundments and smaller farm dams all around the country, making it one of the most accessible freshwater targets in SA. They often present sight fishing opportunities and can be very attuned to the surface, this is by far the most exciting way of catching them. They can also be very challenging at times, especially when hunting bigger solitary fish.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Where?<\/p>\n

As mentioned before, Largemouth Bass are found in large public dams, many of the smaller private farm dams, and some river systems, although they prefer Stillwater and less current.<\/p>\n

If you plan on casting flies in bigger public waterways, I suggest you do so from a boat or other craft suitable for big water fishing. A lot of these bigger dams are spot specific when it comes to bass and it can be difficult to access these spots from the bank.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

\n
\n\t

Bigger dams also have less visible structures compared to small farm dams and require a bit of groundwork to figure out where the fish are holding. Fortunately, due to their popularity, a lot of information can be accessed regarding public dams, on fishing forums and social media.<\/p>\n

Or do what I do, team up with a knowledgeable local bass angler who knows the spots and is willing to share some knowledge. This will save you a lot of time figuring out where the bigger bass are holding and what they are feeding on. It might be awkward at first, trying to convince a seasoned bass angler that fly can be an effective way of targeting bass, but once you have landed a couple of fish on a bass fisherman's boat they become more open to the idea of fly fishing and might even consider having a go at it themselves.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>

\"\"<\/div><\/div><\/div>
\"\"<\/div><\/div>
\n
\n\t

 <\/p>\n

Ponds and farm dams are where the fly rod comes into its own. Generally, around springtime, the bass move into the shallows, and a whole new world of sight fishing opportunities are presented to us fly-rodders. Nothing beats sighting a big hen fish on the shallow banks and flats and then putting an accurate and well-presented cast to the fish and seeing it aggressively charging to hoover your fly.<\/p>\n

The late evening and early morning sessions also offer some exciting topwater eats in shallow water, where the pond vegetation creates cover for the bass and a vantage point from which they ambush any unsuspecting surface dwellers.<\/p>\n

How?<\/p>\n

Bass are an aggressive freshwater predator and for the most part don't need too much convincing to eat, especially in the warmer months. However, like any other species, the older more wiser fish are the ones who present a challenge.<\/p>\n

For me, the thrill of bass on fly lies in hunting the big \"lunkers\" and focusing my efforts on cracking the 10lb trophy mark. I have yet to reach the magic number and have fallen just short on many occasions, but any bass in the 4-pound and up weight class will give you a run for your money and are always fun to catch.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

\n
\n\t

Besides picking the right location to target bigger bass you also have to be calculated in your approach and strategy. Casting and retrieving through schools of smaller aggressive fish hoping for a bigger bite is likely going to deliver undesired results.<\/p>\n

First off, upscale your tackle. Your 6-weight fly rod and trusty old wooly bugger just won't cut it, although lots of fun can be had with lighter fishing tackle, you need a heavier setup that can comfortably deliver a bigger fly accurately and at a distance if you want to target bigger bass. Big streamers and poppers are heavier and more wind resistant and therefore an 8-weight or even 9-weight rod and reel combo is needed to fish these patterns effectively.<\/p>\n

My two preferred line setups are a weight forward floating line with an aggressive taper to help turn over heavy and bulky fly patterns as well as an intermediate line with 1.5 to 3 inch per second sink rates. The floating setup is what I use to cast big poppers, flippers, and foam frogs as well as sparsely tied clousers and brush flies when sight fishing in shallow water.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>

\"\"<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>
\"\"<\/div><\/div>
\n
\n\t

My intermediate line setup is preferred for larger lakes where we blind fish likely looking areas for cruising and feeding fish. I like to use unweighted baitfish imitations that mimic the bass natural prey items and my favorite fly pattern of late is an articulated game changer in a variety of colors. The game changer is very similar in shape and swimming action to that of a jerk bait, a very popular conventional bass lure. If you hear a bass angler talking about the \"jerk bait\" bite being hot right now, strap on a game changer and hold on tight.<\/p>\n

The most important thing is to get out there and start catching bass on a fly rod. When the heat of summer puts a halt to our Stillwater trout season you can always rely on these aggressive bucket mouths to be willing to eat a fly, and you always stand a chance to bump into a trophy specimen that will make any fisherman's day.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A species that is often overlooked by local flyfishing fanatics, I feel, is the Largemouth Bass. There is a contingent of trout hunters that see them as the enemy or a pest, especially when they share the habitat with our beloved stippled beauties. I’ll admit that on occasion, even I have cursed a green fish or two when it was not my intended quarry, more frustrated at my angling ability than the willing bass, I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":15637,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[97,22,23,57,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bass","category-fly","category-fly-fishing","category-fresh-water","category-rhuan-human"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.fishbook.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/Untitled-1.jpg","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3626,"url":"https:\/\/www.fishbook.co.za\/?p=3626","url_meta":{"origin":15634,"position":0},"title":"Nottingham Estates","author":"Craig Thomassen","date":"November 1, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"We were recently invited to go and fish on a private game and citrus farm in Southern Zimbabwe, not far from the town of Beit Bridge, called Nottingham estate. The farm covers 20 000 hectares of mostly wild bush, with plenty of wildlife, including elephants, hyena and leopard. The dam\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Mozambique"","block_context":{"text":"Mozambique","link":"https:\/\/www.fishbook.co.za\/?cat=65"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.fishbook.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/WFT_BLOG_Nov_15Nov18_OP.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.fishbook.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/WFT_BLOG_Nov_15Nov18_OP.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.fishbook.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/WFT_BLOG_Nov_15Nov18_OP.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.fishbook.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/WFT_BLOG_Nov_15Nov18_OP.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.fishbook.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/WFT_BLOG_Nov_15Nov18_OP.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":2498,"url":"https:\/\/www.fishbook.co.za\/?p=2498","url_meta":{"origin":15634,"position":1},"title":"Breaking The Surface","author":"Rhuan Human","date":"February 18, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"\u201cRainbow trout are predators with a varied diet, and will eat nearly anything they can grab. Their image as selective eaters is only a legend.\u201d (Albury Fisheries) 5 years ago trout was a foreign concept to me as a \u201cVaal\u201d angler. What I knew of the species I got from\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.fishbook.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/b2ap3_thumbnail_SAM_3901.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2756,"url":"https:\/\/www.fishbook.co.za\/?p=2756","url_meta":{"origin":15634,"position":2},"title":"Tiger Candy","author":"Gareth","date":"January 21, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"This is certainly not an opinion that every fly fisher will share, as flies are as personal to the waters in which you fish, as they are to the angler who ties them.\u00a0All my friends and anyone whose strapped on one of my creations will attest to the fact that\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.fishbook.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/b2ap3_thumbnail_Whistler.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2635,"url":"https:\/\/www.fishbook.co.za\/?p=2635","url_meta":{"origin":15634,"position":3},"title":"ICAST 2016","author":"Gareth","date":"July 19, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Larger than life is what this gathering of anglers truly is. \u00a0 You expect that in the U.S.A. everything is going to be bigger, from the sprawl of the city to the sheer numbers of visitors that descend on this tourism capital of Florida, by the account of my taxi\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.fishbook.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/b2ap3_thumbnail_General.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2844,"url":"https:\/\/www.fishbook.co.za\/?p=2844","url_meta":{"origin":15634,"position":4},"title":"Winter morning Estuary session","author":"Rhuan Human","date":"June 6, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Yesterday was shaping up to be a beautiful morning according to Windguru. I decided to give it a go, and despite having lunch arrangements, planned a quick morning estuary session with my mate Cliff. We left home at 4.30am and found ourselves on the water in our little Quintrex boat\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Fly"","block_context":{"text":"Fly","link":"https:\/\/www.fishbook.co.za\/?cat=22"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":14369,"url":"https:\/\/www.fishbook.co.za\/?p=14369","url_meta":{"origin":15634,"position":5},"title":"Matoya Humpback – Figuring it out","author":"Craig Thomassen","date":"December 15, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"While fishing at Zambia\u2019s Matoya Lodge recently, on the upper Zambezi river, the wind got up quite strongly and the tigers went off the bite. After some hours of fruitless casting at tigers that weren\u2019t interested in feeding I had to come up with another game plan to save myself\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.fishbook.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/Untitled-1-copy-scaled.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.fishbook.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/Untitled-1-copy-scaled.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.fishbook.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/Untitled-1-copy-scaled.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.fishbook.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/Untitled-1-copy-scaled.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.fishbook.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/Untitled-1-copy-scaled.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.fishbook.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/Untitled-1-copy-scaled.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa8sv9-44a","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fishbook.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fishbook.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fishbook.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishbook.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishbook.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15634"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishbook.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15634\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15638,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishbook.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15634\/revisions\/15638"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishbook.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fishbook.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishbook.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishbook.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}