On Jun 13, 6:51 pm, "Lee" wrote:
anyone have any suggestions on bass flies? I've tried the poppers with
rubber legs, but all I catch are panfish.

One of the funnest aspects of bassing with a fly is that bass are just
plain opportunistic and will eat all kinds of available forage
including frogs, snakes, birds, bugs - especially dragon and
damselflies and other fish, crawfish, etc. Imitations of any of these
will work at one time or another. It is often necessary to fish a
little larger imitation to keep the bluegills off, but, a good size
bass will still hammer a small bug at times so it pays to be dilligent
with whatever you're chucking. As for a specific bug to try I'd
suggest a marabou damsel nymph with bead eyes, some bright, some dark,
in yellow, black, chartreuse, and reddish brown size 8 and 10 on 2X or
3X length hooks. I'm not a fan of olive but not for any good reason
except that it looks like moss to me. One other aspect of poppers is
that, when you make them yourself, you have a wide variety and they're
just plain fun when the bass are on 'em so I often tie a score or more
balsa/epoxy poppers in the spring. I use small binder clips as
individual clamps for gluing to hook to the body, painting the body,
etc. before finishing with feather and fur and rubber legs (though I
often omit these on the smaller sizes). Finish them with some Hard-
Head. Lots of fun at the vise. Another fly that I carry and really
enjoy fishing are small bluegill imitations, especially the 'neerly
live' series like these: http://members.ij.net/danscustomflys...yLivePage.html,
awesome pattern.

Your pal,

Halfordian Golfer