Willi,
My whole point and logic is this, A bait fisher will usally kill an
artificial angler on any given day. The flyfisher imitates the natural
better than most hardware. I learned to flyfish trout, since I moved to
florida I began to flyfish bass. I have fished many times with friends
who are spin and baitcasters, and pulled them in equal to or better than
a hardware angler. I have had my share of bad days. If I always was
better than everyone else I would be on the tournament trail fishing
ultra light weighted flies and streamers. The lesson that I learned was
that you I had to go back to my roots and use the techniques of dry fly
and wet fly that I used in Montana, but the flies and poppers of LM Bass
anglers in Florida and not try to imitate the gearhead. This has been
real hard for me because most of sources for bass fishermen is written
from a gearhead perspective. I am also compelled to bass fish as I read
in magazines and see on television which are predominately hardware
fishermen throwing a fly rod. I never thought of floating a popper like
a dry fly using the waves the same way current carries a dry fly. John
Lindsey (see his post on ROFF) and I have had several conversations and
he recognized and made me realize what I was doing wrong and tonight I
just nailed one of my biggest pond bass (appox 3 acre) close to 5
pounds. Between him and other posters like big dale and Peter charles I
returned to my flyfishing roots and it worked. To be a flyrod basser
we really need to leave baitcasting techniques behind us and use good
flyfish tactics with the long rod. A wormfishermen and a crankbait
fishermen use two entirely different presentations, retrieves, and
equipment, why are we trying to use our equipment to mimic their
technique when they can't even do it. I can't answer why the fish were
hitting buzzbait and leaving your fly. Where you fishing a popper or a
mouse? slow or fast? anything could have been the reason were you
fishing close to him or after he left. Maybe you were just having a bad
day, it happens. Just like the old saying: If you caught a fish with
every cast they would call it catching.

Steve
Sebring, FL