Fly Fishing For Bass

Check out the pictures here in the first post in the thread:

http://www.yumabassman.com/cgi-bin/y...m=11243373 73

Never mind the rest of the content.

Anyway, that's the Gila River about 40 miles west of Yuma. Typically this
stretch of river would be bone dry or only have a few scattered stagnant
pockets. This spring it had bank to bank flood levels. It is now dropping
down to a trickle with new cuts and holes washed out by the spring floods.
This happens every decade or so. Soemtimes more often. This time a little
longer. Last flood level was in 1993.

A lot of fish get washed down from big reservoirs upstream. As the water
receeds bait fish and game fish get trapped in the deeper cuts, pockets, and
pools. This is warm water through the Sonoran desert in southwest Arizona.
In other words all warm water. There will be largemouth, maybe a few
smallmouth, and some channel cats. Ther might even be some crappie or good
sunfish.

Many many years ago I walked miles and miles of this river as a kid and as a
teenager. I caught a lot of bass in conditions similar to these. After
thinking about it I realized this is the first place I ever caught a fish on
a fly. I had a popping bug tied onto the end of my line on a spinning rod.
As I circled a small pool I held my rod out over the water so I wouldn't get
it tangled in the overhanging brush. A little 10" largemouth jumped more
than a foot out of the water to take my bug.

Now as I looked this area over I realized it might be ideal to do a little
fly casting. Not so much because I think its the best way to catch fish
here. In fact I know its not. A rubber worm worked slow from the deep cuts
up onto the shallow beaches will produce more fish than anything in these
conditions. I was thinking more that with the open areas around the the
water in this particular area it would be a good place to get some
experience fly casting. I've never had the opportunity to cast flies in
such and open area before. I always found myself in tree lined narrow
creeks.

Now I just need to figure out what flies would give me the best chance of
producing here. Hmmmmm,,,,, I figure some large popping bugs early in the
morning, but later in the day I am thinking streamers to match the size of
any bait fish I can find. Not sure what might mimic that slowly dragged
rubber worm. Maybe rig a small rubber grub on a tiny jig head? Heck, maybe
a full size rubber worm. I recall my dad used to fish night crawlers on fly
tackle in Oak Creek. Why not a rubber worm if I had a rod and line heavy
enough to cast it.

When I started snapping these pictures I didn't even think of fly fishing
just that it looked like a great chance for a bank pounder to walk some
potentially productive waters.


--
Bob La Londe

Win a Tackle Pack
Jig Fishing - Tips and Techniques Contest
Courtesy of Siebler Custom Baits
http://www.YumaBassMan.com

"Bob La Londe" wrote in message

Anyway, that's the Gila River about 40 miles west of Yuma.

Oops. Meant to say 40 miles East of Yuma.


--
Bob La Londe

Win a Tackle Pack
Jig Fishing - Tips and Techniques Contest
Courtesy of Siebler Custom Baits
http://www.YumaBassMan.com

"Bob La Londe" wrote in message
...
Check out the pictures here in the first post in the thread:

http://www.yumabassman.com/cgi-bin/y...m=11243373 73

Balance snipped

Thanks Bob for sharing! You are going to have fun.

Suggest a floating line with small to medium popping bugs for trapped
bluegill and small bass. They should be hungry any time of day and probably
low fishing pressure, right? Grasshopper and wasp patterns will also catch
trapped trout, if any. Size 3/8"
Texas Bullfrogs will also work on anything in the hole.

Since you know the river, IMHO I'd use a ATV to ride to the holes - heck
with walking!

Give us a fishing report and good luck!
John

"Bob La Londe" wrote in message
...
Check out the pictures here in the first post in the thread:

http://www.yumabassman.com/cgi-bin/y...m=11243373 73

Balance snipped

I'm not as big on popping bugs for bass as I used to be. Muddlers have
worked particularly well for me, either on the surface or a few feet down
depending on where the bass are feeding. My mainstays for bass are
wooly-buggers, zonkers and leeches where I have to worry about keeping the
fly from getting too far down into coon-tail or hydrilla and bead-headed,
palmer-hackled wets in more open water. As for colors, sometimes matching
the naturals works best and other times there's no substitute for the
attractor colors that are the stand-bys for the plug and spinner-bait crowd.

I've been surprised over the last year or so about just how many times
fly-fishing has proven more effective for bass than casting tackle,
particularly in Spring and early Summer. There have been several places
where people stopped to talk to us, shaking their heads, because they've
worked the hell out of that stretch of water and it just wasn't worth the
trouble and we just shrugged our shoulders, because the "useless" water sure
worked for us and our fly-rods, producing dependable action with decent
size-fish and fairly regular encounters with fish up to four or five pounds
between dinner and dark.

Two other fly suggestions come to me... for serious rubber-worm
conditions--a rabbit-strip fly tied to ride hook upside down (your choice if
it's worth the trouble to tie-on a weedguard) and either a cone-head or
dumbell eyes will get you the same style action. Also, early and late in
the season, when I'm really looking for sunfish, it's surprising how many
times standard nymphs like pheasant tails and hare's ears get intercepted by
those pesky largemouths. A couple months back, I was on a small pond that I
didn't think had any bass in it, just tossing nymphs with a 4-weight for
warmouths, when Mr. Bass sucked the hare's ear down, took two jumps that put
his eyes a good 3 feet clear of the water and a few minutes later
demonstrated that even in fluorocarbon, a 5X tippet is no match for a 4-lb
or so bass who knows how to use his live-oak roots.

Cheers,
Doc

"John" wrote in message
...

Since you know the river, IMHO I'd use a ATV to ride to the holes - heck
with walking!


You know I was chatting on yahoo messenger with one of my regular fishing
buddies about this last night. I considered an ATV, and then I decided I'ld
rather float my gear in a kayak or canoe and not leave knobby tire tracks
all over the place. That's funny too since I used to ride an ATV everywhere
when I was a teenager.


--
Bob La Londe

Win a Tackle Pack
Jig Fishing - Tips and Techniques Contest
Courtesy of Siebler Custom Baits
http://www.YumaBassMan.com

"Doc Elder" wrote in message
nk.net...

"Bob La Londe" wrote in message
...
Check out the pictures here in the first post in the thread:

http://www.yumabassman.com/cgi-bin/y...m=11243373 73

Balance snipped

I'm not as big on popping bugs for bass as I used to be. Muddlers have
worked particularly well for me, either on the surface or a few feet down
depending on where the bass are feeding. My mainstays for bass are
wooly-buggers, zonkers and leeches where I have to worry about keeping the
fly from getting too far down into coon-tail or hydrilla and bead-headed,
palmer-hackled wets in more open water. As for colors, sometimes matching
the naturals works best and other times there's no substitute for the
attractor colors that are the stand-bys for the plug and spinner-bait
crowd.

I've been surprised over the last year or so about just how many times
fly-fishing has proven more effective for bass than casting tackle,
particularly in Spring and early Summer. There have been several places
where people stopped to talk to us, shaking their heads, because they've
worked the hell out of that stretch of water and it just wasn't worth the
trouble and we just shrugged our shoulders, because the "useless" water
sure worked for us and our fly-rods, producing dependable action with
decent size-fish and fairly regular encounters with fish up to four or
five pounds between dinner and dark.

Two other fly suggestions come to me... for serious rubber-worm
conditions--a rabbit-strip fly tied to ride hook upside down (your choice
if it's worth the trouble to tie-on a weedguard) and either a cone-head or
dumbell eyes will get you the same style action. Also, early and late in
the season, when I'm really looking for sunfish, it's surprising how many
times standard nymphs like pheasant tails and hare's ears get intercepted
by those pesky largemouths. A couple months back, I was on a small pond
that I didn't think had any bass in it, just tossing nymphs with a
4-weight for warmouths, when Mr. Bass sucked the hare's ear down, took two
jumps that put his eyes a good 3 feet clear of the water and a few minutes
later demonstrated that even in fluorocarbon, a 5X tippet is no match for
a 4-lb or so bass who knows how to use his live-oak roots.

Cheers,
Doc

Interestign choice of flies. Not having the patience or materials to tie my
own, and knowing the window of opportunity may be fairly short I figured to
order a couple of fly bass fly kits like these.

http://www.yumabassman.com/cgi-bin/y...num=1124295790


--
Bob La Londe

Win a Tackle Pack
Jig Fishing - Tips and Techniques Contest
Courtesy of Siebler Custom Baits
http://www.YumaBassMan.com

Interestign choice of flies. Not having the patience or materials to tie
my own, and knowing the window of opportunity may be fairly short I
figured to order a couple of fly bass fly kits like these.

http://www.yumabassman.com/cgi-bin/y...num=1124295790


--
Bob La Londe

Bob,
Looks like a pretty useful assortment. Have fun with them bass.

-Doc

"Bob La Londe" wrote in message
...
"John" wrote in message
...

Since you know the river, IMHO I'd use a ATV to ride to the holes - heck
with walking!


You know I was chatting on yahoo messenger with one of my regular fishing
buddies about this last night. I considered an ATV, and then I decided
I'ld rather float my gear in a kayak or canoe and not leave knobby tire
tracks all over the place. That's funny too since I used to ride an ATV
everywhere when I was a teenager.

Bob sez the above and I just gotta retort.

Sorry I was guessing that your river was falling fast down to holes. I've
got out of boats and drug them over shoals and ported them from fishing hole
to hole and just thought it'd be easier on your feet to ride. I was
guessing that you would be mostly riding on gravel bars and cobble stones
which would not add permanent tracks. Plus if there are as many years
between floods as in the past, their will be many ATV tracks up and down the
river.

I haven't fished your river but in August some rivers I've fished dried up
to a trickle and except for holes with springs most fishing spots got very
very weedy and algae grown. If this is your case forget fly fishing with
any underwater flies or you'll be spending wasted fishing time after every
cast removing all the green goop from the fly. Floating grasshoppers,
popping bugs and wasps will be hard enough to keep clean g

However you get there and whatever you use, good luck and give us a fishing
report.
John