TR: Largemouth Bass at a Secret Spot

Finally got a buddy of mine to show me his favorite Largemouth Bass
hangout. He's been going there for a few years with a buddy of HIS, so
he never really felt that it was proper to share the secret with
someone else, but he got clearance from his friend, so yesterday Kevin
and I loaded up my rental truck, tossed the canoe on the roof and
headed out to "X Pond".

The short of it is that, from 1pm until about 9pm, we slayed them. Best
estimates were that we got about 40-50 fish, 'getting' them meaning
having complete control and releasing them. If you want to count the
long- and short-distance releases, we got about twice that. Kevin was
using spincast gear with a clever rubber worm hookup on the business
end, I was splitting my time between spincast and fly fishing gear. I'm
pleased to report that I far prefered the fly gear, and that I caught
about twice as many bass on fly gear than spin. We got about the same
number of fish each overall.

Some firsts for me on this trip: I think fishing for bass from a canoe
far excels fishing from a big bass boat with a trolling motor. We could
easily get deeper into the weeds and into much tighter little nooks
than the few big boats that were there, and we could move around
through the weeds effortlessly, while the trolling boats had to
backtrack out to the clear water once they got deep in. I was standing
and flycasting all afternoon, with Kevin sitting in the bow tossing
plastic, and (OB: Flyfishing from a Canoe thread) it was absolutely no
problem keeping balanced or tossing flies.

Since Largemouth are notorious for diving into the weeds and getting
tangled in the grasses, I used a steel leader. I figured it would keep
my tippet from getting tangled, and reduce the number of breakoffs. It
was a good decision, as I did not have a single fish break off the
whole day. I was using the steel leader, tied with a UniKnot to the
butt end of a 4X tapered leader with about 2 feet left on it. No
surgeons knots, no taper. It was chuck and go. I did discover that the
leader does not turn over quite as nicely as mono (duh), and after a
few casts the tippet got a curl to it which, if it was in the wrong
direction, impeded the action of the fly.

For flies, I used two: a mouse pattern and a swimming frog pattern.
Both had plastic weedguards over the hooks (BIG hooks, like 3/0 or
something), and let me tell you, those weedguards are a real treat. I
could cast right into the middle of the lily pads, and retrieve without
any snags or tangles. Right through the messiest stuff, which was good
because thats where the big boys were.

I found that the mouse pattern did not elicit ANY responses at all,
while the swimming frog got hits almost instantly. I had a couple of
frogs; one had a red patch on its belly, the other was all white, and
there was a significant improvement with the all-white one. Don't know
why, but it was noticeable.

I tried several different retrieves. I figured a swimming frog would
make short kicks, so I tried mending with little 2-inch tugs. I also
tried some sharp yanks, where the frog would make a loud splash between
'kicks'. However, I got the most strikes, by far, when I just retrieved
steadily and did not put too much effort into it at all. Or so I think,
because most of the strikes were within a few seconds of the frog
hitting the water.

I got the biggest fish of the day on the fly; about 4 pounds, and it
was a classic catch. I tossed the frog right onto a patch of lily pads,
then tugged him into an open patch of water between two pad patches.
The Bass hit it like a truck, and dove for the weeds. I found that the
fly rod was much better at keeping the fish off the bottom than the
spin rod, I think its because the fly rod had more flex and could exert
pressure more consistently, but in any case, like the other fish, he
fought for a few minutes, then allowed himself to get dragged in to be
released.

I think fishing floating frogs for Largemouth is more fun than casting
dries to rising trout. You get the same thrill of seeing the fish hit,
and the same fun of tossing a nice long cast to a tiny target and
seeing it land on the nail, but you get many more fish and they are
HUGE. All in all, a good time was had by all (except the fish), and
I'll be headed back to X Pond again before I leave these environs.

--riverman