Using fly rod for bass

roger wrote:
It's a 2 piece rod, 9 feet tall (6wt).

I picked up 3 Rebel poppers ($4 cricket type) at Sports Authority and
tried fishing this morning. I think that these poppers are a bit heavy
for my rig, but I did manage to catch a bunch of small crappies. (no
bass yet).

I'll try to mail order the ones you guys suggested and give it a shot.

A 6wt rod is fine for bass fishing. If the Rebel poppers are
bass plugs with a pair of treble hooks then yeah, even the real
light ones at 1/8 oz are gonna be hard to heave with a fly line.

For fly fishing you'll want poppers like this:

http://tinyurl.com/p9mr7

I'm not recommending Cabela's poppers by the way, I know nothing
about them, just using that web page for illustration.

Congrats on catching fish your first time out with a fly rod,
that's no mean feat !!

--
Ken Fortenberry

"roger" wrote in message
oups.com...
I live on a lake that is mostly stocked with bass. A few days ago I
picked up a fly rod combo from Cabellas that came with all sort of
flies with tiny hooks. I'm sure that these will not work with a fish
over one pound or so. What is commonly used for bass? (The largest one
I've seen on the lake was aroiund six pounds, but mostly they run in
2-3 pound range.)

Thanks
Roger

Don't let small hook size fool you. I've caught LM in the 5+ range and SM 4
lbs and bigger on hooks as small as size 12 and 14. I've landed 'bows to 24
inches and browns to 28" on size 24!

Many times I go out bluegill fishing with the flyrod, I get at least one
decent bass in the range 2 1/2 pound or up.

To actively pursue LM I do tend to throw larger stuff (streamers, clousers,
frog and crawfish patterns) and use an 8 wt, but the 5 wt and a size 12 Trim
Gim has caught a bunch for me, especially from late May through early July.

If you can find the April 2004 American Angler, it has a good article on
bass fishing with a fly rod called RULES OF ATTRACTION (starts on page 22)

Mark

Roger said:
I live on a lake that is mostly stocked with bass. A few days ago I
picked up a fly rod combo from Cabellas that came with all sort of
flies with tiny hooks. I'm sure that these will not work with a fish
over one pound or so.
@@@ Don't be too sure. Try them and see. If lots of people fish your lake,
go just at daybreak and 60 minutes before sunset.
Stop, look and listen and see what you can learn that is happening on your
lake. Do you see lots of dragon flies, damsel flies, crawfish, bees,
grasshoppers, "may flies" - what do you see that you can find a fly to
mimic? Do you see minnows jumping?

What is commonly used for bass?
@@@ Bass flies fall into two categories - those that float and those that
sink. Topwater often called "dry" flies are commonly made from feathers and
animal hair that floats like deer and elk and lighter than water materials
that float like foam, cork and balsa wood. Topwater flies are fished with
floating fly lines, What kind is yours?

Underwater flies often called streamers or "wet" flies are commonly made of
hair, feather and other materials that normally sink.
Fly fishermen commonly help wet flies sink down to bass by using sinking fly
lines and or adding weight to the streamer.

A lot of good patterns have already been posted here and the web searches
will give you many more. Just find out if they are floating or sinking
patterns and fly fish them with the appropriate line. FWIW during the many,
many discussions of whether floating bass flies or sinking bass flies are
"BEST", no doubt many, many gallons of adult beverages have been consumed
g

(The largest one
I've seen on the lake was aroiund six pounds, but mostly they run in
2-3 pound range.)
@@@ That sounds typical for a normal ater body except there should be lots
of bass fingerlings, 6-8 inchers and 12 inchers also depending upoin the
time of year. If you do not ever see any baby bass, maybe they are being
easten by the larger bass. Are the bass fat or skinny or look normal?

This news group has many, many experienced bass fishermen. They would
probably answer any bass questions you have in detail. For fly fishing the
Rec.Outdoors.Fishing.Fly. group probably could provide such fly fishing
detail as you need.

In either event, Good Luck!

John