When a largemouth explodes on a fly or popper on the surface of the water, you will know it. If your not paying attention and don’t see it strike, you will probably be able to hear it. They aren’t shy about eating flies on the surface. Fly fishing for largemouth bass can bring chills up you spine. It is as exciting as freshwater fishing gets. They don’t usually leave a rise ring, they leave a wake. As fly fishing for most other species of fish, catching a bass feeding on the surface is the most exciting.
f your fishing a sub-surface largemouth bass fly, you will still most likely not have any trouble detecting the strike. If your not paying much attention to what is going on, you may get the rod yanked out of your hands. Don’t laugh, that has happened to more than one fly angler fishing for largemouth bass.
Largemouth bass eat just about anything in the water in which they live small enough to fit in their mouth. Frogs, mice, baitfish, minnows, crayfish, snakes, nymphs, worms, leeches and many other things. They live in a variety of warm water habitats, including lowland lakes and reservoirs, deep, clear water lakes and reservoirs, farm ponds, rivers, creeks and other types of water.
If a mouse or a field rat gets into the water with a bass it is going to get eaten. Our Perfect Fly mice and rat imitations are proven patterns that catch bass from ponds, shallow, slow moving rivers, and lakes wherever bass exist. The mouse fly works best cast around lily pads, hydrilla and in grass beds. Wherever there’s lots of vegetation near water there are mice that need a drink of water.
Frogs are one of the preferred foods of the largemouth bass. Frog flies perform wherever frogs and bass exist in the same environment. Our Perfect Fly Frog Flies come in poppers, sliders and diving patterns. They will catch bass from top to the bottom.
The most common food for largemouth bass are minnows and baitfish. They represent the majority of the bass’s diet. Bass eat minnows, chubs, shiners, shad, bream, sunfish and many other species of small fish. Our Perfect Fly minnow and baitfish imitations display a lot of real life movement by the materials they are made of.
Just like the smallmouth, largemouth bass love crayfish. In many northern streams and lakes, crayfish represent the main food item for the largemouth bass. There are several Perfect Fly Crayfish flies that are great bass flies. Crayfish flies will catch largemouth bass from near the surface to the bottom.
An overlooked food item of the largemouth are insects and nymphs, especially the Hellgrammite. They will eat grasshoppers, crickets, damselflies and many other types of insects. We have several Perfect Fly bass flies that imitate insects.
Attractor flies, such as the Stealth Bomber, will catch largemouth. It is a very effective fly for bass wherever and whenever they are in shallow water.
All Largemouth Bass flies should be presented as close to cover as possible. Largemouth are predators that like to hide and attack their prey. Rocks, all types of aquatic vegetation, logs, stumps, many other types of cover provide places for the bass to hide. You should select the flies you use to catch them with the particular type of cover that’s most available in the water you are fishing in mind. The type of cover, along with the depths of water the fish may be feeding in at the time you are fishing, are two very important factors to consider in selecting flies for largemouth bass.
Copyright James Marsh 2013