What length are your bass flies?

[McFish]

Bass season is here soon, and I have enforced time to prepare. I generally fish smaller patterns early season,up to 5 to 7 inch long late in the year. Question is, how long (not hook size, how many inches long) are your best bass flies? Patterns? Do you find big fly- big fish holds?

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

What kind of bass?

[McFish]

What kind of bass?

I was mostly thinking largemouth; but tell me what length and what subspecies. Stripers, LM, SM, spots

[JasonB]

I’m curious as well. I had some good success recently on our local pond with a 3” clouser type fly for LMB, but I’m not sure if a bigger or smaller pattern would have fared any different. I have fished very little for bass, but it looks like I’m going to be doing a lot more of it for a while, so I’m hoping to learn more.

[McFish]

Jason; I've been researching for about 6 months. One interesting site is called FishNDave.com. He keeps good records; most of his large fish (he defines large as over 18 inches) are on flies 3.5 inches to 6 inches. BUT he catches fish in Oct/Nov and Mar on size 8-10 jigs/flies. I have caught larger fish, but less action,when fishing flies over 4 inches. No surprise. I've seen a study that says the most frequency of strikes come on lures (not strictly flies) for 3.5 to 4 inches. I'm hoping for more feedback from strictly fly fisher on fly length.

[JasonB]

Jason; I've been researching for about 6 months. One interesting site is called FishNDave.com. He keeps good records; most of his large fish (he defines large as over 18 inches) are on flies 3.5 inches to 6 inches. BUT he catches fish in Oct/Nov and Mar on size 8-10 jigs/flies. I have caught larger fish, but less action,when fishing flies over 4 inches. No surprise. I've seen a study that says the most frequency of strikes come on lures (not strictly flies) for 3.5 to 4 inches. I'm hoping for more feedback from strictly fly fisher on fly length.

All of that makes basic sense. I was sort of wondering if there would be variance by location, depending on size of baitfish and other food sources. But maybe that’s thinking too much like a trout angler? It seems like bass will pretty much eat whatever they want, when they want it; so maybe it’s all a moot point for larger fish?
I’m heading out to test a few patterns this afternoon, so maybe I’ll have some feedback.
JB

[McFish]

I think bass key on available bait. The hardware guys in San Diego lakes throw 12 inch trout lures in winter when rainbows are released, but by July they don't fish them much as few planters are still around. Any leftover rainbows would be very deep by July. Likewise on Clear lake, the hitch are a big bait that are usually fished seasonally. My biggest bass on Clear Lake have come in March/April on 2 inch fly when baitfish are small and insects don't have as much cover in weeds. Later in year bigger flies sem to work better on bigger fish

[Jcolin]

As far as largemouth go, i only started hooking decent siZed ones when i greatly increased the size of my flies...ive had a lot more smallies and stripers on 3-4 inch clousers, but only really small largemouth so far on such small flies. When i started fishing longer meaty flies, up to 7-8 inches long, i hooked bigger largemouth. Also, some people on here would look down on me for doing this, but the largest LMB ive ever hooked were caught on soft plastics (worms and mostly lizards during the spawn) fished on a sinking fly line. I rarely fish sub surface for bass anymore, 99% of the time i throw a popper on a floating line before and after work. Ive only hooked a couple big bass on top, but missed one last season around 5 lbs, so it is possible, but most of the ones i get on the popper are 1-3 lbs. its an absolute blast though hooking up to 20-30 fish in an evening session on top water in june. I do fish the largest poppers i can find for LMB, and considerably smaller ones for smallmouth

[lee s.]

"I was sort of wondering if there would be variance by location, depending on size of baitfish and other food sources. But maybe that’s thinking too much like a trout angler?"
Jason,
I thought this was an absolute for ALL anglers. Or at least their most advantageous tool!
We have consistently caught some fine LM's (5+lbs) on #8 dark woolly buggers (think damsel nymph) in the spring when they were being cold and lazy?
After giving a crappie fisherman one of our 1"-1 1/2" bugs at Clearlake last spring we watched him land a 13# bass from under the dock.
Our thoughts are that it is more "what your target is accustomed to seeing at the time" and then throwing in how opportunistic your target is known to be. Mood (water temp and spawn) too. Way too much thinking for sure for me.
We have found 7"-9" bugs eliminate many dinks, but we wonder if some 8" dinks weren't more horny than hungry.
.....lee s.

[McFish]

Lee; I was hoping to get together with you for a Clear Lake crappie trip, but the bug got in the way. Let's see what we can do when things open up again.

[lee s.]

You bet Mike....

[Ryan]

Good question McFish, my favorite go to topwater fly is 4", my go to clouser is around 4", and my float n flies are about 2.5".

Personally, I'm not a huge proponent in the big fly = big fish. There is something to it for sure. However I am more of a believer in catching high numbers of bass on average sized flies, to eventually find bigger fish. This gets me dialed on where fish are holding, what they're eating, what kind of retrieve they want, etc. Then once I'm totally dialed with all this information, a larger one should come at one point in the day.

But everything varies from fishery to fishery no doubt. The Delta is a great example of awesome "big fly" water. I'm sure the same can be said for Clear Lake, however I have found 100% of my luck there to be on smaller flies, being float n flies, and clousers 2" & 4". Hope this helps.