January tying contest thread - and December's winner is:

[Billy]

First off thank you to all that participated in last months Sculpin contest found here:

December tying contest and November's winner is:

First off awesome turnout for the November baitfish contest which can be found here: https://pnwflyfishing.com/forum/index.php?threads/a-monthly-themed-contest.3379/ That was really cool to see👍 @troutpocket has selected....(drumroll please) @G_Smolt and his Doppelganger Fly! Congrats to G! He...

pnwflyfishing.com

A lot of great knowledge sharing and patterns shown off. That is what this contest is about!
@G_Smolt has selected @James St. Clair as this months winner with his incredible Sculpin pattern:
Congrats James!
Now the fun part. James will be the judge for this months contest and has selected subsurface bass as our category. It's time to get tying!
Post flies and discussion below!
Also if you haven't checked out the article done on last month's winning fly I highly recommend that:

https://pnwflyfishing.com/forum/index.php?ams/fly-tying-and-fishing-flies-the-doppelgänger.22

Thanks everyone!
Billy

 

[mcswny]

Congratulations @James St. Clair now we just need the SBS !

On a side note, @Billy @Josh @Evan B whenever i click a link to an article that's posted within a thread it immediately pulls up a new tab with said article with me logged out in light mode (god damn light mode is offensive ). I know this is probably the wrong place to address this, but I just keep forgetting and I clicked on Mark's article, and I don't want to forget.

 

[Evan B]

Congratulations @James St. Clair now we just need the SBS !

On a side note, @Billy @Josh @Evan B whenever i click a link to an article that's posted within a thread it immediately pulls up a new tab with said article with me logged out in light mode (god damn light mode is offensive ). I know this is probably the wrong place to address this, but I just keep forgetting and I clicked on Mark's article, and I don't want to forget.

Hmm it just did that for me too. That'll take investigating

 

[clarkman]

Oh, how did I miss that entry? Damn, that's nice @James St. Clair !!!!

 

[Billy]

Subsurface bass for me can be split into two catagories. Bass you see and bass you can't see.

The following applies for bass you can see. Bass have a sneaky way of showing up and swimming under your boat or swimming on by. During the spawn you can often stage near cover and have sighfishing opportunities for both spawning fish and just cruising fish with both smallmouth and largemouth.

This presentation is about stealth and natural looking flies for me. It's really hard to beat a simple blackish marabou leech: Cast just in front of the fish but close enough it can see it and let it slowly sink. The bass will inspect it. Sniff it and so on. This is cat and mouse stuff and you may get a few nibbles before a good chomp. Too aggressive and momma largemouth won't play. I'll do a second part to this post on subsurface bass you can't see when I have more time...Damn I love talking bass

 

[mcswny]

Subsurface bass for me can be split into two catagories. Bass you see and bass you can't see.

The following applies for bass you can see. Bass have a sneaky way of showing up and swimming under your boat or swimming on by. During the spawn you can often stage near cover and have sighfishing opportunities for both spawning fish and just cruising fish with both smallmouth and largemouth.

This presentation is about stealth and natural looking flies for me. It's really hard to beat a simple blackish marabou leech: View attachment 48271Cast just in front of the fish but close enough it can see it and let it slowly sink. The bass will inspect it. Sniff it and so on. This is cat and mouse stuff and you may get a few nibbles before a good chomp. Too aggressive and momma largemouth won't play. I'll do a second part to this post on subsurface bass you can't see when I have more time...Damn I love talking bass

Sign me up for Part Two

 

[FinLuver]

Hmm it just did that for me too. That'll take investigating

This happens when jumping around other tabs as well…

 

[Evan B]

This happens when jumping around other tabs as well…

Let's take this to its own thread

https://pnwflyfishing.com/forum/index.php?threads/thread-article-links-causing-a-log-out-issue.3873/

 

[clarkman]

For largemouth, which I never target, it's always something big....like this.

early tiger largemouth fly....

just take a peak at my tiger musky stuff, and you can see what my largemouth stuff looks like....

Sadly, much like my tiger musky flies though, I tend to tie as if I were a guide. Fast, efficient & shit that flat out works...hence this for my go-to Spring smallies...

This is fancy compared to what I usually throw...

 

[James St. Clair]

Thanks for the comments everyone! The Decmber Sculpin thread has some amazing patterns that i will definitely be incorporating into my arsenal! I will do a write up for my sculpin like @G_Smolt did for his Doppelganger, and will include an SBS as well.

I haven't fished a ton for bass on the fly...yet. last year was the first year I really gave it a go on my own, exploring waters out near a couple of vineyards we source grapes from (you know, go to work, take a lunch break to explore for bass, and then back to work). Part of the reason for this was that I signed my 14 year old son and I up for 25 on the fly through Reds fly shop last June, and I wanted to add bass (large and smallmouth) along with crappie and bluegill to our species list. I fished a few lakes with some pretty darned good success. Never found a Largemouth, but caught tons of Smallmouth, Crappie, and Bluegill. This was in May though, and as June came along, I noticed my catch rates go down. No more Crappie or bluegill, and only a Smallmouth here and there. I did notice a few fish on spawning beds, and the carp were spawning too I think. The day of the 25 on the fly my son and I headed out to these same lakes, and we got skunked. Not a bite from any warmwater species. We did head over to a trout lake and were able to catch a few there, but no warmwater species.

Since I didn't really have a bass box, I threw some flies I had tied for Redfish, some clousers, some low-fat Minnows from Fly Fish Food, and this bass thing I came up with, which is basically a gloater with the rabbit strip replaced with a rubber tail. The first day out the low-fat minnow and my bass thing were getting hammered pretty often. Then as it turned into June, those didn't work as well, and the other flies I tried didn't either. But, my selection was limited so I was hoping all you bass gurus out there would post some of your succesful subsurface patterns, and feel free to let us know how you fish them (i.e. sink tip, slow strip, fast strip, time of year, etc.). Looking to expand my bass box, and hopefully glean some info on how you all target bass subsurface!

Flies I have had success with are:

Bluegill Low Fat Minnow

www.flyfishfood.com

In both perch and bluegill colors. I had success with this on a sink tip stripping short and quick, but erratically. Fun, super easy tie. Before the spawn, I caught multiple Smallmouth that would puke out a few minnows when I brought them to hand, and those minnows looked identical to this low-fat minnow.



My bass tail thing in both tan/orange (in the middle left of the photo of the bunch of flies, and in fishes mouth) and olive/black.

I also fished these on a sink tip with long, slower strips. The fish would seem to almost always take it on the fall. Sometimes I wouldn't even get a strip in, they would just take it as it was sinking off of my cast. Another super easy tie, and the color combos are endless, I just have only tried these 2 so far.




This Bass Craw

This thing is really sweet, but you kind of need to dedicate a few hours to tying these. I make a homemade dubbing brush, and each fly uses half a brush (so basically 2 flies per brush). Then with all the trimming required, the fly is not a quick tie, but it sure has worked really well for me at one (private) lake for largemouth.

 

[Zak]

Thanks for the comments everyone! The Decmber Sculpin thread has some amazing patterns that i will definitely be incorporating into my arsenal! I will do a write up for my sculpin like @G_Smolt did for his Doppelganger, and will include an SBS as well.

I haven't fished a ton for bass on the fly...yet. last year was the first year I really gave it a go on my own, exploring waters out near a couple of vineyards we source grapes from (you know, go to work, take a lunch break to explore for bass, and then back to work). Part of the reason for this was that I signed my 14 year old son and I up for 25 on the fly through Reds fly shop last June, and I wanted to add bass (large and smallmouth) along with crappie and bluegill to our species list. I fished a few lakes with some pretty darned good success. Never found a Largemouth, but caught tons of Smallmouth, Crappie, and Bluegill. This was in May though, and as June came along, I noticed my catch rates go down. No more Crappie or bluegill, and only a Smallmouth here and there. I did notice a few fish on spawning beds, and the carp were spawning too I think. The day of the 25 on the fly my son and I headed out to these same lakes, and we got skunked. Not a bite from any warmwater species. We did head over to a trout lake and were able to catch a few there, but no warmwater species.

Since I didn't really have a bass box, I threw some flies I had tied for Redfish, some clousers, some low-fat Minnows from Fly Fish Food, and this bass thing I came up with, which is basically a gloater with the rabbit strip replaced with a rubber tail. The first day out the low-fat minnow and my bass thing were getting hammered pretty often. Then as it turned into June, those didn't work as well, and the other flies I tried didn't either. But, my selection was limited so I was hoping all you bass gurus out there would post some of your succesful subsurface patterns, and feel free to let us know how you fish them (i.e. sink tip, slow strip, fast strip, time of year, etc.). Looking to expand my bass box, and hopefully glean some info on how you all target bass subsurface!

Flies I have had success with are:

Bluegill Low Fat Minnow

www.flyfishfood.com

In both perch and bluegill colors. I had success with this on a sink tip stripping short and quick, but erratically. Fun, super easy tie. Before the spawn, I caught multiple Smallmouth that would puke out a few minnows when I brought them to hand, and those minnows looked identical to this low-fat minnow.
View attachment 48338
View attachment 48339

My bass tail thing in both tan/orange (in the middle left of the photo of the bunch of flies, and in fishes mouth) and olive/black.

I also fished these on a sink tip with long, slower strips. The fish would seem to almost always take it on the fall. Sometimes I wouldn't even get a strip in, they would just take it as it was sinking off of my cast. Another super easy tie, and the color combos are endless, I just have only tried these 2 so far.
View attachment 48347
View attachment 48349
View attachment 48334View attachment 48335

This Bass Craw

This thing is really sweet, but you kind of need to dedicate a few hours to tying these. I make a homemade dubbing brush, and each fly uses half a brush (so basically 2 flies per brush). Then with all the trimming required, the fly is not a quick tie, but it sure has worked really well for me at one (private) lake for largemouth.
View attachment 48340
View attachment 48342View attachment 48348

Great crawdad!

 

[Eastside]

Thanks for starting these threads Billy. There are some excellent fly tyers that participate and I have learned a lot of great new patterns.

 

[rattlesnake]

Double dipping from the what you’re tying thread but here’s my prespawn staples. Basically a modified circus peanut (which is a fly the didn’t really need to be reworked but alas here we are)

 

[flybill]

First off thank you to all that participated in last months Sculpin contest found here: https://www.pnwflyfishing.com/forum...r-tying-contest-and-novembers-winner-is.3613/
A lot of great knowledge sharing and patterns shown off. That is what this contest is about!
@G_Smolt has selected @James St. Clair as this months winner with his incredible Sculpin pattern:View attachment 48265
Congrats James!
Now the fun part. James will be the judge for this months contest and has selected subsurface bass as our category. It's time to get tying!
Post flies and discussion below!
Also if you haven't checked out the article done on last month's winning fly I highly recommend that: https://www.pnwflyfishing.com/forum/index.php?ams/fly-tying-and-fishing-flies-the-doppelgänger.22/
Thanks everyone!
Billy

Thats a sexy fly!! But why is it staring at me! And why isn't there some maroon or wine colored materials in it! Asking for a friend! Cheers all! Congrat's James!

 

[clarkman]

While he hasn't posted one in this thread yet, you may as well give this month to @Billy for one of his bad-ass poppers....just to get it over with....

 

[Northern]

While he hasn't posted one in this thread yet, you may as well give this month to @Billy for one of his bad-ass poppers....just to get it over with....

I'm not sure there's a sinking line heavy enough to turn one of @Billy's poppers into a subsurface fly!

 

[clarkman]

I'm not sure there's a sinking line heavy enough to turn one of @Billy's poppers into a subsurface fly!

well shit, I missed the "subsurface" part of the equation....regardless, I fear you may be right.

 

[mcswny]

I'm not sure there's a sinking line heavy enough to turn one of @Billy's poppers into a subsurface fly!

what about Mark's Halibut rig?

 

[troutpocket]

what about Mark's Halibut rig?

I think you’re onto something. Yup, with Mark’s rig @Billy ’s poppers might become a booby pattern for Alaska halibut

 

[mcswny]

I think you’re onto something. Yup, with Mark’s rig @Billy ’s poppers might become a booby pattern for Alaska halibut