bigger flies

Posted: Sat Mar 27, 2010 8:44 pm

read on another forum about big flies .normal rule of thumb is small flies start of season bigger flies end of season.bigger fish around best part of season,so why not use big flies ,anything from 6-9 inches from the start.only asking cause just spent the winter months tyin flies for start of season all smallish 2inch.going to start tying some bigger flies.
of cause for the british bone fish small flies.
ive tied some nice ptn,red tag and bloodworm for the mullet.
happy hunting and tight lines mick

Posted: Sat Mar 27, 2010 9:01 pm

I'm sticking with 'small flies' Mick for four good reasons.
1 - My tying skills are pretty limited.
2 - My casting is not the best and small aerodynamic flies can only help.
3 - I've read reports of experiments carried out involving different sizes of flies in relation to size of Bass (Atlantic, sea or otherwise) caught and the conclusion was that size doesn't matter (possibly only male Bass took part in the trial).
4 - Most importantly, Austen Goldsmith of UK Salt Water Flies chose a size four Sparse DNA Clouser as his desert island fly, based on its incredible fish catching ability. That's a good enough reason for me.

Having said that, fly tying is a very enjoyable and relaxing pass time and I wish that I had the ability to tie some of the beautiful, larger flies posted on the forums.

Posted: Sat Mar 27, 2010 11:26 pm

seeing the flies posted on other forums and the response from fellow tyers i think i will agree,wish i could tie like them .

Posted: Sun Mar 28, 2010 11:21 am

Big flies are no more diffecult to tie than small flies IMO. I tied this one the other week, using the biggest eye from Rich, it's 11 inches long suprise

I've tied others upto 9 inches . I can always give it a hair cut if it doesn't work winking

As for casting, just slow everything down to allow everything to straighten out.
Cheers Dave

Regular Joined: Jul 26, 2009 Posts: 343 Location: Surrey

Try tying trout flies for fiddliness!
I wouldn't have thought big flies were any more difficult to tie, except perhaps for those epoxy ones, keeping the larger blob of glue from dropping as it sets.

Heavy rather than large flies present the worst casting problems in my experience - those leaded eyes. I've had them hit me in the back before today - pretty painful. The way to deal with these is to hang your backcast out to the side of you, then bring the forward cast through closer to the vertical (but not actually vertical - best err of the safe side).

BTW, could someone kindly post a bloodworm pattern. I fancy trying for the mullet this year - I always see far more of those than bass.

Posted: Sun Mar 28, 2010 4:18 pm

An interesting debate, and one i have been giving a fair bit of consideration to for the coming season.

I believe there is an element of 'Horses for Courses' when talking about what size of fly to present in any given situation. Much of last year i tried to 'Match the Hatch' and use a fly that corresponded to the size of baitfish the Bass were feeding on at the time, this was borne out of knowing how fish can become preoccupied with certain types or size of food items at certain times of the year (and hoping a bigger fish came along). Whether this applies to all year classes within a species is open to discussion of course. Most of the fish i was fishing for last season were all of a similar year class, ( up to 3lb), and were in large shoals, any larger fish (over 3lb say) seemed to be in smaller groups and the very biggest fish, (5lb plus) seemed to be much more individualistic in nature. Indeed whenever one of us caught a better fish it was invaribly when there were no numbers of fish apparent on a given session.

There is a school of thought, and this is one that i subscribe to, that says, the bigger and older, and possibly wiser the fish is, the less likely it is to want to expend valuable energy chasing very small food items around, it will know from experience that if it sits in the right place during the right state of tide then a more worthy and less energy costly meal will present itself. A generalisation maybe, as there will be other situations where bigger fish will be present, such as those feeding on launce on offshore sandbanks, (and Launce are a decent sized meal ), to which the Boat angler has access, but i am looking at this from a shore anglers point of view, where we must use what situations we have avilable to us, such as when Schoolies are driving Whitebait shoals inshore, and there may be the chance that their bigger bretheren are predating on their smaller brothers and sisters. Or often lone fish will patrol the shoreline looking for washed in scraps of food, which is why so many big fish are often caught by bait anglers casting into the 'gutter'.

In these situations a larger fly, to my mind, fished off to the side of a large shoal of fry feeding Schoolies, or retrieved close to the shoreline, or dead drifted in the current past an obvious feature, is the way to increase your chances of a bigger fish, at the trade off of catching larger numbers of smaller fish of course.

I have seen video's and pictures of big American 'Stripers' and such like 'fry' feeding and i think anyone looking at this in the U.K might get a false impression from this. For one thing the fish stocks as we know are far better managed than ours and therefore there are far greater numbers of year classes making it to bigger sizes, plus they are a bigger species of Bass than our European Bass anyway, additionally, there is a far greater abundance of Baitfish available too, ( oh how i wish it were like that here..), and therefore the fish have no problems with expending energy chasing the shoals as the reward is there to be had.

Because of these considerations, the average size of the flies i have been tying has gone up a few sizes this year, not necessarily in length but more in trying to create a larger, deeper profile to the body, without including too much extra material. As Colin says the bigger the fly the more difficult it becomes to cast, so a compromise must be reached between length and bulk if the fly is to remain viable from a casting point of view and giving the fish the impression of a decent and worthy meal.

The two Baitfish patterns are prototypes, tied Hollow style, But all are tied on 1/0 hooks and are around 4-5 inches long.

Posted: Sun Mar 28, 2010 5:23 pm

well put chris,with some good points of view.i will go away trying to put some of those points into pratice.
tightlines mick.

Posted: Sun Mar 28, 2010 6:03 pm

Iknowagoodplaice wrote:

Try tying trout flies for fiddliness!
I wouldn't have thought big flies were any more difficult to tie, except perhaps for those epoxy ones, keeping the larger blob of glue from dropping as it sets.

Heavy rather than large flies present the worst casting problems in my experience - those leaded eyes. I've had them hit me in the back before today - pretty painful. The way to deal with these is to hang your backcast out to the side of you, then bring the forward cast through closer to the vertical (but not actually vertical - best err of the safe side).

BTW, could someone kindly post a bloodworm pattern. I fancy trying for the mullet this year - I always see far more of those than bass.

I tie Caenis patterns down to size 24.....That's fiddly....I'd post a pic but I've no idea how to photograph something that small.

As for bloodworm patterns, I think Col (Mulletfly) posted one, if not look up "Apps Bloodworm" on Google. If you still have no joy give me a shout and I'll post one.

Posted: Sun Mar 28, 2010 6:54 pm

Nice looking flies Chris.
My experience echoes your thoughts on larger, solitary Bass.
Try fishing the ends of the groynes at Hayling or Lee at dawn during August for the chance of a big fella from the shore.
Perhaps a boat gives more opportunity. When fishing with Justin Anwyl a couple of years ago we came across a massive shoal of schoolies feeding hard. Justin gave me the choice of fish-a-cast-fun with the schoolies or putting on a slightly larger fly (as opposed to a size 6 Clouser) to sink through the shoal to the larger fish lying below.
Another approach which may give success is to fish 100m behind a shoal of feeding Mackerel, as again larger Bass may be picking up an easy meal.

Hi Iknowagoodplaice.
Here's a link to a photo of some Bloodworms.
Easily tied on a size 10 standard trout hook.
Materials are:- Red thread, red flexi-floss, red holo tinsel (optional), red varnish to coat the body.

http://www.sea-fishing.org/ftopict-24039.html

Regular Joined: Jul 26, 2009 Posts: 343 Location: Surrey

Found it, thanks tbt. Need some flexifloss now.

Posted: Sun Mar 28, 2010 7:36 pm

Thanks Colin, i've really got into tying now and enjoy it a lot.

As for the bigger Bass i'll certainly be putting much of the above into practice this year and experimenting a lot more to find out if my theories are correct.

So what did you do with Justin then, fish a cast fun or go for the biggies?!

Posted: Sun Mar 28, 2010 7:52 pm

Im pairing some of these up with a Di5 line.2/0 hooks
Big and deep just as mother nature intended.
Sorry for picture quality but thats about as macro as i get on a Sunday night.

Posted: Mon Mar 29, 2010 8:33 am

Jolly nice Flatwings Simon, i like the colour too, much more applicable scheme for our U.K fish.

Posted: Mon Mar 29, 2010 6:46 pm

WIGHTFISH wrote:

Thanks Colin, i've really got into tying now and enjoy it a lot.

As for the bigger Bass i'll certainly be putting much of the above into practice this year and experimenting a lot more to find out if my theories are correct.

So what did you do with Justin then, fish a cast fun or go for the biggies?!

Slightly ashamed to say that I went for the fish-a-cast Chris and loved it. Eventually hooked a bigger one which sulked underneath the boat for a while until I tried to bully it to the surface and pulled the hook in the process. Patience is a virtue.
Have to admit that I would find it equally difficult to ignore a shoal of rampaging Macks. Need to get it out my system first.

Posted: Mon Mar 29, 2010 8:26 pm

I would have done the same Colin, after all fun is what it's all about eh?!