Warmwater Journal
Bass Beginners: You Only Need Three Flies!
by King Montgomery

So you’ve learned how to cast reasonably well by reading Bruce Richards’ Casting Clinic, and you’ve managed to catch some bluegills or other sunfishes on surface poppers and weighted nymphs. And you religiously practice casting for at least a few minutes every other day or so (see Warmwater Journal, “Warm Up to Fly Fishing,” June/July 2002). Now it’s time to go bass fishing.
I believe beginning fly anglers should start with sunfishes in a pond, lake, reservoir, or slow-moving river, and stay away from rapid rivers and flowing streams until the basics are learned. The first course to take in fly-fishing graduate school is bass fishing for largemouth or smallmouth bass, and you really need only three flies to do it well.

Match the Hatch (Sort of)
Bass feed throughout the entire water column—on the bottom, on the surface, and everywhere in between. Since fishing is simply the act of presenting food, real or simulated, to the fish in hopes it bites, we need flies that cover the water column from top to bottom. The three flies I have in mind are easy to tie (or buy), and catch the heck out of bass (and other fishes as well). They are also relatively easy to cast, and to manipulate on the retrieve; there is no bad way to fish them. They represent small fishes, frogs, leeches, crustaceans, or other appetizers, entrees, and desserts on the menu of the black basses.

Lefty’s Bug, sometimes called Lefty’s Potomac Popper, is a surface fly tied by Marylander Lefty Kreh for upper Potomac River smallmouth bass. It is simple to build, and you can modify it in numerous cosmetic ways with paint, materials, and eyes; I find ‘the simpler the better’ works well enough. The fly is a cork or foam body glued onto a hook with a tail of squirrel tail, bucktail, or whatever. It can be painted in different colors—I like black, yellow, white, pale blue, and chartreuse—and it can have painted-on or glued-on eyes or not (see Warmwater Journal, “Mr. Kreh’s Popper,” April 2003).
The Clouser Floating Minnow was designed and tied by Pennsylvanian Bob Clouser for Susquehanna River smallmouth bass to complement his famous deep minnow. While the Lefty’s Bug covers the surface, the floating minnow floats and darts/dives into the immediate subsurface of the water; it is sort of like the original Rapala minnow spinning lure or a soft-plastic jerk bait. Its action is dictated by the retrieve. The floating minnow is two foam spider bodies glued onto a hook with a tail of squirrel, bucktail, marabou, feathers or whatever natural or synthetic material you wish. The foam spider bodies come in a variety of colors, or you can paint the white ones. Bob suggests you give the finished fly body a coat of 5-minute epoxy to make it more durable. (Clouser’s Fly Shop, Middleburg, PA; 717-944-7910; www.clouserflyfishing.com).

The ubiquitous Clouser Deep Minnow is a fly angler’s bread-and-butter fly. It was originated by Bob Clouser for river smallmouth bass, but it catches anything with a mouth that swims in fresh- or saltwater. It is tied more than it is built, using lead eyes, bucktail, and flashy stuff along the sides. It can be fished in the subsurface, through the middle parts of the water column, or bumped along the bottom. My favorite colors are chartreuse/white, blue/white, yellow/green, and tan/white. The color possibilities are endless. (See Warmwater Journal, “A Man and His Minnows,” May 2001.)
These are the only three bass flies a beginner needs to learn how to catch bass. They cover the water from top to bottom, and everywhere in between. Actually, these are the only three flies any bass angler needs regardless of skill level and experience. Anything else is just extra weight in your fly box.

King Montgomery, our Mid-Atlantic regional editor, is in his sixth year of writing our award-winning Warmwater Journal column. He lives in Burke, Virginia.