Big Flies For Big Striped Bass

Big flies don't always catch bigger fish. Small trout will hammer 8 inch streamers and size 1 mice, 10 inch large mouth will smash big pike and musky flies, and dink stripers will eat huge hollow fleyes. But there are numerous occasions when big fish are eating big baits and there is just no way a clouser, deciever, or surf candy will ever get the job done. Big striped bass will eat small bait if it's in large numbers, but it's often easier for them to eat larger food items. Bunker, herring, shad, eels, lobster, mackerel, needlefish... these are the kinds of baits that big bass love to eat.

How does a fly angler go about fooling fish that are eating such large bait into chewing on their flies? Striped bass master and creative Bob Popovics solved that problem with the creation of the hollow fleye. He created a method of tying bucktail flies that allow tyers to make patterns with big profiles and minimal bulk, which is absolutely necessary when flies are as long as 15 inches. A sparsely (iow, correctly) tied hollow fleye will cast better than a big barely legal a few inches shorter. The beast fly, tied on a large hook and thick mono, is an incredible creation. I discovered very quickly how effective it is when targeting big herring eating bass this spring. Nothing else even holds a candle to it's effectiveness in those circumstances.

The way hollow flies are tied is very different from the traditional saltwater deceiver. It also differs from the way a some freshwater double deceivers are tied,  but only slightly. The backyard is tied in reverse, but rather than actually putting wraps of thread over the backyard like you'd see on Amy articulated deceiver's head,  a big thread dam keeps the bucktail from pushing forward. Tying a long fly with this technique, spacing the backyard appropriately and giving the fly a good taper gives you something that casts well and gives a large profile. Not much else does it quite so elegantly.