Kettle Pond Bass & the Importance of Small Flies

I woke up feeling quite a bit better this yesterday, so I knew I had to get out and fish at some point during the day. I waited until after 3:00 though to make sure I my cold indeed was under control. Then I headed off to a kettle pond that has become a favorite fall haunt of mine. It is just full of bass and the average size is pretty good.

I started out doing what I normally do wen I fish this pond, slow stripping large streamers. I fished a point where schools of bass often work. Nothing. I worked a bowl that usually holds fish. Nothing. I worked a big flat that always has fish. Nothing. The first bass I caught did not take the fly while I was working it in a normal fashion, I caught it by accident while moving between spots. So it didn't give me any hope of the slow stripping heavy streamers working at all.

I had already changed flies and retrieves a few times, enough to know the general technique just wasn't working. I tried a popper, and though some bluegills rolled on it it wasn't really getting it done either. So I opened up my fly boxes and peered inside, grasping for answers. Then I saw it. A little black leech, tied on a size 8 hook, with noting but a thin black zonker strip. No flash, no weight, no wire, nothing. Just thread and zonker strip. I tied it on, thinking I could at least get the bluegills with a small unweighted fly like that. And I was very quickly attached to the nicest bass I'd catch on this outing.

That was where the floodgates really opened, and though none of the fish were even close to the size of that one the were all very well fed, even the smallest of them.

There's a very important lesson to be learned from this. It's one I learned a log time ago, but it's one not everyone who fly fishes for bass learns. Small flies, especially leeches and nymphs, are one of the most important tools in a fly bass angler's arsenal. Bass don't just eat other fish, and they don't stop at crawdads either. Bass of all sizes eat insects and leaches in large numbers. My biggest largemouth, one of the most memorable fish of my life, an 8lb hawg, took a size 10 dragonfly nymph.  Most of my biggest smallmouth have been caught on nymphs and streamers that would be considered tiny by most bass fisherman. If you go bass fishing without some little leaches and stillwater type nymphs in your box, you are making a mistake. Bass are finicky fish, but you will have a hard time finding ones that will refuse a small presentation.