Deer Hair Flies
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Deer Hair Flies for Largemouth's
By: Ken Bohannon
For more than two weeks, I watched a parade of pro bass fisherman saturate a nearby point on Lake Texoma. During this brief time, I thought bass in the shallows had seen enough metal, wooden, and plastic offerings with hooks to make them weary.
The small grassy point of land stood out from the lakefront property of a nice house. The boggy prong, bearded with grass, and roots of trees, bordered the depths to about 6 feet of water. I had a inkling that the more bassy-looking water was more than a feeding spot for bass. The bank was deeply undercut, a feature hidden by the grassy tangles draping its overhanging border.
On a pleasant evening I anchored my small flat boat about 40 feet off the promontory and began casting a deer hair frog pattern toward the shoreline. Bass reside in undercut water caves and obstructions. I hoped for one that feed on the surface along the edge of the grass.
My popper was tied in a green frog color, on a size 4, with a stout leader of about 6 feet, with a tippet of about 8 lbs. I used my 8 ½ foot fly rod with a fast tip, with and strong butt section for these bass. I use a WF9BBT fly line that will throw these deer hair flies with ease. The fly tackle used for presenting a large bass bug and for hooking and parrying bass out of heavy cover. This combination is a basic outfit for largemouth bass.
The sun had nearly set on the western horizon, and the shade spread from the grassy point, darkening the calm shallows. As I fished leisurely, enjoying the late day afternoon, my anticipation was rewarded. About 3 feet from a bush on one side of the point, a splash rise spangled the water. It was definitely a big bass taking a large insect, which occurs more often on this heavily fished lake at night, and is detected by this sound.
Seeing the bass rise stirred my instinct as a fly fisherman. Had the fish nosed from the deeply undercut bank to feed or was he just cruising looking for easy prey. The way to answer these questions, I learned, was to present the deer hair frog as quickly as possible. With the fish would still likely to be there. My cast didn’t show the frog in the ring of the rise, but seconds after the water had flattened, the deer hair frog had alighted on the hub of where those concentric rings had spread.
The frog was taken with a big splash that shook up the night I set the hook solidly, but with a light hand not to break the tippet. All at once, the largemouth cavorted as would energetic gym performer. It jumped suddenly, stiffly, falling back into the lake. When it settled in to the tugging runs and slower, head-shaking mannerisms of a largemouth, my rod bowed deeply. I applied the strength of its backbone while coaxing the bass to urge it from miring in the bottom structure of the lake.
The sport was exciting because of the circumstances. When I eased it over the bow of the boat, those factors which I had come to believe were notable, namely the fishing pressure with lures, became apparent. As I lowered one hand to grasp the basses lower jaw, I saw it was split down the middle, from fighting off tenacious treble hooks, I inserted my thumb deeper in its jaw, bent it downward and rested the weight on my forefinger, immobilizing the bass. I lifted a chunky 16-incher.
Yet, that bass which may have been dieting on smaller morsels due to its mangled jaw was not a unique catch. Bass will feed on insects simply for a supplement, and because of the fish’s inquisitive nature in foraging. A bass has a somewhat insatiable curiosity, so even if one has become leery of lures, it’ll still take a gently presented deer hair frog.
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Both Dry & Wet bass flies are successful at different times of the day. When I first began bass fly fishing, I assume good sized-fish were gluttonous and very large offerings. One episode cued me the small deer hair frog has its place. We were fly casting to a shore-line and my fishing buddy had let his large wool-head shad pattern sink in the shallows. Our boat was drifting with the current of the main channel of the lake. As the sunken fly began to swim parallel to the shoreline drop-off, a sizeable bass appeared and siphoned it in. The visible, easy take a size 8 at the time seemed uncharacteristic of this fish with a gaping maw, but it nonetheless led me to the techniques with small deer hair flies.
Allow your fly to sink in a bass pocket, such as the openings and notches in reed lines, under a bush or along a boating dock. Bass will take the fly on its slow decent. A bass eyeing a tantalizing morsel will generally take your offering. When your wool head fly has sunken to the desired depth. I use a slow steady retrieve. A hand twist retrieve makes the fly appear alive in the water.
Several hand-twists will gather a number of figure-eights of line in hand. Drop the handful of line, and continue the retrieve. In fly fishing, both while the fly is sinking, and during the retrieve, the take of even a good-size bass may be light. One guideline, then is to fish a straight line to the fly.
Borrowing a old aid from nymphing for stream fish, wrap a piece of bright colored wire-core chenille on the leader tippet a foot or more ahead of the fly. White or fluorescent orange, are two colors that show up well. Small strike indicators are great help in detecting light strikes from bass. When using smaller bass flies on a light tippet, I don’t strike hard. I hold the tip low to the water, pointed just aside the straight line.
The low rod also is in position for the strike of gentle taking bass. When the connection becomes “heavy” I simply roll my wrist sideways, extending the rod horizontal at the right angle to the fly line. This is a automatic hooking technique when fish a slow paced fly.
Bass perceive color remarkably better than other freshwater game fish. This had
been proven to me when a sizeable fish paces a little 6 wet fly. In my
experience with fly fishing for offbeat bass is attracted most often to
fluorescent yellow and red.
Flies tied with these colors for the abdomen are my favorite choices when flies
matches natural foods may not be taking fish. Bass are highly perceptive and
attracted to red. Patterns such as a red ant and the red banded royal coachman
tied in a larger size works good for bass.
This past year I tied a lightly weighted, chenille bodied black matuka streamer with two split, long hackle feathers as tails. Retrieved at a snails pace over the weed beds, this new pattern proved to be lethal for bass. An acquaintance of mine who likes to fish mostly dry flies for bass has a similar philosophy regarding sizes of flies. When he first showed me his fly boxes, I mentioned that there were no real mouthful of feathered hooks, and only a few were as large as my number 6 & 4s.
One day a short time later, I spotted a two pounder lazing in the shallows. I knotted a size 10 Royal Coachman on my tippet, and cast the fly a foot in front of the fish. It tipped up and took the sedately floated dry fly as if it were a trout rising in a stream. My favorite dries are those that I use for trout. The Wulffs, Goofus Bug, and deer hair spun flies, such as the Umpquah Frog, and Dahlberg Divers.
The old Bunyan Bug, one of the balsa type flies with spent wings, is excellent for bass. Originated decades ago, this fly, which gained renown as spent wing stonefly for trout in the movie “A River runs through it” directed by Robert Redford. Was a popular fly pattern on western rivers of the United States.
The larger fish did not feed until nearly midnight, and the then the bass migrated to the shallow rim waters to forage were receptive to a floating bug. After dropping in place at the edge of cover, I let remain motionless for minute or so, Then, I jiggled it along, inches at a time, to a stop. This gentle presentation attracted muffled rises, rather than explosive strikes.
On the hook, the bass thrashed upward in splashes punctuating the quiet night, which gave me shivers of bigger bass to come out of the cover of darkness. You may label them offbeat bass, but they have become a bit smarter in the steadily fished waters of Lake Texoma. By adapting your times, and fly fishing with deer hair bugs, and sinking type wool head patterns, along with large wet flies, these bass can be taken on a fly rod. Whenever you seek this prized game fish with a fly rod it will take with a curious eye to your next fly.
Ken Bohannon
March 21, 2006
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