It’s a midsummer evening, and Joe Jennings of Bolivia, N.C., is on a neighborhood lake in eastern North Carolina. He drops his mushroom anchor carefully at his third stop, his first two having produced no action.
He’s working a drop-off at the mouth of a cove, where the water falls from about 3 to 8 feet. The first cast with his 8-weight fly rod plops his Dahlberg Diver frog imitation into the stained water a few feet on the shallow side of the drop. He pauses for a second, then starts with a slow twitch.
As his bass bug comes across the drop-off, a wake forms behind it. A few more twitches of the diver yields no strike, so he reloads and makes exactly the same cast. A pause and three twitches, and the same wake comes back. This time, the largemouth bass commits to the bug.
The wake picks up speed, the fake frog disappears in a flash, and the fight is on. The fish takes Jennings into his backing, and he is forced to play it on the reel. The bass jumps for open water, then turns and dives for cover. The backbone of the heavier rod and tight line does the trick, however, and soon, the 20-inch bass is swimming beside his 10-foot Sun Dolphin pond cruiser. The fish is lipped, supported for a quick picture and released to fight another day.
Jennings does the majority of his summer bass fishing in the evening, because the long days allow him a few hours on the water after work. While the schedule is born of necessity, the evening bite is his favorite. He said fish stay deep all day, out of reach for most fly-rod anglers, but get extremely active just before dusk.
“You have to be in the right place at the right time, but when you are, the fishing is absolutely epic,” he said.
Jennings carries two fly rods any time he is on the water in the neighborhood, which is actually built around a series of ponds and a 25-acre lake. He takes a 5-weight rod, typically with a Byron’s Knucklehead No. 6 in a dark color tied on. He said the setup is perfect for his kids or any novice neighbor who wants to go fishing. The Knucklehead fly, which resembles a cockroach more than anything, gets plenty of bites from “suicide” bass in the 12- to 14-inch range, although he has used it to catch bass up to 4 pounds. The outfit is easy to handle for newbies and keeps them engaged in the fishing. But he does most of his work with the 8-weight, which is much better for working bigger bass bugs into and around cover. While you won’t get nearly as many strikes, it is the one that consistently produces big bites and big fish.
With either outfit, Jennings employs a 12-pound fluorocarbon tippet at the end of the tapered leaders he ties. The abrasion resistance of the tippet is the key here, as largemouths often dive for any cover they can find in an attempt to shed the hook.
Jennings said that the retrieve of whatever fly you choose is the most-important aspect of the game when it comes to getting bites and solid hooksets. As soon as the bug hits the water, it is vital to get any slack out of the line. Line must be controlled at all times. Topwater bugs generally work best with a slow twitch, followed by a pause, giving the fish a moment to track and then commit to the bite. Sinking flies get a slow but steadier retrieve.
When the bite comes, Jennings immediately tightens down with his right index finger serving as a kind of check-valve on the line. He strips the fly line hard with his left hand, taking out even more slack, while sweeping — rather than lifting — the rod, keeping it parallel to the water surface. This method will get anglers tighter to the fish much quicker than the hookset used by most bass fishermen with conventional gear.
Jerry Simmons of Supply, N.C., is another bass fisherman who often employs a fly rod. With a more flexible schedule and a bass boat, his fishing trips usually occur on the lower Cape Fear River. He likes to start his trips right around dawn, finding the fish before the heat of the day sends them deep and out of range. He often starts around submerged timber and feeder creeks, then switches to shaded banks and dropoffs as the sun gets higher.
With the river in constant change, and summer having its trademark thunderstorms and torrential downpours, Simmons said a spot that gave up a half- dozen bass one day might be completely barren the next.
He uses the spot-lock feature on his trolling motor constantly, trying to find the right hole before he runs out of time and the bite goes deep. If a spot does not produce after working each section of it with two or three cast-and-retrieve cycles, it’s time to move on.
Simmons favors a 7-weight, St. Croix Mojo Bass rod as his all-around fly-fishing outfit for bass. He “overlines” the reel, meaning that he is fishing an 8-weight line. That combination favors the slightly slower action of the rod, allowing it to load up more easily for distance casting. While it is not the most-delicate casting outfit, it has plenty of power to turn over whatever size fly he wants to fish, even in a moderate breeze.
Simmons believes that bass are much more likely to spook from a boat’s shadow than the sound of something much smaller falling into the water, so the extra distance is well worth the splash. Not to mention, bass spending time under branches or other structure are waiting for a meal to come their way, and they tend to home in on bite-sized splashes.
Both anglers have had their fair share of success with the long rod approach to bass fishing. While both will openly admit it’s not always the most-effective or efficient way to catch largemouths, they believe it is easily the most fun and rewarding way. If you do your research and put your time into reading the water, there’s no reason that your next trophy bass won’t be caught on the fly.
Match natural bass meals
Bass fisherman Joe Jennings, who admits to being a totally addicted of topwater fishing, said that “matching the hatch” is nearly as important in bass fishing as it is in trout fishing in mountain streams.
If there are frogs in the water, he fishes a frog imitation. If he’s seeing dragonflies all over the place, then a dragonfly imitation gets the nod. Once, after seeing a rash of water snakes, he tied on a water moccasin bug and promptly caught a 26-incher. Bass are largely opportunistic feeders, but they tend to get dialed in on what they see repeatedly in the water.
Jerry Simmons, another bass fisherman, is more likely to fish deeper in the water column with his fly rod, especially when working bigger water. His favorite bass bug is a Rich’s Ultimate Worm: the fly-rod equivalent of a Senko. This bug is as close to completely weedless as a bass bug can be, and he will often throw it right into cover before coming tight and working it out.
Another bug he uses consistently is an articulated streamer called a Drunk and Disorderly. It’s tied like a massive Muddler Minnow often used for trout fishing, and the broken-back nature of the fly gives it an amazing action.
Whatever fly you choose, Jennings and Simmons agree that dark colors are the most-consistent producers when the sun is either coming up or going down. While it’s always fine to experiment, it’s a common theme that their biggest strikes and fish caught have come from fishing big, dark bass bugs in the low light hours.
Don’t overlook those tiny ponds
While it’s often easy to head to the largest body of water available, sometimes you are driving right past the biggest fish.
Largemouth bass are famous for being able to live just about anywhere, especially in the South. Eastern North Carolina is dotted with tiny ponds, creeks and swamps, and as long as they stay wet year-round, they will generally hold fish.
Builder-made ponds in residential neighborhoods are some of the best places to find a trophy largemouth, hidden in plain sight. To illustrate the point, the largest bass caught in angler Joe Jenning’s Bolivia neighborhood of Avalon didn’t come from the stocked lake, but from a man-made retention pond. It weighed better than 10 pounds.
Most of the fishing in such ponds is done from the bank, changing the game somewhat for fly anglers. It forces them to be more creative in how they attack the pond and look for fish-holding water. Small items like algae mats, drainage pipes or a downed limb suddenly come into play. Additionally, it makes you think about what is going on behind you, as some ponds are right next to trees or streets. It’s no fun picking your backcast out of the landscaping or an unlucky jogger.
However you choose to fish the pond, don’t get frustrated if at first you don’t succeed. Often, that trophy largemouth won’t be fooled the first few times a popper chugs over his head. In a small pond, one giant bass can be the absolute king of the realm. You just have to catch him at a time when he is ready to eat. Just make sure that your hook is sharp and your line is tight when that time comes — and hang on.
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