Favorite Large Mouth Bass Fly

[salvelinusfontinalis]

Mine

Here is mine but i tie it a bit different. I add a ton of black marabou mixed w/ grizzly olive marabou. I add a few strands of crystal flash to the tail and leave them long. I also add one long grizzly hackle feather over the top of the tail. Then I tie in 2 green and black feathers for legs on either side of the fly along with 1 grizzly hackle feather to either side. Add a few strands of crystal flash. Spin in a few pencils of deer hair. Add 1 grizzly hackle feather to both sides of the fly. These will stick out where the neck of the fly is left long behind the head.

This fly is a killer. It has so much movement in the water. I was hammering largemouth bass on it on Hammer Creek tonight (of all places ;-) )

One thing I love about tying bass flies is you can really get creative.

P.S. THe video comes in 4 parts....its pretty good.

 

[Fishidiot]

I use the same flies for LMs as I do for SMs. However, I mostly fish LMs in creeks and don't see the need for different patterns. If I was going to whip up a box of flies for LMs in ponds and lakes I'd design a lot of very large, long, streamers with heavy weed guards and some large poppers and divers.

 

[Fredrick]

Yeah I love using the diver I make mine all black and use rabbit strip for the tail with some flash :-D

 

[Fredrick]

Materials

Hook- Mustad size 1/0 S71S

Thread- Gudebrod G-Thread, or any 3/0 or larger size thread.

Tail- Zonker Strip (Rabbit Strip), 6 or so strands of flash material.

Collar- Marabou/ Deer Hair.

Head- Spun Deer Hair, trimmed to shape.

Eyes (Optional)- Doll eyes, stick on eyes, super glued to head.

Weed Guard (Optional, but recommended whenever you use zonker/rabbit strips to prevent fouling)- 30# mono.

 

[MattBoyer]

If you've ever seen Larry use these, He's got an interesting technique. Even though the fly itself floats, he fishes them on a full sinking line, that way when he strips, it dives, hence the name. One of the "Hunt for big fish" episodes had him up north using this for early spring musky. That dude is awesome.

Boyer

 

[sandfly]

fish one 10 to 12" long in the delaware for stripers. looks like an Eel..

 

[Sylvaneous]

The rediculously high river and stream conditions throughout this summer forced me to focus on lake fishing for largemouths. It's a very weedy lake, quite productive and fairly well pressured, but not much up against the emergent reeds behind the large weed beds. I don't remember what intiated my interest, but I started tying my own version of the Joom diver; a foam version of the Dahlberg diver. I had NO experience with tying in mono weed guards. Well, I have some now. I have tied 6 each of white and yellow Joom divers and 3 frog green with a white belly I put on them. They work great, even if my initial attempts at weed guards would be done a bit differently were I doing it again. (really, it's something either you need to be told how to do or go through trial and error) I've been working at it pretty intensively for a few months and think I have my gig down: tying, fishing, tackle and line preferences, use of my kayak. Oh, this is good: I found a whole new way to fish out of my kayak. A Sit-in puts you fairly low in the water. Getting into my kayak one day, I considered swinging myself in the other way, facing backwards, kneeling on the floor and sitting on the front of the cockpit. With a foam pad to kneel on, it's comfortable for a while and gives me a much better fishing perspective.

I think this is something you'd want to do in a weedy lake with a lot of shallow, bank and weed mat fishing. If you have such a lake nearby and a boat and an 8 wt rig, you gotta try this if you have been afflicted by the excessive rain this summer. My left thumb is just shredded from lipping bass. And those Joom diver flies look so neat! I put google-doll eyes on them and they just crack me up. You can twitch them over weed mats, pop them or strip them fast and swim them a foot or more deep. I've done really well under the surface with them. They can really dive.

Syl

 

[Brownout]

Dalhberg's sp? is pretty great, it's actually something that is enjoyable to watch for your average fresh water angler. His show is on right after, or before, Trevor Gowdy's "The ONE" or whatever it's called, which I think is pretty bad IMO. I have no interest in watching 900lb tuna and rays being caught.

 

[buzzin_frog]

how do you tie a joom diver?

 

[Fredrick]

Don't quote me on this but I think its just like a popper but it has a angled head which makes it dive when stripped .

 

[tomgamber]

sneaky pete or slider?

Frankly, I have caught more bass on a bugger.

 

[gfen]

Joom Diver:
http://www.theflyfishers.com/flytyings_info.php?fID=21

 

[Fredrick]

It looks like its one of raineys foam popper heads turned backwards

Joom Diver

 

[Sylvaneous]

buzzin_frog wrote:
how do you tie a joom diver?

You have to buy the Rainy's Diver heads. They're expensive: $5.75 for 3. I put the Medium sizes on a #2 Mustad Signature C52 BLN. It's a hollow diver head. You have to glue only at the tip nose of the head because it's the only part making contact. What I do isn't what I've seen in one instruction. I tie-in a 3" bass hackle tail with some crystal flash. Then from the bend up a ways I tightly wrap a correspondingly colored hackle. Slide on and super glue the Diver head. Put on the eyes. Thread some SILLI leggs through the foam head behind the eyes with a darning needle.

I add corresponding Silli Leggs with the feather tail. It adds motion.

How you do the above steps with what care and what eye to color decides how cool looking your diver is. But they dive better than just slider heads. Depending on how you tie, they can get pretty deep for a foam surface fly.

Syl

 

[jayL]

Brownout,

Try tuna fishing sometime if you haven't. If I could afford it, it's all I'd do.

I can watch it to live vicariously.