Multi-Species Freshwater Flies

[DanMarino]

These have been working for me lately.

[Mark]

There's a lot of moving pieces on those flies, Tom. I can see why they work. Nice tying. They're your creation so you should name them.

I haven't touched a flyrod since dodging the rain drops at Trap Pond a couple of weeks ago. But while I was there I used mostly topwater flies.

It's hard to beat foam poppers for durability and effectiveness:

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I also hooked 3 or 4 bass on a gurgler tied by one of the FSFF members. It's a beautiful fly. This photo doesn't do it justice:

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I went to it because the bass started to ignore the chugging of the popper. They wanted something quieter. The gurgler fit the bill for a while.

Then they got even more persnickety. I went to a slider. You can see the reversed popper head on the hook in this photo that causes the fly to dive:

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I caught more bass on the slider than on the other surface flies.

As you might expect, they were tight to cover -- not so much pads or wood but shoreline vegetation. I'd toss the fly right into the plant growth and pull it through. The grasses/plants were flexible and the flies did not hang up in them. The bass would usually hit right at the edge of the plants and water a few feet from the actual shoreline.

[DanMarino]

I tied this up on Sunday since we were getting hammered by rain.

Here's a squirrel zonker creation. The tail is a thin squirrel zonker and the body is the same, but palmered around the hook shank. Some sili legs added for fun.