Most Effective Fly Patterns of 2014

The title of this makes me chuckle.  Ask 10 fly anglers what their favorite fly patterns were this past year, and you will more than likely get 10 different answers.  Everyone has favorite patterns, ones that work well for them.  Sometimes they work well for others too, sometimes not.

And that's OK!  Some of my favorites from several years ago no longer get fished as often, and have dropped lower on my favorites list.  Are those "old favorites" still effective?  In most cases yes.  When they no longer perform up to my expectations, sometimes I can explain it away that my local fish have LEARNED not to hit that pattern as much over the years.  True or not, it makes me feel better.

In other situatons, I have a much more difficult time explaining why something works less well this year than in past years.  Stocked trout are a good example.  They haven't had time to get caught and learn to avoid something.

I'm going to list my favorites by species, but I will only touch on species where I actually HAVE a new favorite, or at least a solid presentation.  Maybe some of these will work for you, too.

Crappies:
This isn't new to me this year, but is the best crappie presentation I've seen the past couple of years.  It is a 1/80th oz microjig, usually set @ 18" beneath an indicator.  If crappies are around, they will hit this.  Best color can vary, but usually chartreuse is a color they can't seem to leave alone.  Other good colors are red body/chartreuse tail, or gold or silver metallic chenille bodied microjigs (a version also called a Springbrook Wunder).   I'm sure lots of other colors would work, so try your favorite crappie colors.

Largemouth Bass & Smallmouth Bass:

Topwaters are definitely my favorite way to fish for Largemouth Bass.  I mainly tried 2 types this year.  I think I talked about each of them in detail in earlier blogs this year.

The first type is a sort of smallish (by bass standards) pre-formed foam head popper:

This caught a very good number of both Largemouth and Smallmouth Bass this year, and is reasonably easy to cast.

The second type is a "blockhead popper", made from cut pieces of foam flip-flops.

These are odd-looking things...no natural bass food items have such sharp angles.  With the light weight and large flat face, these take a bit more effort to cast.  Totally worth it, these things catch BASS!  Like the popper style above, I caught both river Smallmouth Bass and pond/lake Largemouth Bass on them.  These REALLY push a lot of water, and seemed to excite large bass in the waters I fished.  These Blockheads are my new favorite bass poppers!

As far as subsurface patterns for bass, I didn't stumble onto any new great patterns for Largemouth Bass.  I did, however, have a pretty good day flyfishing for Smallmouth Bass using a Pearl Shiner:

I caught good numbers of Smallies from a local river that day, including a pair of 17-inchers, and lost a third one of around the same size.  Those are NICE fish around here!

Channel Catfish:

I didn't catch many catfish while flyfishing this year, like only 4 I think.  But 3 of them were caught on the same evening on the same fly...so I will share that here.  Its a fairly simple baitfish imitation tied with Craft Fur and some Flashabou, and eyes.  The catfish hit this in a reservoir where gizzard shad is the main forage.

Stocked Rainbow Trout:

For the past couple of years, I've done well using a copper-colored beadhead Woolly Bugger variant called a Chili Pepper.  For some reason, that pattern didn't produce well this Fall.  Instead, I caught a lot of fish on SimiSeal Leech / Mohair Leech style fly, with a glass beadhead.

White Bass:

I tried a variety of flies for White Bass this year.  I caught fish, but also a lot of missed strikes on some baitfish imitations.  The pattern that got a lot of strikes AND good hookup percentage was a small, 1.5" long chartreuse over white Marabou Clouser Deep Minnow.

Goldfish:
Yes, GOLDFISH!  :)  I'd been wanting to catch Goldfish on a fly for years...and finally did it this year.  Found a pond FULL of 'em...And its been that way for many years.  I first caught goldfish there as a kid....probably around 35 years ago!  Still, I tried a few things and just wasn't getting much interest from the fish.  I finally tried a #14 Red Fox Squirrel Nymph variant, and the fish really liked it.

Senyo's Mini Baitfish

Encouraged largely by Jeff's (from High Plains Fly Fisher blog) post of a fly pattern he's been using for Smallmouth Bass ( http://highplainsflyfisher.blogspot.com/2014/08/bugs-from-benchsimple-baitfish-streamer.html ), I purchased 4 colors of Senyo's Laser Dubbing.  I may have to purchase some more colors.

I'm a little disappointed that their isn't more color difference between the white, gray, and silver minnow belly colors, but I'll get over it.  The white can be used for everything....and the silver minnow belly has some super-thin silver holographic tinsel mixed in it, which looks really good. The chartreuse lights up great under UV light!  I guess my only gripe is I just wish the gray was darker.

I tied up a few different baitfish patterns with it, and its really great stuff to work with.  I'd pull out a very small bunch of fibers, grab it by the ends, and then separate and re-stack the fibers a few times to get a bundle that I felt would stay put when tied down in the middle.  I don't know if anyone else bothers to do this, but in my mind, it results in less waste once the baitfish is completed and brushed out to blend and shape the fibers.

In searching for other baitfish fly patterns that use this material, I encountered one called Senyo's Mini Baitfish.  I was really wanting some streamers for White Bass fishing, and determined I needed something smaller than 2" in length in order to reduce the number of missed strikes I was experiencing on other baitfish streamers.

Well, I haven't been back out to test these on White Bass yet.  But I really DO like they way these look, and how they act in the water.  Other than a few extra strands of flash material and the eyes, they are tied with 100% Senyo's Laser Dub.  Maybe I'm my own worst critic, but I don't feel mine don't look as good as some I'd seen pictures of when I did a Google search....but I do think they will catch fish.  I'm generally trying to imitate a small Gizzard Shad, which is the main forage of the local White Bass.  I tied mine on a #6 saltwater hook (Allen's SW002).

Flyfishing for White Bass, 8-17-2014

Following my previous blog post, I tied up a couple more shad-imitating flies.  I had seen a picture of a fly pattern called "Bill's Articulated Baitfish".  I only had a picture to go by....no recipe or instructions.  I thought they turned out reasonably well:

The first one I tied (the bottom one with the chartreuse eyes) I used a superline or backing line as the articulation connection.  I may have tied it down too tightly or something...when I sink-tested the fly, it was dead....no action in the water.  So, the 2nd one (the top one with the red eyes), I used a bent-wire connection, and I really liked the action during the sink-test!  In case fish were small and/or striking short, I left the rear hook in place, where I had clipped it off in the first (bottom) one.  I'm glad I did!

Another fly that caught fish well was this one:

Another fly that did well was the bottom one in the picture below.  You may not be able to see it in the picture, there is a metal bead on the hookshank about 1/3 hook shank length back from the hook eye.  The tail materials tangled some, but I could still fix it and fish it.

I missed at least 2 strikes for every fish caught on the above patterns, probably because of the size and hook placement.

I had a tip from a fellow flyfishing white bass angler...   Small #8 Clousers tied with marabou instead of bucktail.  I had tied up a couple of these:

I fished the bottom two, while my buddy Jay fished the top one.  They all caught fish VERY well, with much fewer missed strikes than the bigger patterns.

In fact, I had the biggest White Bass/Wiper of the day  on the middle fly above.  The strike and fight were amazing....after 10-15 seconds, I decided I must have hooked a channel catfish, THAT's how hard this fish was bulldogging and fighting!  I finally dragged it up onto the sand in the shallows, but it flipped a few times, threw the fly, and swam away.  It was probably about a 15" fish.  Not huge, but REALLY NICE, especially after battling with the fun medium-sized fish (11-12") all day.

Jay took my picture against the fog on the lake in the morning.

White Bass Flies

I'm STILL enjoying trying to find some good & easy shad/baitfish-imitating fly patterns I can use for White Bass & Wipers.
Here's some stuff I've tied in the past week or so:
In the photo below, the top fly is a Silver Baitfish, and the bottom fly is a Bowen's Baitfish.

And in the photo below....the the top fly is very similar to a number of craft fur baitfish flies, but not exactly like any of them...so I can't give an exact name for it.  The head was created by putting the craft fur in a dubbing loop, however.  The middle fly is my attempt at Casey Smartt's Glass Minnow.  And the bottom fly is also not named.  Congo Hair tail, craft fur body/head covered with a few wraps of Wapsi Palmer Chenille.

Overall lengths of these are generally 2.5" - 3".  I hope the fish love 'em!  :)

Shad-Imitator Fly Pattern

White Bass are a HOOT on fly-gear! I'm always looking for a pattern that is fairly easy to tie and looks like a good shad imitator. I've tied up a good number of different patterns that imitate shad to some degree, and for various reasons, haven't cared much for them. They probably would all catch fish, but I admit I've been doing more fly-tying for white bass than actually FLY-FISHING for white bass. Its been windy, and much of the time when fishing for white bass, a quick long cast is essential, which means spinning gear usually wins out over the fly-fishing gear. Hopefully I'll find good conditions for the fly-gear soon.

A side benefit of fishing with shad-looking lures/flies for white bass here is that you might also catch smallmouth bass, wipers, largemouth bass, walleyes, or channel catfish.  Maybe even big crappies!


I tied up some of Ward Bean's "The Jointed Minnow" in the shad colors this weekend, and I decided I like them! Now I need to see if the fish like them as well as I do. I tied these in 3" and 4" sizes. These are big enough, I think even my buddy "Swimbait" Jay will like them!