To start off, i'm a complete fly fishing noob. Spent 10 days in Colorado and a friend took us out fly fishing a couple of times.
Loved every minute of it. Sure I need to get a million times better at casting and need to learn a lot about fly line, leaders, tippets, flies, etc...

Anyhow back to my initial inquiry. What are the most productive flies for bass and sunfish/bluegill in Texas? My friend is going to tie some for me, but he's a trout guy.

It's a pretty broad question because sunfish hit most any small trout fly, and bass hit the larger ones. But if I had to make a general suggestion to relay to another fly tier, I'd get some craft foam and feathers to make cap spiders and foam spiders for panfish, and gurglers for bass. Wooly Buggers in various sized for both. Clouser and deceiver minnows for bass. Or, you could just ask for trout flies and fish for carp. They'll eat anything, but mostly never.

I realize that it is a very general question, but I did use the identifier "productive".
Thank you for your suggestions. Prior to inquiring here, i had asked for him to tie me some Wooly Buggers and Chernobyl Ants.
I'll throw the other suggestion at him.



Mostly never off your fishing line.

For Bass in East Texas, wollybuggers tied on long shanked hooks with and without coneheads. Browns and tans work best for me. Also need some poppers for early and late action.

For gills, BH nymphs tied with some rubber legs are simply deadly on all of them. I like size 8 or so to get the larger gills. Prince, squirrel tail, zug bugs, pheasant tails, etc all very effective. As with bass, to be complete need a few poppers like Miss Prissy...a particularly deadly rig is a double drop with Miss Prissy and BH Prince trailer. If you can't catch them on that, they must not be present.

Woolly buggers are great. I like size 6 with a tungsten bead for bass tied on 3 or 4 XL streamer hooks. Black Marabou tail, chartreuse hackle is a good combination. Olive buggers are nice to have, too. I get some sunfish on the buggers and the size 6 keeps smaller sunfish off the hook. Catfish like buggers as well.

You might have him tie up some balanced Leeches. Size 1-4 work well for bass.

I love deer hair divers, dahlberg divers. Olive is maybe the best color overall. White is another great color. Bass striking a diver on or right below the surface is a rush.

My two go to flies are Llano bugs and San Jaun sili worms, they are great for bass and sunfish. I have never had a day of fishing when I haven't had a fish hit one of the two of them.