What is your favorite sand bass flie

Want to tie some flys wondering what everyone's go to sand bass flie is?

This color clouser and a white wooley bugger 95% of the time.

I've been fly fishing for white bass on the Brazos River below Lake Whitney two times in December. The first time I had luck on a chartreuse/white Clouser and an olive woolly bugger. The second time they weren't that interested in either, although I did catch a fish on a Clouser tied by Bruce Mc that I received in the Christmas Fly Swap. I caught a few fish on a foam hopper, but when that died down, I tried a new fly I tied but had never fished. It is my take on a Matuka streamer, tied using chartreuse-dyed grizzly hackle I got in a $20 Whiting Farms Variety Pack/grab bag from Cabala's (a large bag full of various feathers in all the colors of the rainbow). Tied on a size 6 Gamakatsu B10S Stinger hook the fly measures 2-2.5 inches long. It is simply a dubbed body with two feathers for the tail and another wrapped around the hook shank to form a collar. This turned out to be the magic fly, as I caught 13 white bass in about an hour, compared to only six others the previous three hours. I really like the fly since it is super easy to tie and I am still a beginning tier. Plus, in that same variety pack I have the same feathers in blue, yellow, cream, orange and several other colors, so there is no shortage of variations of this fly that I can tie.



Also, here is video of that fishing trip. Just a word of warning, the video is long, but if you are bored and need something to watch, have at it. I am casting it on the new setup my brother got me for Christmas, a 6-6 3/4 wt Eagle Claw Featherlight fiberglass rod with a vintage Martin 63 "tuna can" reel. It is going to be a great small stream/tight quarters setup that cast great with 4.5 wt line (Cabala's Prestige Plus) once I got used to the parabolic action (it is quite a bit different from my fast action graphite rods).

Great video! I'll take 3 of those flies. LOL. Hope you weren't with the guys up stream, might make you walk home.

Haha. The other people in the video were my two brothers and my dad. The white bass were being pretty picky as they didn't really want the always-reliable Road Runners one of my brothers and dad were throwing. My other brother caught a few on a Clouser and the rest on a small panfish popper and Llano bug. Unfortunately at the time I only had one of the Matukas tied up so I couldn't share with my brother. I have since remedied that problem.

Also, since I always need practice tying flies, PM me your address and I'll drop some in the mail.

They are weightless but will sink if you let them. The fish seemed to want to feed right under the surface, which I think is why the Clousers and Road Runners were not working consistently since they were sinking too fast. For a while we had them fired up and they were hitting surface flies (mainly Llano Bugs and GFA Hoppers, both in brown/yellow), but once they went back down they still wanted flies up high in the water column, just not on the surface.

something like this

Fish Skull tube flies.

The Matuka fly has a single or double feather "wing" teid on top of the length of the hook with the tail out to about the length of the shank. See the link below.
Making the Matuka Wing - Skip Morris Fly Tying

the little 1/100 oz jighead jigs tied in a variety of configurations are my favorite. These are called "near-deers" on this forum. I tie them to look like wooly buggers, briminators, just plain bucktail jigs, using bucktail, squirrel, or kiptail with a micro-chenille body like the old "flea fly" crappie jigs, and a variety of other forms. I use mostly #10 or #12 hooks and make my own jigs with a mold from Jacobs Mold and Machine, using old tire weights for the lead.-p-

What a fantastic day of fishing. I caught 55 white bass and 6 crappie off of the same fly. The "J-Moe Briminator".