LMB are feeding shallow. Time for Deer Hair Divers. I like tying these more and more almost as much as fishing them.

Nice work! Great looking flies and great looking bass. Do you use a razor blade for the deer hair or just scissors?

Scissors

Caught a crazy number of fish on the divers this morning. Color didn't seem to matter. No big fish, though.

Those look great. What is the tail material? Saddle hackle and marabou?

Yes, it�s a whiting streamer Cape I think, I�ll have to look at the package. I can�t remember from which vendor I ordered it. It�s tan grizzly. One tip on each side is what I�ve been putting in. On one diver, I forgot to tie in the grizzly tips, but it seemed to fish just as good.

I�m not very picky on these with the marabou and just tie in a decent clump that looks about right. I put a bit of crystal flash in the tail on top after tying in the marabou. Just a few strands of something dark.

There�s definitely a little variation on mine from copy to copy on how high they float and dive. But that seems pretty true on the ones that I bought from the big y that I patterned the ones I tie after. I think mine fish better than the commercial ones, but I might be biased. The stinger hooks I use are much stronger than the very fine wire hooks on the commercial ties. Their hooks are very apt to bend. They put on a mono weed guard. I haven�t been mainly because the lake I fish has very limited vegetarian like lily pads. The weed guards definitely cause missed hook ups so I don�t like to have them unless I have to for heavy weeds.

The water was pretty clear yesterday and I stand in the boat when I fish so I could watch some of the bass follow the divers. A few followed and never committed. Some would come from below and hit the diver as it rested on the surface of the water. Sometimes, I�d leave the diver resting for a time well off the lake shoreline while fiddled with the loose fly line and get a surprise take.

I like these divers as they are pretty easy to cast even after getting soaked. There�s no rabbit Zonker to get soggy and heavy and then tough to cast. I was using my 7/8 CGR, but my 5/6 CGR casts them pretty well too. The marabou gives plenty of lifelike movement in the water and doesn�t get heavier after getting wet to the degree that rabbit does. The diver shape is pretty aerodynamic so they cast well from that standpoint. I have some big deer hair poppers that I got as a gift that aren�t fun to cast because they don�t cut through the air well at all.

The drill in the lake I live on is to cast whatever you have on, plastic worm, lure, jig, fly, as close to the shoreline as possible and bring it over or around the many submerged logs, cypress knees, and trees. Almost all the structure is within 30 feet of the shoreline and these old oxbow lakes are basically river channels that got cut off in some prehistoric flood. The deepest area we�ve found by depth finder is 11 feet and most of the about 100 yard wide, 77 acre lake is about 10 feet deep and it drops to about 8 feet within about 30 feet of the shoreline. The ends of the lake are shallower. The divers work well as they can be brought over barely submerged logs without getting hung up.

The tail is rooster saddle hackle, tan grizzly. I bought a whole whiting cape. It�s very long.

8 pounds on a olive diver. I'm pretty pumped.

Great fish! Thanks for all the info. I've tied muddlers and deer hair poppers but never tried tying divers. I'll have to give them a shot this week.

Talk about a surprise. Got home from work today and had a package in the mail from karstopo. I assumed it was the Redfish Crack flies he offered to send me. While they were in there, also included were some balanced leaches and some of his deer hair divers. Decided that must be a sign so I tied on one of the divers and headed out to Bethany Lakes to give them a shot. The wind made casting a bit difficult at times but three bass decided they liked the flies as much as I did. I also missed a few more hookups so it could have easily been 5-6 fish in a little less than an hour. Karstopo ties great flies and I am glad I was able to try them out.

That�s great, I�m glad they worked. I think the divers kind of hit the frog idea when they swim, but maybe to the bass they just look like dinner.

I could definitely see them imitating a frog. Two of the fish I caught and the ones I missed hit it on a steadily stripped retrieve right under the surface. The other fish hit it when it was stationary on top of the water after I had stopped stripping to shoo bugs away from my head. The fish nearly came out of the water hitting it when it was stationary. Somewhat surprised I managed to keep my cool and not rip the fly out of there before he had it.

Some light wire 1/0 hooks came in today and I did a couple of divers on them. They are a daiichi hook and said to be designed for divers. The hook shanks are longer than the stinger hooks and they have a upturned hook point. I�m supposed to go out and fish in the morning and I�ll see how they work.

I did 10 more redfish crack in the olive and Black and Tan. I realized I was about out. I Can�t be going out into the marsh without any.

https://pacificflyfishers.com/collections/tying-hooks/products/daiichi-2720-specialty-hook

Interesting hook, I�ve never tied on them until today.

The new hook was great. Went out on the lake this morning and used a yellow and olive diver tied on the 2720 1/0 daiichi hook. Caught a lot of bass to just over 4 pounds on the new hook and the hook seemed to set better than the stinger hook.