Any of you use live bait with your flies?

Never have, it would be very easy to do. What you want to catch with the bait? I�ve tossed panfish jigs with the fly rod. The fly rod would be about ideal for something needing small, lightly weighted hooks not fished real deep. I don�t enjoy fishing real deep with fly tackle. I hate dragging up sinking lines from the depths.

It�s funny, I tend to think flies fish better once they get the one fish. That first fish �scents� the fly with slime and sometimes a little blood.

If I was starving and needed to feed people, a fly rod with a little hook and a piece of shrimp or something could go a long way.

For some or many types of fish, I think a moving fly or lure without any added bait catches better than soaking a chunk of bait. The moving fly covers water better and faster and stimulates the predator in fish. Fishing Bait often requires the fish to come to it.

Some guys tip lures and soft plastics with bait, especially when going after flounder. I never got into that either.

Live bait? Can't recall a situation where I ever used live bait on a fly.

Dead bait? Yes, have tipped some hooks with "stuff". For example, a pellet made to look and smell and I guess taste like fish pellets is extremely effective on 'gills and especially so on stocker trout. Some call it a pellet fly and it works...but be careful you may encounter a big surprise...


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Actually on a fly...�..no. I'm sure it would work with the right bait, fly, right place, etc. I have used small worms and meal worms on a bait hook and both of those worked. Meal worms might work great on stocked trout.

We used to kill catfish in the clear fork of the Brazos on live hoppers and 8 weights back in my Merkel days...

Thx, fellas. The way I fish is a handline with leadcore longline drifting deep clear waters for anything that bites. I have often found that I catch far more when I tie a fly and tip it with one of my superworms( basically mealworms but bigger) or black soldier fly larvae that I raise myself. I often fish a double, rather, dropper rig at that.

I'm paranoid about lead, and have moved away from leadcore line. The spinning gear I have used is good but nowhere near as effective as the handline with leadcore and long shock leaders. I believe you call tese leader furled leaders. I haven't seen that kind of purely natural presentation when drift fishing. I have an old 6/7 wt Phillipson fly rod, and figure why not press that thing back into service. I ordered a couple 6ips full-weighted fly lines. I'm just waiting for them to come in the mail.

Even though I drift fish mostly, I can cast to get line out quicker and can cast into areas where I see shad schooling and such while ona drift. I see myself using one rod purely for drifting ,and the other for opportunistic cast and retrieve while on the drift.

I have neglected that old Phillipson, but it will be serviceable for years to come. I'm also considering building a new 7 wt fiberglass fly rod as a second rod for exactly what I'm doing.

Worked well for Hemmingway. Read "Big Two-Hearted River", a short story that can be found free online.

I think those sinking fly lines are mostly coated with tungsten. Pure Tungsten way beats pure lead for getting down deep faster and you can use less tungsten by weight and still achieve a faster sink rate over a bigger amount of lead. I tie a lot of fresh and saltwater patterns with tungsten beads or dumbbells. It lets me get a faster sinking pattern that weighs less. If you are paranoid about lead and still want to fish deep, try tungsten weighting. A little goes a long way.

I cast at schools of shad being harassed on the lake I live on. The lake is only about 11 feet deep or so. I mostly like casting balanced leeches at the schools. I just use floating fly line and fluorocarbon leaders. Channel cats in the lake I live on love flies like tungsten bead head woolly buggers and tungsten balanced leeches. Channel catfish are usually what I get when I cast at the nervous bait, but sometimes it�s Largemouth bass.