Bass book

I am looking for fly tying book that covers bass flys.

Recommendations?

Thanks

Duane

Largemouth Bass Fly Fishing by Terry and Roxanne Wilson is great; contains lots of fly recipes as well excellent educational information on largemouth fly fishing. They also have a smallmouth book which I’ve yet to read but imagine is very similar in terms of education and fly recipes.

Awesome and thank you!

https://texasflycaster.com/best-bass-flies-tie-fish-jay-zimmerman-book-review/ - A good book as well. There are plenty of good books, but keep in mind the colors we use (most successfully) in the south are different from most books.

THANK YOU!!!

I liked “The Basic Manual of Fly Fishing.” However, it must be out of print as it was pricy on Amazon.

My man objecte is to tie baitfish imitations. I can usually imitate what I see, but it would help significantly to have a supply list if you know what I mean.

They also have one for bluegill fishing and flies that I enjoy.

Yes I love that one too - I like that one most with the journal/diary entry format. Their crappie book is also great. I highly recommend everything they've published, the only "downside" is I blow thru them in a few days.. so hard to put them down!

There are wonderful YouTube videos of people on this forum tying flys.

My biggest problem is that I get in the middle of tying a fly and realize that I don’t have the materials needed to complete the fly. I will try to substitute “XYZ” and realize the substitute is not up to par. The und result is that my feathers were transparent when they became saturated or the hair I used has the action of a stick. LOL

I will get there, I am just realizing I have to be more careful and selective with my components.

Duane

https://www.amazon.com/Bass-Flies-Dick-Stewart/dp/0936644044

this is a good one...it's part of a series from the author


just something to ponder...bass don't know you're throwing "bass" flies at them

for many years the largest bass and the largest carp i'd taken hit a #12 gold ribbed hare's ear

I now use a lot of bonefish-style patterns and large streamers


good luck!

Well, I just got a copy of “Largemouth Bass Fly-Fishing, beyond the basics,” by the Wilsons.

Kind of disappointed. I was wanting a book which focused more on tying bass flys. Oh well.
(Yes, it has fly tying instructions. I am not ready for the paragraph style of institutions.)

Any other recommendations for bass fly books?


Duane

I apologize if I am not communicating well. I can’t tie this. I have no idea what I am doing.

The last time I went to Cabales this book was recommended. I looked it up on Amazon when I got home and it was over 100 used. Well, I am not complaing, but I just bought a used copy for 11.00

Guys I owe y’all an apology. Y’all are trying to help, and I can see that.

This frustration I have goes back and parallels the majority of my fly fishing experance. I am a self taught fly caster. Why, because I got the bug and could not find any guidance for over a year.

The majority of the time when I ask for help with tying bass flys or bait fish flys the response I get is, just learn to tie the smaller one. This would be like some one asking for help with conventional bass tackle and telling them to stay with a road runner or beetle spin. I have four boxes of smaller flies. I don’t need the smaller flies.

I have ask for help at Cabelas 5-6 times. The conversation usually goes like this.
•Can I help you
•I was looking for material to tie Clouser minnow or a bait fish, what would you recommend.
•have you thought about smaller flies, or do you have a book of materials (well, at least I have one now...) or I’m sorry I can’t help you.

I have sent 4 emails to my local fly fishing club, I have yet to receive a response and it’s been over a year. I show up for a fly tying class and they forgot to tell me it switched days and they don’t even list it on the websight. When I finally am able to attend a fly tying class I am all but told no and that he doesn’t even fly fish, he just ties flys.

So when I go to you tube and follow a video and post the results here and I am told I am doing it wrong and need to go back to the basics. I posted a link of the YouTube video and it killed the conversation.

Someone is asking questions on variations of a Micky Finn. I ask for pictures and was told that I was being a troll on this forum.

So, when I go to YouTube I don’t have a material list. I try to buy materials and I am either told “no,” or the materials I bought at hobby lobby are sub par. (Hobby Lobby is 5 min from my place of work. Cabela’s is 2 hours and I haven’t had very good luck there...)

Now I have a material list and I don’t know how to put them together.

Texasflycaster and Mr. Rex, thank you for your kindness and support.

Duane

Some here are not going to understand this...

Let me put it to you his way. If I handed someone on this forum my 35 cal Saco Bullet mold, lead pot, pre mixed lead, bullet lube, sizing die, and the gas check maker, I don’t think the majority of the people here could make a “Hard Cast Gas Checked” bullet. Just saying.

But wait there is more. I load that bullet 10’s of the lands in my 35 Whelen, a bottleneck cartridge. But in my 35 Maximum, that same bullet is loaded to the crimp grove and then a heavy crimp roll is applied to the straight walled case.

Still more. The 35 Max is a straight wall cartridge. If your dies are not carbide, don’t forget to use case lube and revise the entire piece of brass. If you can’t find 357 Max dies, you can use 357 Mag dies and just resize as much as you can.

But don’t confuse the straight wall brass to the bottle neck brass of the 35 Whelen. If you bump the shoulder of the Whelen it can not only deform the brass, but cause misfires.

This is because the Whelen head spaces of the shoulder while the Max head spaces off the rim.

But they both can shoot the same bullet.

The morale of the story.

While one can be creative with materials and individualize every fly, not every fly pattern and material list will be interchangeable.

That being said, I am just going to have to bite the bullet and purchase several books and a plethora of material.

Have you tried going to Backwoods in fort worth? They have free tying classes. Ask for Stephen. He's an awesome guy and can help you out. If you ever make it down the way of Temple, I'd be happy to teach you how to tie bass flies/ bugs/ jigs/ poppers e.t.c...

Never heard of this pattern before and I didn't find an image on Google. Based on the recipe, I think it would look something similar to this. Note: I used a silver salwater hook (because it was the first sz 4 I found), I used pearl mylar (because I don't have clue where my silver is hiding), and the blade is a size 0, not 00 (because I already had it attached and ready to tie on to a fly).

If I were to retie this one, I'd push the spinner a little lower on the bend so that it is more in line with the shank and add more mylar. The trade off is the risk of affecting the gap and maybe impacting hookups. Personally, I'm not impressed with this fly. I think there are better spinner fly patterns than this one, but your mileage may vary.

As a side note, if you are trying to find information on tying flies with spinner blades, you will find very few people that use them or know anything about tying with them, and you will will find that some people do not approve of their use.

Fly fishing and tying for bass is still a niche part of the fly fishing community. Not all fly fishing sites/boards are "bass friendly". Even this site hasn't always welcomed bass fly discussions.

Fortunately, there are a lot of opportunities to learn fly tying in the DFW area. The "Red River Rendezvous" was just a couple of weeks ago. There were somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 tyers that could have answer pretty much any question you had about tying, materials, or patterns. This weekend is "Fly Fish Texas" in Athens. There will be a couple of dozen fly tyers available to help anyone and there will be formal fly tying classes. The "Texas Fly Fishing and Brew Festival" the weekend of March 23 in Plano, with have several nationally known fly tyers along with another 50 fly tyers that will be tying continuously throughout the event. Someone at this event should be able to answer your questions.

On a regular basis, the Red River Fly Fishers tie the second Tuesday of each month in Sherman. On Feb 12, they will be tying the "Slumpbuster" pattern. All you have to do is bring your vise and tools and show up to learn that pattern. Every Wednesday, at the Bass Pro in Grapevine, they do something similar where they teach a different pattern each week. Again just show up with your tools. Every Saturday at the same Bass Pro, they have fly tying. On Saturday, everyone ties whatever they want tie, but there are people that will help you learn pretty much whatever. The Allen Cabela's has 3 or 4 people tying each Wed evening and Sat morning. They are happy to help anyone learn and you can usually get one on one lessons. (Note, this coming weekend most fly tyers will be in Athens and not at Cabela's or Bass Pro.) Also, many of the area Orvis shops have fly tying classes on Saturday mornings too.

With all of that said, whether you are tying a large fly or a small fly, learning good technique is what is important while getting help. If you know good techniques, then you will be able to tie almost anything.

One last comment, many "saltwater" flies, work extremely well as "bass" flies.

Mr. Rex, you are awesome as always.

I went by Eisenhower on Sunday of the RRR while coming back from Camp Simpson with Troop 605, but i guess they had already packed up because no one was there at 10:00 AM.

I will try to start visiting the second Tuesday of the month again. I gave a tote of fly tying supplies.

Humorously, my wife and I actually started looking saltwater flys books this morning.

Ps, I have visited multiple groups that you listed above about tying bass flys. Just an FWI.

Your comments paralleled my experances. 80-90% of the fly fishing material out there is for trout fishing.

Thank you for helping me stay positive.

Dr Crappie, you are awesome and thank you.

I live 10 min south of Oklahoma, but your gesture is most welcomed

If you went on Sunday, you missed it. It is a Friday evening through Saturday event.

Try to get over to Athens Saturday morning. That's a very family-friendly event and the ponds are heavily stocked with trout.

Good thread. Scout, if you can figure out all that reloading stuff like you talked about, fly tying should be a breeze.

I’m not a fly tying book lover. I rather like tying videos, at least some of them. It was much easier for me getting a pattern down to see it being done then doing it for myself than reading about it with a picture or three and then trying to work out just how it got done. I start and pause videos to learn a tougher step. These days with more experience under my belt, I can often reverse engineer a fly from a photo or two and then tie it, but that takes time tying and experience.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GvQEolFlV2c

Here’s one. Steve potter doing a dahlberg diver. Spinning deer hair sounds intimidating, but it really isn’t once you get a little time doing it. The good thing about spinning these is that if they aren’t so tightly packed, they work. If they aren’t trimmed perfectly, they work. If your color patterns look unlike his, they still work. If you don’t stack your hair in a stacker, they work, I don’t even own a deer hair stacker. If you don’t comb out the under hair, they still work, deer hair will still spin and the fly will still catch fish. If you don’t have the fancy glue on eyes, no problem, I never use the eyes on divers and they still catch fish. Trim off too much deer hair and it doesn’t float, you basically made a muddler minnow, a great bass pattern in its own right.

Spinning deer belly or body hair works into a lot of patterns, not all surface ones, either. You can do a number of flies with a little patch of hair. My deer hair divers are just a marabou tail, four barred, dyed grizzly rooster neck hackles, two per side, and a trimmed and variably packed spun deer hair head. In the salt, the same deer hair goes into making a borski slider, a subsurface fly.

Really, there’s some basic things going on with lots of patterns fresh or saltwater. Tying in a tail of something is one basic thing using craft fur, rabbit zonker, marabou, or whatever. Gazillions of streamers flies have tied in tails. Lots of flies have hackle tied in and wrapped, otherwise known as to palmer, forward. It’s a basic way to do a bunch of things and only the type of hackle and size might really vary pattern to pattern. Another way to put on material is to dub it on. There are pre-made brushes for purchase or you can make a dubbing loop and then make your own brush right on the fly. Sometimes, people just put a little dubbing material right on the tying thread and then wrap forward. Know and get comfortable with these basics and it will likely benefit you in many of the flies you might want to try in the future.

There’s a lot of good advice in this thread, but I’ll pitch in my $.02.

A lot of flies are designed to catch fishermen rather than fish. There is much to be said for mastering the basics. Tying the woolly bugger, the clouser, and a deer hair popper isn’t hard but mastering them can take a lifetime and the skills you learn perfecting them translate to a lot of other flies. Don’t get too caught up in the next great thing, learn and practice the fundamentals and you’ll be a great tier in no time.

To all who responded... THANK YOU!!

Mr. Rex, thank you for the information. However, this weekend I will be at Camp Wisdom in Dallas teaching Scout Classes.

It the opertunity is available, I wil be assisting a scout with his fly fishing merit badge as well. His last objective is to catch a fish and he will complete the merit badge. I think a woolly bugger is in order.

I got my start at BassPro in Garland. Went to a free class, fished the ponds in front of the store etc. Then I bought a Bass kit. DVD, materials and tools. None of the ones that I have tied out of that series has let me down. I was in there the other day and noticed they now carry just the dvd. Might be worth a look. From there, I've ventured into other creative flys. Goldfish for Purtis Creek, poor mans Sweeny Todd etc.