Fly fishing is often a little misunderstood and it’s not hard to imagine why. All this talk of flies with names like Sex Dungeons, Drunk and Disorderly’s, Stealth Bomber’s, or Shooting Heads and Double Hauls, not to mention rods measured in ‘weights’ rather than actual weights… Like I said, sounds a little overwhelming! But as with all things, one of the beauties with fly fishing is, it can be as simple, or as complex, as you want it to be. If you’re a gear junkie, and love nothing more than playing with the latest and greatest, then there is plenty of that! But if you like to keep things simple, and have fished the same gear for the last 10 years with no signs of changing – you’ll fit in perfectly too. I tend to fall into the latter category. I get attached to fishing gear not always because of its quality, but by the stories that come with it. Memories of trips, of fish, or friends that become entwined with my favourite fly rods are what makes me keep things simple – plus the place’s bass take us often demand simple!
Those who know me well often begin conversations when I ring them to say I have a plan with, “how far are we going, and what dumb things are we doing now?”. It is safe to say I love bass fishing in all its shapes and sizes, but wild fish in wild places, is where my heart really lies. To spend time in the scrub, looking for bass with just a fly rod and a backpack is my idea of heaven – and hopefully in the remainder of this little piece, I can unpack for you a little about how to go about getting in on the fun.
"It is safe to say I love bass fishing in all its shapes and sizes, but wild fish in wild places, is where my heart really lies ... To spend time in the scrub, looking for bass with just a fly rod and a backpack is my idea of heaven"
What To Look For When Targeting Aussie Bass On Fly:
The beauty of bass is they are so diverse in the places they live – from the big river country of the Clarence to the small coastal streams along the Central Coast, and up into the rainforest clad streams that head these bigger rivers. That’s not to mention the stocked impoundments up and down the eastern seaboard. Now, with a fly rod nothing is impossible, however some things are a little less practical, such as fishing particularly deep fish in current. For that reason, I will focus mostly on pursuing bass in the smaller rivers and streams. I will also leave impoundments alone for now.
Starting with the water, if you live on the East coast of Australia anywhere from Maryborough in the North to Gippsland in the South, you will have creek or river dwelling bass within striking distance of you. They may be dam overflow fish, stocked fish, or truly wild fish. Whatever the answer, they are all outstanding sport on a fly rod. Start looking where the mangroves end, to as far up as the water flows, and somewhere in between will be the sweet spot – it will shift a little further upstream in summer, and downstream in spring and autumn.
"Start looking where the mangroves end, to as far up as the water flows, and somewhere in between will be the sweet spot"
Typically for comfortable fishing with a fly rod for bass, we are looking for water that is continuous river, or pools of water broken up by rapids less than about 12ft deep up to about 3ft deep. This is the sweet spot to fish comfortably, and efficiently, with a fly rod. If you are unfamiliar with bass completely – I’ll also mention you want some structure in that water – fallen timber, rocks, weed beds, undercut banks, lily pads, or any combination of those already mentioned. These all provide cover for the fish, and a place for them to wait in ambush for their next meal to drift or swim past. In low light periods bass become more mobile and move further from their cover in order to feed, but as the sun rises, they tend to stick tighter and tighter to their little piece of structure. For anyone who has done some bass fishing with conventional gear, none of this will be any news to you, and you can probably think of a dozen spots that I have just described. If your mind wandered to a dozen spots I just described, well guess what, you have the water to very easily give fly fishing for bass a crack!
"If you are unfamiliar with bass completely – I’ll also mention you want some structure in that water – fallen timber, rocks, weed beds, undercut banks, lily pads, or any combination of those..."
Gearing Up:
Rods And Reels:
In my opinion, Bass are about the best entry fish for the conventional angler to target when starting out fly fishing. They are accessible, eat a wide variety of prey, and are generally quite willing, so you know pretty quickly if you are on the right track or not. A single rod and reel is all that’s required for bass and a rod in the 5wt to 7wt range is sufficient in all scenarios. A rule of thumb is to stick to brands that just make fly rods because not many brands make both conventional and fly rods well. In the entry level price range, Primal Rod Co rods are unmatched for value, then moving into the higher range rod brands like Scott Fly Rods, will certainly see your money well spent. The other thing I have found when considering a new fly rod to chase bass with, is that a slightly slower actioned rod is more comfortable to fish than some of the lightning-fast saltwater sticks.
"A rule of thumb is to stick to brands that just make fly rods because not many brands make both conventional and fly rods well."
When it comes to reels in fly fishing, our reels serve a little bit of a different purpose to conventional fishing reels. We don’t cast line off the reel, instead we strip it off with our hands, then cast it off the floor – so for fish that don’t pull a pile of drag like our bass, we basically only touch the reel when we need to wind our line in to move spots. If we were talking saltwater speedsters like trevally or bonefish, we most certainly will be using the reel both for drag and to fight fish, so the requirements are a little different. For bass, our reel is basically a line holder, and if you really wanted, you could just thread the fly line off the spool and throw it in your pocket – then wind it back on when you finish. How much you spend on a reel is up to you, but a few brands to consider in the value bracket are FlyLab or Waterworks by Lamson, through to rather expensive but absolutely stunning bits of gear from the Abel Stable.
Lines And Leaders:
This is where fly fishing really comes apart from conventional fishing – at a first glance, a fly rod or fly reel could pass as just a normal bit of gear – a fly line however will not. The fly line is our fly delivery system, it is the weight of the fly line that carries the fly where we need it to go, as opposed to the weight of the lure that carries the line. There are a myriad of types of fly lines that all do different things – but luckily for us, bass allow us to keep things pretty simple.
The first of two main fly line types we use for bass is a floating fly line. Fly lines are typically a braided core with a PVC coating that is then weighted according to the requirements of that line. A floating line is designed so that the whole thing floats – so it allows us to fish the top section of the water column down to about 6ft or so effectively. Within floating lines there is then a range of different shapes and tapers that do different things, but this is generally governed by the type of flies that those lines will best cast. Bass flies come in many shapes and sizes so it’s best to pick something versatile like the Airflo Ridge 2.0 Universal Taper, or the Power Taper, if you plan to chuck some serious meat.
"Bass flies come in many shapes and sizes so it’s best to pick something versatile"
The second main fly line type to consider is what’s commonly called a sink tip fly line. This type of fly line is mostly all floating also, except the last 10-15ft of line before the leader connection – this section is made of what’s called intermediate sink line. It will typically sink at about 1-2 ips (inches per second). This allows you then to fish a little deeper, with 10ft of sinking fly line, plus a rod length of leader you can then comfortably fish down to that 10-12ft mark where bass like to hang in the heat of the day.
Lastly leaders – leaders and fly fishing typify one’s ability to over complicate things. You will read that you must fish a tapered leader, and sure it may help turn the fly over that last little bit, just a little bit better. But for bass fishing this is not necessary. If you want to go down that path, go for broke, but I’m not much help I’m afraid! I always fished 12lb leader for bass when I used regular gear, and on my fly rod I just use 12lb straight through leader, connected via a loop knot to the fly line. My only caveat would be that if you wanted to fish lighter – say 6-10lb, this thin fluorocarbon has a tendency to bite into and cut the PVC coating of the fly line at the loop, so it’s worthwhile tying a section of 20lb about 4ft long, then double uni knot your 6-10lb tippet on after that.
"Leaders and fly fishing typify one’s ability to over complicate things."
What Flies to Fish:
Dry Flies:
Topwater (dry) flies are where the days fishing always starts for me, so we may as well start there. For the most part, we don’t have the luxury that lures have of using presentations with built in actions like walk the dog or winged lure, that’ll walk tantalisingly across the surface. Our flies have to rely more heavily on profile – and matching subtle action to draw a bite. There are two main styles of topwater fly, those made with foam or those made with deer hair. Both materials allow the fly tier to create a range of lifelike presentations. It’s at this point I’ll plug a handful of east coast fly tiers that are all very skilled at their craft, because getting in touch with them and the info they can share on what flys will do what, where to fish them and how, is far more than I could dream of condensing into one article – I’ll leave their names and social media contacts at the end of this article for you to investigate as you wish!
"Flies have to rely more heavily on profile – and matching subtle action to draw a bite."
In short – topwater flies can represent just about any prey item, from deer hair frogs, bugs and birds, through to things that are a little more ‘each way bet’ like the Dahlberg Diver. In foam, flies such as Gurglers or Stealth Bombers are popular along with simple foam poppers, and most tiers have their few signature buggy style foam patterns that all work wonderfully too. It’s up to you to tie them on and fish them in a manner that best fits the fish and the fly. It makes little sense to tie on a cicada pattern and strip it constantly back across the surface – as the fish don’t often see that profile acting in that manner, so be thoughtful about the prey you are trying to mimic, and then try to fish the fly how they would act, the bass are pretty good at doing the rest!
Wet Flies:
Our wet, or subsurface flies are as varied in appearance and performance as conventional subsurface lures. We’ll start with some of the more traditional bass patterns. The first is John Schofields Bass Vampire, along with the various bass bunnies and other small leechy patterns that have evolved from there. These little bugs are all typically small and darkly coloured, not necessarily representative of any one prey item, but they are a good enough profile for a range of things. Fished slow, and deep around structure as the sun gets higher, this style of fly are about as close to a sure thing as it can get.
The next set of sub surface flies are the traditional baitfish, and shrimp patterns. Bait fish like Clouser Minnows, Deceivers and ‘Things’, are all great representatives of small 50-100mm baitfish that frequent the places bass live. Any of these flies fished in the zone with a snappy retrieve will have you in the game. Bass like all fish, rarely pass up a shrimp meal, so these are another must have pattern in the fly box. There are no real names for shrimp flies, but each tier has their own little twist on a shrimp pattern. It is worth having a shrimp style fly in a few different weights in your fly box to cover a range of fishing depth scenarios.
Lastly, we have my favourite flies to fish – Streamers. Typically inspired by American or Scandinavian trout flies, Streamers are big meaty patterns that have a knack of hooking fish, and the bites are violent. Fishing a 130mm articulated almost swimbait style fly across the top of a rock bar and waiting for that line to be ripped tight is almost better than ……… lego! These flies can be fished up high in the water column on a floating line, or down 4-6ft on a sink tip to great effect, and are as close as we can get with a fly rod to fishing a suspending jerkbait or glidebait. Some great Streamers to have in the box are Sid’s and Mini Sid’s, Sex Dungeons, Drunk and Disorderly’s, Game Changers and Swimming Jimmy’s. The Americans sure name their flies well!
"Streamers are big meaty patterns that have a knack of hooking fish, and the bites are violent."
Closing Thoughts:
Bass fishing, however, you do it, is a hell of a way to spend your spare time. The places it takes you and the things you see and experience, are truly special and are so quintessentially, Australian. If you are anything like me and are always looking for a new challenge or a new way to do something better – consider picking up a fly rod. There has been more than one occasion that I have out fished mates using conventional gear for bass. There are just some scenarios where the ability to fish something super subtle, or keep something in a small bite zone longer, has been all the difference between a multiple fish session and a doughnut. And if you’re already handy with a fly rod, but haven’t chased bass yet… what are you doing!?
Written by Jack Porter – Insta: porter_flies
Edited by Adam Taylor (The Finatic Blogger)
The Finatic Blogger...
Custom Bass Fly Tiers:
Jack Porter - @porters_flies
Joe Manzano - @jofm_onfly
Jimmy Martineau - @sandy.twig
Brook Swanton - @breamflylure
Chad Ploy - @ploy_flies
Mark Delforce – @m.delforce_84
Ged Brazickas - @flyoutcast
Alex Kelly-Roy - @captainalexroy
I've always been intersting in fly fishing for bass, this artcle provides great information to help and cement fly fishing is something I will try now.