Flies and How to Use Them

A basic bass bug

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Bugs

Bugs float on the surface and suggest larger insects, frogs, mice, crippled minnows, and so on. Bugs are fished with a floating or sinking-tip fly line. Use a floating line if you're fishing bugs just at the surface. A sinking-tip fly line, with a 4- to 6-foot leader, allows the fly to be fished at the surface, diving, swimming or surfacing.

For stillwater fishing, bugs are generally presented near or past the fish's location. Often they are most effective when presented near structures such as the bank, lily pads, logs, or overhanging trees. When cast over an object, a bug can be hopped or made to fall into the water to suggest a natural terrestrial food falling into the water.

Once on the surface, the bug is worked like a miniature puppet, being made to struggle or swim in an attempt to entice a strike. Usually, the more slowly these types of flies arc, moved, the more effective they are.

In moving water, bugs are generally cast at all current and eddy angles and fished with an action similar to what is used in still water. Line drag is avoided by casting-angle adjustments and line mending, as with dry flies. In moving water, bugs are usually fished near or off shoreline and surface structures.

Dropper Flies

Dropper flies (two or more flies) may be used on one leader to increase your chances of catching one or more fish on a cast (check regulations first). Such combinations as two to four wet flies, wet fly and streamer, nymph and streamer, or dry fly and nymph are often more effective than a single fly.

The larger, heavier fly should always be tied to the end of the leader and the smaller, lighter flies tied farther up the leader's tippet, except in the case of a dropper tied to the hook or eye of another fly. A dropper fly is attached to a leader by first tying a blood knot or surgeon's knot with a 4- to 6-inch tag of tippet material. The fly is then tied onto the long tag with a Duncan loop or improved clinch knot.

By using two or three flies at one time on your leader's tip and tippet, you can learn what the fish's preference is from repeated catches on one of the flies. Many times two, three, or four flies will also have an"emotional" or exciting effect On fish that might ignore a single fly. Casting two or more flies is, however, a bit more difficult than casting one fly and tangles are more frequent.