At 05:48 AM 5/12/00 -0700, you wrote: >For those of us on the westside/puget sound are- we are surrounded by >countless lakes. Most of them are planted with 10 inch trout that are >taken home within a couple of weeks by power-baiters. I have also >thought about taking a stab at bass and pan fishing w/ a fly. For me to >go fishing involves a drive over the pass or going to the salt. I am not >all that excited about trying to catch a hatchery trout on a prince nymph >when some bozo next to me is hauling them in w/ dough-bait. There seems >to be a challenge in fooling a fish, that generally is not planted and >lives on what is naturally present in the lake. For after-work fishing >or, after you mowed the lawn on a Sunday- Isn't taking a float tube and a >3-weight to a little local lake to try to catch a bass or crappie >worthwhile? I haven't tried it yet but want to- I to am curious if anyone >has any ideas/ tips/ patterns/ experiences to share. > FWIW I took a hiatis from trout fishing and became a bass fisherman for about 15 years. Bass boat and the whole 9 yards. Sold the Bass boat and have been back to flyfishing for trout and variants thereof for the last 10 years or so. A couple of comments. Silver Lake (take the Castle Rock exit off I-5) is one of the top bass lakes in the Northwest. It's a fairly big lake. You could probably fish some of the weed beds near the landing with a tube but a boat is really much better. Bass don't respond well on blue bird days. That means that the bass fisherman spends lots of time out in the wind and rain which makes using a tube on a large lake a bit of a problem. You also need to cover lots of shore line on a typical day of bass fishing. Bluegill and crappy come to a fly very well. Bluegill on the bed can be a real blast with 200 fish days being common. A size 14 anything will work fine for bluegill. Some thing that will suspend about 2 or 3 feet below the surface is ideal. A 1/32 oz crappy jig works well for crappy. Throw it around brush and downed trees and have a ball. A 3 wt will work for pan fish but keep in mind that you are going to be casting into (and I mean into...not close...into) weed beds and brush piles. You might wish you had something with more backbone. Large mouth bass don't generally respond all that well to flies. I have fly fished for them but it has to be a labor of love. Your best bet would probably be a small pond somewhere that doesn't get alot of pressure. Again you are going to be casting into "structure"...lilly pads, down timber, brush piles and so on. A three pound large mouth will do unspeakable things to a 3 wt rod. Also you need a rod with enough backbone to cast large flies in stiff winds. I usually used a 6 wt. FWIW I used to use an old Shakespeare fiber glass fly rod (it may have been and Ugly Stick) to flip plastic worms. Not really flyfishing but you could sure snake those worms back through the downed timber with that monster flyrod. BTW small mouth bass respond fairly well to flies also....wooly buggers are a good place to start. Anyway give it a try and have fun...it may turn out to be a labor of love. As always YMMV. Good luck. Jim Jones [EMAIL PROTECTED]
