Another Pond Bass Story

[PSUFishMenace]

Decided to hit the pond for a llittle bit again today and see how many bluegills I could catch. Tied on a small humpy adams (i think that's what it is) and then remembered I havent known the location of my floatant for months. So I guess I ended up with a humpy adams wet fly? Anyway after ten minutes I hadn't gotten any solid hook-ups with the bluegills so moved to a different corner of the pond.

Couple of casts there and same story. Then a pod of 3 nice bass came cruising by. I thought "what the heck" and made a cast near one bass that had stopped to look around for a snack-sized bluegill. fly slowly began sinking, I made one tiny strip, the bass turned around to look at it, one more little strip and he whacked it! After a nice fight I landed the 15.5" largemouth.

I started imparting some strip action to the fly from then on and it was game over. The bluegills started crushing it, I think I caught 8 on 10 casts during one stretch (the two casts I didn't were bad hooksets). In an hour I caught 18 6-9" bluegills.

What was more interesting was that I hooked up with two more nice bass using the same fly. Both of these fish just crept up and sipped the fly after casting about three feet ahead of their noses and making two slow strips and pausing in between. Of these two, the one I landed was 13" and the one I missed was in the 16-17" range.

Subsurface humpy adams for largemouths- who knew?

Sometimes what you think is the least likely outcome of a cast...actually happens! I still can't believe those bass came into a shallow area looking for bluegills to pick off, but fell for that tiny fly. These bass must have been females since they were cruising around the pond and males are clearly still guarding eggs.

Today was just a reminder that I still have a LOT to learn when it comes to this warm-water stuff, but it felt great to fool some of the bigger bass for once!

 

[Fishidiot]

Nice job!

I think nymphs are underrated as flies for bass, esp largemouths in ponds and lakes. If you think about the typical farm pond ecosystem, nymphs are among the most commonly available forage - dragon fly nymphs, damsels, etc. While a LM cruising a shoreline pond would likely prefer a larger opportunity meal, like a frog, these nymphs are probably the most readily available forage, esp in the springtime, and the bass just get used to eating them.

 

[turkey]

I agree with F.I. Nymphs are everywhere. I've seen dragonfly nymph shucks that are bigger than a quarter. From what i understand they are quite mobile and predatory underwater. I love the pic of your bass. So much fun on a fly rod. Great job.

 

[Lonewolve]

PSU,
Congrats thats a great lil bucketmouth. I enjoy bluegills and bass too with the Long Rod,usually catch all my pond/lake fish with poppers and dry flies.
Tight Wraps & Tight Lines
Rick Wallace
The smallies i catch on three different flies, wooly buggers in balck, The original Clouser Crayfish, and poppers on the Delaware and susky rivers