largemouth on lakes

[TigerTrout4wt]

so I was just on lake redman today. I have never really fly fished for large mouths on a lake before. I have a lot of different flies for bass fishing. I dont think that my flies are the problem but it is more my rigging and technique. I wanted to get some ways to effectively fly fish a lake. any info and experiences in deep water lake fishing would be great.

 

[Dave_W]

TigerTrout4wt wrote:
I wanted to get some ways to effectively fly fish a lake. any info and experiences in deep water lake fishing would be great.

I usually give up on fishing lakes about this time of year and focus my WW efforts on rivers. The reason for this is that fish in lakes are shallow in the spring and easier to target with fly gear. By summer, they tend to go deeper. You can fly fish in deeper water with specialty lines, but I really don't care for this and rarely do it. You really need a boat with sonar for the deep water game.

Nevertheless, if you're game to target bass in lakes in summer with fly gear, I'd suggest the following tips:
1. Learn to love weeds - get some weedless flies and plunge into lilly pads and milfoil (use a heavy tippet - I like 17lb test line).

2. Fish mornings and evenings as bass do come shallow during low light conditions. Night fishing is good too. In my experience, once the sun is up and hitting the water, the good fishing window is usually over.

3. Try some nymphs around weeds and vegeation. Bass really like nymphs and so do sunfish.

 

[PennypackFlyer]

I am challenged on the lakes this time of year as well. Hot sun, bugs biting - sun burn on the back of legs and neck. Early morning works best for me. See if you can find some large topwater poppers (for some reason I have this mentality that larger poppers equals larger fish). I like using an 8wt or 10wt for lakes especially around the bass grass. Another area to consider is targeting bait fish since Muskies and Bass enjoy an easy meal. Many of the muskies I have caught have been targeting the bait fish. Try to match the size and color of the bait fish as best as possible with poppers or streamers. You may want to use a wire tippet when specifically targeting Muskies.

If you are a catch and release flyer......
And not to put emphesis on the local, if they recently (a day or two ago) had a bass tournement on the lake - fish the area where they released them after they weighed them. (I will probably get some boos and hisses for this suggestion.)

 

[AFISHN]

At this time of year,if I fish lakes,I like South Jersey or Southern Delaware lakes/ponds
They are shallow and if they have weeds that flower,you can do well on dragon fly imitations.Look for bass under the weeds or actually jumping out of the water to take the dragon flys.
This kind of fishing can actually be great at the warmest part of the day,since the dragon flies are usually active then.