u/dj-pit-wilf

Had the day off so I went to test v1 and v2 of the twisted dragon fly, while accompanied by my fishing buddy, milli. My 6wt is either too light to cast the v2, or im not skilled enough yet to do it, and v1 has bin donated to the trees. I was already at the pond so I changed my focus, grabbed my 4wt and started having a blast catching the pumpkin seeds and dink bass that were chilling along the weed edges in the shallows. They were taking both a small foam (tan or yellow) beetle #12 off the surface, and a(pink body with brown legs) bully bluegill on a #10/12 (cant remember which one) as it slowly fell after gitting the water. Used a 4wt rod with wf f fly line, 4x leader to 4x or 5x tippet.

Quick trip today ti a spot I would frequent for bass and decided to target trout with a twisted foam hopper and a small fly of some kind i tied a few inches bellow it. I had one turn on the hopper and managed two land a solid rainbow, my first ever brown trout and a second one shortly after!!!! Last photo is of the two flies used for majority of the trip. The green one started of with two tails but one got ripped off

Tried to see if dubbing would work out, but decided that a hot belly might be a better optionhalfway threw. Used two foam strips and it slimmed the body down a good amount. Tried the tape wing wethod with some hackle tips, and it looks decent but a smaller feather would be a better option. Over all quite an improvement over the dear hair. Might try picking up some form of "fly yarn" for wings at some point. Waiting for my next weekend off to test v1 and v2 out on the water.

Cement is always fun

I had noticed some one posted a twisted foam hopper and I had never seen them before. Looked Into trying them and realized I can make the body end as long as i would like. Figured I could try a dragon fly color scheme, and came out with this as a v1.

The deer hair didn't turn out how I liked for wings, and I clipped the top foam for the head to short. The body is also alot thicker than I had anticipated.

Any one have good recomendations or ideas for a good wing/material? Also planing on using 2 or 3 peices of twisted foam instead on v2 to see if it would make a slimmer boddy.

Materials used

2mm Eva craft foam I cut into thin strips for the body, 4 total (2 blue, 1 black, 1 purple)

the head was from two blue strips about a hook gap in width, one tied on top and one on bottom.

A pinch of deer hair for wings i wrapped on each side

Round rubber for legs in brown

I think its 210 denier thread in white

#8 2x long streamer hook.

Caught a decent one on a home tied fly! Size 8 hook with barbell eyes, goose biots, Chanel body, and marabou tail.

Still learning to make wooly buggers and how to work with marabou and hackle. I ended up picking up some coneheads and a pack of red fox squirrel zonker. I think i prefer the look of the cone heads over the beads, and now realizing i dont think im ready yet to work with zonker strips after trying to tie one on a #8 streamer hook. Is there an easier way to keep the cone straight? Or is it a matter of how you layer your materials behing it?

Finally organized my boxes

Green box: top half store bought bottom half i tied

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Orange box: top half store bought bottom half i tied

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My woolly buggers are getting better, now I need to learn some dry fly patterns besides foam hoppers and beetles.

Edit: fixed them so that there now hook bend first instead of hook point. You Live and you learn.

A while back i posted for suggestions on what fly rod wt i should grab for bass. I decided that for my local waters and size of flies I would be using that a 5/6 would be most beneficial and learned how to tie wooly buggers per people's recomendations. Thanks to you all, i caught my first small mouth as well as a decent largemouth! Thank you for helping me learn and become a better angler.

Finally got myself a 5/6wt after heavy debate for an upgrade from a 4wt and learned to tie some woolly buggers after alot of recomendations for river smallmouth. I was able to catch my first smallmouth and a decent sized large mouth almost immediately after! Overall a succesfull trip for about 2hrs. Thanks to everyone on here for all of your help!

First attempt at a woolly bugger, I only had micro schenile and bared hackle. Planing on picking up some medium schenile, hackel and marabou in difrnt colors to build up my boxes. This is on a b10s stinger #6

Finally found time to take out some of my first flies I have ever tied and managed to get this Lil guy on one of them 😁

I am actually enjoying tying more than I thought I would and have learned the hard way why dry flies tie better on a dry fly hook over a curved hook. The pink and orange fuzz balls are an attempt at an egg pattern yet they look more like a pile of fluff. I think im using too mutch material (fly yarn) and would like some advice if able. All of these were tied on a size 12 curved hook model #u202, only hooks i have atm till pay day so I can grab some difrnt sizes and types of hooks.

Finally trying to get into tying flys and I found my vise! My first attempt at a beetle and I can already tell I used to mutch dubbing under the body and my tension needs some work. Now to figure out what i can tie with some materials I got a while back. I had previously asked about beginner patterns, so im going to go pack to my post and see if I can make any with what I have on hand.

Tl;dr: what weight rod is recommended for a bass rod?

I have bin using a 4wt rod to learn how to fly fish on stocked trout ponds and panfish, and was wanting to get a heavier rod mainly for bass fishing. I have herd you can go one size either way with fly line on a fly rod (i.e. a 7wt could also handle 6wt and 8wt line) and need help deciding whether I should upscale to a 6, 7, or 8 wt rod?

If it helps the biggest bass i have seen in the ponds I regularly fish is around 4-5lb largemouth and biggest bass i have caught so far was a 3lb smallie on spinning gear in a near by river, with the average catch being between .5- 2.5 lbs. (Photo shown is one of the bigger ones I have seen at the pond that I managed to land on bfs gear)

I picked up this book a little bit ago (tactics for bass and other warm water species) and have found it very usefull and would recomned it for anyone either starting out fly fishing, or wanting to try chasing bass where trout isnt the most prevalent species. It has definitely helped me out when it comes to understanding the differences and similarities when chasing certain species on the fly. I was wondering if anyone else has any recomendations for books on fly fishing for bass or fly fishing in general?

Tl;dr: finally learning how to fly fish after conventional fishing for years

Bought this 4 wt set up last year for future camping amd back packing trips after seeing it on sale. I had nothing but issues on the first trip out and didn't catch anything but tangles and tress/bushes so I put down for the rest of the season. I finnaly decided to do some more researchand learned alot about prebought set ups. So i changed out the fly line to a WF-4W-F LINE, 3X leader to 4x tippet, and was actually having a lot of fun catching these little panfish and some stocked trout. I will admit I need to learn better knots and get better at casting because I lost several flies on my back cast, but im actually having more fun than I thought I would.

LET IT BE KNOWN I STILL HAVE NO CLUE WTF IM DOING, but atleast im learning and becoming more successful.