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First attempt at bass flies


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A couple weeks ago we were at my father-in-law’s house and, as usual, the conversation drifted to fishing, flies, and fly tying. He brought out a box of flies tied by an amazing fly tier and old friend of his who is no longer with us. As we went through the box of flies, my father-in-law was regaling us with fishing tales of old and I found a pair of bass flies that intrigued me. Although my tying skills leave much to be desired I decided to try my hand at tying them. Here is how they turned out. The first photo are the original flies I tried to copy. The second and third photos are my attempt. I’m open to any and all suggestions and critiques.

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I'm still working out the shape of the head but it's getting closer. I like the shading on his much better than mine also, but I'm no artist so mine probably won't get much better. This was my first experience working with bucktail too and I definitely learned a couple things. I'm going to take this one down to the pond tonight and give a try. Hopefully my next couple tries will work out a little better. 

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Those look good to me! Bass flies are a lot of fun to do. We've got some really good tiers on here too. @BilletHead, @Flysmallie come to mind. 

If you look through this sub-forum you'll see some step-by-steps, fly swaps, etc. Really good info and source of ideas.

Keep at it!

John

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1 hour ago, tangledup said:

A couple weeks ago we were at my father-in-law’s house and, as usual, the conversation drifted to fishing, flies, and fly tying. He brought out a box of flies tied by an amazing fly tier and old friend of his who is no longer with us. As we went through the box of flies, my father-in-law was regaling us with fishing tales of old and I found a pair of bass flies that intrigued me. Although my tying skills leave much to be desired I decided to try my hand at tying them. Here is how they turned out. The first photo are the original flies I tried to copy. The second and third photos are my attempt. I’m open to any and all suggestions and critiques.

B2FA1125-BD7A-4981-96F8-A719DF12318C.jpeg

515EFAFA-84D2-4CFD-9233-D03CFE2946C0.jpeg

3074E986-4E0C-4333-AAE6-402F35E82909.jpeg

                     Hey Man good job, those will fish and catch. Like @Flysmallie said a diver/slider. When you start catching on your own creations you will be stepping into another satisfying level of fly fishing. 

"We have met the enemy and it is us",

Pogo

   If you compete with your fellow anglers, you become their competitor, If you help them you become their friend"

Lefty Kreh

    " Never display your knowledge, you only share it"

Lefty Kreh

         "Eat more bass and there will be more room for walleye to grow!"

BilletHead

    " One thing in life is for sure. If you are careful you can straddle the barbed wire fence but make one mistake and you will be hurting"

BilletHead

  P.S. "May your fences be short or hope you have long legs"

BilletHead

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3 hours ago, FishnDave said:

Really nicely done!  On the original...is the tail material Craft Fur?

Yes I think it is. The top sections that are blue/green definitely are. I didn’t have any craft fur so I used bucktail. In the underwater videos I watched, I kind of like the movement of bucktail better anyway.

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Well they caught fish. I only had about an hour of free time right before sunset but I caught 8 of these little bass and one crappie. I had one decent (by decent I mean maybe a two pound) bass get off but didn’t land any big fish.  I had trouble with the fly landing upside down on some casts. Not exactly sure what to do to fix that. The leader probably wasn’t perfectly suited for the job so I probably need to fix that before I start making adjustments to the flies. It was still fun though!

Oh, and did I mention that it also catches ducks??

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Someone spent alot of time painting those up with markers.  Good looking flies, and the fish seem to think so too.

Buddy whacked a goose on the tail with a Heddon Torpedo on Duck Creek one time long ago.  It stuck and the goose took flight.  Bye Bye lure and a spool of line. 

"Life has become immeasurably better since I have been forced to stop taking it seriously."

Hunter S. Thompson

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