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Foam flies for Trouts and Basses / anything


Brian K. Shaffer

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Foam really works well for bass flies - and I use all blank for ants and beetles.

The key is to have VARIETY. Not all the same shape and size drives fish crazy. 

I like that shade of yellow because I am color blind. Fish like it too, especially in the early AM.

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the fly below is painted foam - QTpie

QTpie.3.jpg

Ants are favorite - but these little yellow things come off right away - poo

 

Ants.3.JPG

Just once I wish a trout would wink at me!

ozarkflyfisher@gmail.com

I'm the guy wearing the same Simms longbilled hat for 10 years now.

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  • Brian K. Shaffer changed the title to Foam flies for Trouts and Basses / anything

I've used small Gurglers in saltwater for cutthroat both stripped and skated.  Haven't tried the Gurglers in a river, though, so YMMV.  

Also, I hooked one of my largest trout ever on a small midge pattern that had a small, foam block as a wing. I was sitting on a rock, flipping the fly in the run at my feet when the bugger did a perfect head-and-tail rise to take the fly.  Since the nail knot was inside the guides, he didn't stay around long.

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My gurglers are not as pretty as Flysmallie's. I have a few tied in white and yellow.

I tied a few woolly worms with foam bodies once. I thought they'd be good for panfish. I called them the Unsinkable Molly Brown's b/c I used a brown body. But I've never used them, so who knows!

Foam beetle is literally top 5 fish catcher for me. I tie on a yellow scrap instead of gluing, fwiw.

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I only make two foam flies, my gurglers look like Flysmallie's far left model, basic, simple, easy to see and Neosho bass love them; my "beetles" look like nothing natural but the RRSP trout gulp them.

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9 minutes ago, tjm said:

I only make two foam flies, my gurglers look like Flysmallie's far left model, basic, simple, easy to see and Neosho bass love them; my "beetles" look like nothing natural but the RRSP trout gulp them.

Most of mine that I fish look like the far left. The ones with long legs give you something a little different when dead drifting. The ones with rabbit get a little water logged and are good for swimming or blooping along like a frog. But one of those white ones skated on a 5 wt is my favorite for smallmouth. It doesn’t produce huge fish, it doesn’t provide great hookups, but it does provide big fun. 

 

 

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17 minutes ago, Flysmallie said:

it doesn’t provide great hookups,

I don't seem to miss hookups using 4XL hooks on the 14" and bigger fish, but I've smaller ones hit the fly on 4-5 consecutive casts.

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1 hour ago, tjm said:

 

I don't seem to miss hookups using 4XL hooks on the 14" and bigger fish, but I've smaller ones hit the fly on 4-5 consecutive casts.

I’m not speaking in general but skating one across a tail out for smallmouth will result in multiple misses. It’s just the nature of it. 
 

Using one as a popper or dead drifting it you won’t have any issues. 
 

 

 

 

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