Can I Make A Suggestion?
Putting the odds in your favor
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UNI Products Fly Tiers Corner
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Warm Water Edition
February 2024
By Craig Riendeau
Warm water fishing is becoming more and more popular among fly fishermen due to its accessibility. Just about everyone has a pond, lake or stream down the street that is full of bass, panfish, carp or other assorted warm water species of fish that all can be caught with fly fishing tactics.
The question for the novice or even the hardcore trout angler looking for something different is, where do I start? What flies do I need to tie to catch these fish? Will my boxes stuffed with dry flies, caddis flies, nymphs of all varieties and even terrestrials be sufficient to catch these fish?
Well, the honest answer is yes, some of the time. Herein is the problem, I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to catch fish “some of the time.” Personally, I like to put the odds of success in my favor. You must remember that most ponds and lakes don’t have reliable hatches of insects like trout streams. Yes, there are times bugs will be there in numbers to be the main focus of the fish’s diet, but in still waters this is the exception rather than the rule.
In warm water ponds, lakes and reservoirs, fish have a wildly diverse diet. They will eat insects, aquatic and terrestrial, crayfish, leeches, frogs, snakes, minnows, shad, shiners and even each other and their young. I find warm water fish species much more opportunistic feeders than a trout. Even during periods of an intense insect hatch or a bait ball blitz, most warm water fish will take a fly not really resembling the prevailing food source at that moment when presented properly.
This is the point of this article; you don’t have to “match the hatch” to catch warm water fish. This is especially true when there is no indication of what they are feeding on. So, what do you do to tip the success rate in your favor? I can make a suggestion. Let me clarify. I tie lots of different fly patterns that suggest life and vulnerability. This is the key to warm water fly fishing. Your fly doesn’t have to look exactly like a mayfly, hellgrammite, minnow or frog, it only has to suggest that this is what it could be by its size and action. Let the fish decide what the fly represents. The fact that it appears alive and vulnerable is usually more than enough to trigger a strike. Where in the water column and how you fish it can make the same fly represent different food sources.
Most fish won’t pass up a free meal and more so when they’re in a school. The competition factor really comes into play, if I don’t eat it, the other fish will. Creating an opportunity for an easy meal is what you want to do.
Easy-meal flies should be fished slow and have subtle motion even when you’re not moving them. Think of tying flies from materials that pulse and breath at the slightest motion. Materials like marabou, rabbit and rubber legs immediately come to mind. Other natural fibers are good too, like mink, squirrel or muskrat that work on smaller flies. There are many synthetic hackles and chenille that are soft and present subtle motions of being alive when hardly moving.
Suggestive fly patterns tend to be small, under four inches in length and tied sparse. When fishing slowly you don’t want a larger fly where its imperfections can be seen under close inspection. Don’t discount the effectiveness of a one- to three-inch fly that will catch anything that swims and often a trophy. Small, slowly fished flies are the equivalent of an after-dinner mint to you and me, just too hard to resist.
If I had to pick commercially available patterns out there that represent what I’m talking about, it’s easy to see why these two fly patterns have been around forever. If you tie Woolly Buggers and rubber-legged poppers, you probably have all you need to catch warm water species most of the time. Both can be tied in various sizes and colors to represent a multitude of bait.
With that said, it’s more often how it is fished rather than the color that gets results. Remember, we’re suggesting a type of bait or baits, not imitating any one in particular. Often, an off-color fly will draw more strikes because it stands out from the real ones. The late Tim Holschlage, smallmouth angler extraordinaire once told me, “Why don’t you see any chartreuse zebras on the savannas in Africa? Because they stood out from the herd.” Such an animal was alive and definitely vulnerable.
