Bob Clouser on Bass Fly Fishing

Bob Clouser Seminar - Bass from Top To Bottom

Atlanta, GA

Feb 3, 2017

I had the pleasure of sitting in on Bob Clouser's bass fishing seminar in Atlanta last year, part of the annual Fly Fishing Show held there. 

Bob is a big, bear of a guy from Pennsylvania. He has a full, white mustache, little hair, and a stout “Yankee” accent.
It's fun to just be in his presence and to listen to him. 
In attendance were also two stalwart members from our facebook page, "Palmetto Fly n Fish": Gerry Korzi and Donald Schmotzer. 

It's not everyday you get to sit down with a legend, so I took as many notes as I could.

Following are highlights of Bob's talk. Some of it may surprise you...

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We come in a bit late, and enter an already darkened room. Bob is in front of a projector screen, manning his laptop and running a slide show. About 40-50 people are seated, theater-style, facing him. He's talking about tackle...

“Alright fellas, lets talk about tackle for bass.

Rods

Now, I'm a pro staff angler for TFO, so naturally I'm gonna promote their products. They are high quality and reasonably priced.

But when most people talk about bass on the fly, they mean 7-9 weight rods. 

And I wanna say right here - that's not really necessary. 

Today's modern materials and designs give most 5 wt. rods the strength needed to handle bass. 

The main issue isn't the fish, anyway – its the bulky, air-resistant flies everyone thinks they need to throw at bass.

So lemme ask - how many of you guys use 5 wt. rods? 

(a few timid hands go up)

Hey, its alright – rod manufacturers will tell you the most popular rod weight in the country is a 5 wt. 

This is followed by the 4 wt. 

Then the 6, 7, 8 and the rest.

So, how many of you fellas want to keep using those 5 and 6 weight rods? 

(this time over half the crowd raises their hand)

I thought so. And who wouldn't, right? It's what you're used to.

If that's the case, start tying your flies on bend-back, or worm style keeled hooks, and tie them somewhat sparse. These flies aren't big and bulky and me and Lefty* have been working with them for years.”

Here he shows a picture of flies tied with a pronounced kink behind the eye. The shaft makes a near 90 degree bend for about 3/16-1/4”, then bends back in the same line, but now below the original plane. It looks very much like a worm hook, and he places the eyes right in the kink.

* This was before the passing of Bob's longtime friend, and fly-fishing great, Lefty Kreh.

Bob goes on to speak about lines...

“Line

I wont say too much about floating lines, but I will tell you to have floating AND sinking lines. 

The best sinking line? Type 3.

It doesn't sink too deep, or too fast, and this lets you control the fly better.

Adding Weight to Flies

If you need a deeper presentation, you'll be thinking about adding weight, right? 

That usually means using split shot, to get the fly down.

Well, don't – use Twiston lead strip weights, instead.

Split shot tends to snag and drag, or you gotta get into tricky shot droppers, and so on. And you have to fumble them out of little baggies, or tubes or whatever, to use them.

Instead, the Twiston lead wraps come in a convenient pack like a book of matches. You wrap them around the leader and line and they present nothing to get lodged between rocks or snags.

Use Loops

Your line and leaders should use looped connectors – there's nothing to go wrong with a loop. Enough said about that.

Leader

Don't get too long here; 5-6 feet is enough. 

It doesn't need to be tow-cable thick, either. 

Just a standard thickness that matches the line, and stiff enough that it allows the line to turn the fly over. 

This is because your tippet is actually the key...

Tippet

Make your tippet long. 

Bass aren't terribly line shy, but they can be. 

You wanna get the fly well out and away from the line and leader, using a minimum tippet length of 3 feet!
You'll catch more bass this way.

Knots

There are only two knots you need to know for attaching flies to tippet.

- Lefty's Non Slip Loop Knot

- Improved Clinch Knot

Don't worry about others.”

I give a silent cheer and nudge Gerry Korzi, whispering, “This is great! I'm not smart enough to know a dozen knots, and have been using these for a long time.”

Back to Bob...

“TOP WATER

Lets first clear something up - the 'top water bite' is a myth, fellas 

(A murmur goes up and people squirm uncomfortably at this).

I know what you're thinking, but in general, fish don't normally loaf at the 'top' - the surface - waiting for your fly or some other juicy tidbit to land in their face. 

They're too exposed that way and it goes against all their instincts. 

Instead, they stay below and COME UP to the surface.

Think about it; how many times have you seen that – the fish isn't literally on the surface, but comes out of nowhere from below and grabs your fly? 

(the audience nods its head in unison)

I remember one white fly hatch so thick, you couldn't breathe without gagging on bugs. The bass were hungrily feeding on the flies - but they were only taking every fifth fly. 

They would come up and take a fly off the surface, go back below to their safe spot to gobble it down, and then come back up once they felt safe enough. 

During  the time it took for this to happen, four white flies had gone by!

The point is, they are exposed at the surface and they don't like it. They may be NEAR the surface, yes, but they are not normally right in the film. 

Another way to look at this is to say they'll maybe feed up, rising to the fly.

Surface Presentation

Bass that are willing to feed on the surface and take a fly, might be somewhat particular, however. 

They either like noisy flies, or not. And you gotta figure out which.

When they want a quiet presentation, don't give them a noisy one...you'll put them down.

If they'll accept a noisy surface bug, great - give that to them.
But you'll have to start out with slow, gentle presentations first, or risk scaring them off.

This means cast the surface fly and let it sit.

Twitch it, maybe.

Let it sit some more.

Move it slightly, let it sit again.

Repeat.

If that doesn't work after numerous attempts, get more rambunctious with your retrieve and imparting action until you start getting strikes.

Poppers

Who likes poppers? 

(all the hands shoot up)

Well, when it comes to poppers, we used to use cork-bodied versions back in the day, and did well with them. 

Then foam came out, and we all thought it was wonderful. So many colors, easy to work with, and tough as nails; the cork can be a little fragile, after all. 

Sounds perfect, right?

It's not.

Foam has a problem. 

Both Lefty and I found our foam poppers don't get as many strikes as the “corkies.” 

After a lot of study, we figured out what was going on:

The old cork bugs sat lower in the water!

Cork is buoyant, but not like the foam material. By contrast, the foam jobs ride right up on the surface which is kind of unnatural.

To cure this, what I recommend you do is cement a piece of thick solder or lead wire into the slit you make in the foam popper bodies when you glue in your hook. 

Experiment a little until you get the weight right, ensuring your bug bodies float half in, and half out, of the water. 

You'll get a better sonic effect and I'm sure the fish will more readily take these modified poppers

But I think there are better surface flies than poppers, in my opinion, and these are the skippers, chuggers, sliders and so on. They present a more natural appearance in the water. You should give these serious use.

Near Surface Flies

Another class of 'top water fly' isn't really; it's what I call the 'near-surface' fly. 

These run from right at the surface to a foot or two down. 

This is the suspending fly, the one that doesn't sink fast.

It kinda hovers on the drop, instead. 

You can do as well with these, and maybe better, than with top water flies. 

A favorite of mine has a three layer head of red - white - red hackle in front, with a white Deceiver-style back end.

FISHING HEAVY COVER

Here we're talking about lily pads and thick weeds, guys. This is a favorite place to fish for bass.

My advice, though, is to ignore this stuff except under the best conditions. By that I mean, when the wind lays down and the water is calm. 

You want to work back into the pockets and holes in the weeds, but its almost impossible to be in control of your line and fly in this stuff when your line is drifting all over, the boat is drifting all over, or everything is being blown around by the wind.

Weed Guards

How about those weed guards? Everybody loves these things, and so do I.

They keep your fly from hooking on everything... including fish.

My favorite type of weed guard is the side-by-side wire or mono type. But – and its a big but - I trim their length so they just barely protect the hook point, right to hook point length, in fact.

Shallow Cover

I also advise you guys to fish tight in to the shore cover, often.

How many times have you gone down near the shore and seen the wakes of fish taking off like scared rabbits at your approach? 

It's happened to all of us, I'd imagine.

Well, you'd be surprised how often decent sized bass are right in tight to shore. This will usually be in the presence of some kind of cover, most often weeds.
They may not all be trophy bass, but you should hit every pocket and point in the shore cover, as long as there is plenty of it around. Stick ups, too.

The lone stick or bit of grass poking up usually has a more significant structure beneath the surface, and fish will try to hide in amazingly sparse shelter.

In fact, if a fish can hide his head, he thinks he's safe - even if the rest of his body is exposed!

Because of this, a good tactic near shore is to use your polarized sunglasses to look for the tails of fish within the cover. 

If you see them, don't cast right at the head – or even beyond it. Instead, cast to the side, away from the tail. 

If your eyes aren't playing tricks on you, and a fish is really there, he will know your fly is there, too. 

And if he wants it he'll come to get it.

Casting at his head or dropping your line over his noggin' is just gonna send him running.

Frogs

Around heavy cover, USE FROGS. 

I cant stress that enough. 

I think bass spend their lives eating frogs.

Cast these right along the shoreline and cover, too. 

Bass fishing means accurate casting. 

I'd recommend quieter frogs over noisy ones, too, most of the time. But if you're not fishing frog mimics around heavy cover at least part of the time - you're missing fish.

DOWN DEEP

When fish aren't coming to the surface, and arent shallow, you have to go deep and that usually means near the bottom.

In rivers, its dead drift along river bottoms. 

In lakes its working a fly along the bottom.

Flies for this are patterns that imitate crawfish, sculpins, darters, worms, etc.

Mending the Drift

When deep drift casting on rivers, make your mends in the air before the line lands in the water. 

Let the line shoot out and give it a sideways up-current flip before landing. This puts an upstream loop in it. 

The point is to let the fly settle in place once in the water, not to be dragged around by tryin' to get the mend and drift just right. 

Bass will often hit the fly just when it enters and begins to float down. If its being hauled all over by your line gymnastics, it may put the fish down more than attract them. 

It also lets slack get in the line.

And you want to keep the slack out of your line! 

Follow the line on the drift with you rod tip and strip in line to eliminate slack. This rule is universal. 

NEVER let the line drift in behind your rod tip – it should always be to the front, your rod tip pointing at the fly and you should not let slack develop.

The Reel

When playing fish, forget the reel. 

How many of you have had a fish get off while trying to reel in slack and get the fish onto the drag so you can, “play it”? 

You have this big money reel with its disc drag, and by God, you're gonna reel that fish, right? 

Sorry, but that's your mistake fella's

(more muttering from the crowd....).

Rather, keep stripping line and don't fiddle around trying to get the fish on the reel.

What happens is that while you're frantically trying to reel in slack, the rod tip is bouncing up and down - sending slack waves down the line toward the fish. Given half a chance, that fish is gonna get off.

The point is to maintain tension at all times, keep stripping, and don't let any slack develop with the fish on.

If the fish needs line to run, let the line out through your tightened fingers and manage it that way. 

If the fish is that damn big, its gonna get on the reel soon enough, anyway!

Be A Line Watcher. 

Bass don't often grab a fly and try to snatch the rod from your hand. It sometimes seems that way, but the fact is this: by the time you realize a bass is on, it has probably had your fly in its mouth for some time. 

Very often they pick up a fly and reject it before you even realize it happened.

Frequently, they grab the fly on the drop, or when you stop stripping and there is no real tension between you and the fly. 

And since the fly is coming towards you on the retrieve, odds are very good the bass is following – and moving towards you, too. Thus, it picks up the fly while also moving in your direction, on a slackened line.

This means the single best way to know whats happening is by watching the line where it enters the water. You must not let gross amounts of slack develop; if you do you'll miss the subtle twitches, stalls, and sideways bumps the line may exhibit when the bass engulfs your fly.

NOTES ON FLIES

Red and white still remains a productive color combination after all these years.
It doesn't seem to scare the fish or put them down, as you might think – in fact, they often seem to prefer it. The red and white hackle fly I already mentioned is great and I'll say it again, it works!

You can also work red and white into other patterns, like Clouser Minnows, for example.

Other Colors

A few other colors that seem to appeal to bass most of the time are these:

• Olive over yellow, w/ gold flash. I don't know what it is with this combination but its another fish taker. Tie a sparse Clouser Minnow with a yellow belly, gold flash center line and olive top.
• Gold, too, just seems to be a bass magnet in any form. You should try to work it into your bass flies wherever possible.
• White belly, green side line and brown top

UV2 Materials 

In recent years, UV enhanced materials have come on the scene.

These have been touted as some sort of cosmic beacon to fish. 

They aren't. 

What they will do is brighten the fly, especially under reduced light conditions. 

So for flies intended to go deep or to be fished under low light conditions, UV2 is a good idea.

Steve Farrar Flash Blend

If you've never heard of Steve Farrar's “Flash Blend,” its time to change that. This stuff is almost magical the way it swims and adds attractiveness to a pattern. 

I recommend it highly.

Whenever I fish with Lefty Kreh, I always end up begging one of his flies. As good as mine are, his seem to be better. And he always obliges my request, because he brings along extras.

And he always charges me $5 per fly, for the privilege.

Stewardship

On a final note, I'd like to tell you about a lovely lady I've had the pleasure of fishing with for years. One day she caught a nice fish and wanted to take it home to show her mother.

“Why do that?” I asked. “By the time you get it home its eyes will be waxed over, its scales will be falling off and it'll look pretty ragged. 

Why not take a picture and let it go? That way, it can breed and make a thousand more babies for you to catch in the years ahead.”

She liked that idea.

The fish you save today is the sport you enjoy tomorrow.

The Crippled Minnow

And last but not least, someone asked why I haven't mentioned my own, "Clouser Crippled Minnow." 

Well, it's too damned good, that's why. 

Fish take it so hard and fast they get it deep, and I was seeing a lot of wounded fish, often mortally wounded. 

So I quit using it. 

It's kind of a secret weapon, but for the wrong reasons. 

I don't recommend it any longer.

Have fun and tight lines”

- Bob Clouser

I hope you enjoyed this. Remember, this was from memory, and my notes, and is not a direct appropriation of Bobs work. 
With luck, though, you learned more than you bargained for.

If you liked it, please share it with your friends

David
Palmetto Fly N Fish

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