The same bass is lurking again and again and this time a tiny bug falls overhead. But it falls so lightly that the bass is alerted rather than frightened – and so he gives it a closer look, maybe just as the angler twitches it slightly. On impulse or from hunger, the bass might grab it. If not immediately he could be tempted on the second or third casts.
Of course that is only theory – maybe even far-fetched theory – but bugs seem to work far better than bigger baits when the fishing pressure is high.
The best water for bugging, at least here in the Midwest, is either very weedy of full of obstacles. You look at it and your first impulse is to tie a weedless spoon onto a casting outfit and to start throwing it into the lettuce. Certainly that works – very, very well sometimes. But if it doesn’t, try going back over the same area with bugs.
I realize there are problems with snagging when you cast a bug in weedy areas. But practice develops pinpoint accuracy and eventually any fisherman is surprised at how well he soon learns to drop his bug into the tinest bits of open water. It isn’t even necessary to have open water for practice; you can spend spare moments developing casting accuracy right in your own backyard.
That brings us around again to the matter of using heavy level leaders. For one thing you have better control of a heavy bug casting. But more important than that, you can better horse a good bass right out of weedy spots, after it strikes. With the lighter leaders so necessary for trout, you would only lose most of the bass you hook.
Last summer I went fishing with my son Bob at one of the Muskingum chain lakes in eastern Ohio. We carried along a tent and pitched it as close to the lakeshore as the local camping rules permitted. Then we launched my square-ended cartop canoe and set out to catch our dinner.
But for dinner we had to settle for hamburger; nor could we catch anything for breakfast. If there was any consolation at all, it was that no other campers in the compound were doing any better. I thought about striking the tent and looking elsewhere – except that I have a stubborn streak a mile wide. So I went swimming and then sat in the sunshine to mull it over. Bob joined me.
“I have never seen this place so weedy,” the lad said, “So early in the year.”
“And I’ve never found the water quite so warm,” I added.
“Then let’s just forget about fishing,” Bob continued, “Until well after dark for a change.”
“You are reading my mind,” I said.
“Maybe I’m just a chip off the old blockhead.” Then Bob went swimming, too.
That evening we waited until all the campers were back in camp, boats pulled out on shore and steaks cooking on charcoal grills all around us. Somebody nearby started strumming a guitar. That’s when we quietly launched our own boat, cranked up the small outboard and motored to the opposite side of the lake. There Bob began casting a weedless spoon. I had rigged a flyrod and began to toss a small popping bug. Bob didn’t say anything, but I could practically “feel” him wondering how I would keep from snagging constantly.
In the beginning, before my eyes were fully accustomed to the darkness I did snag frequently. Sometimes I would retrieve long stringers of weeds and sometimes we would have to pry the bugs loose from lily stems by hand. To make it seem worse, Bob quickly hooked and boated a one-pounder with his spoon and casting outfit.
But suddenly things changed. By making shorter casts and with night vision improving, I had a couple of strikes which were missed. But the third bass hung himself and I horsed him right onto the stringer.
Ten minutes later there was another upheaval under my bug – only this bass wouldn’ t be horsed I leaned into my outfit for all it would stand, but except to lurch upward and out of the water in a wild leap, the bass was too strong to be budged. While I just held on, Bob paddled back into the weeds and we were able to “dig” out my fish. The flashlight proved useless because it was knocked overboard early in the melee. But somehow we boated the bass which, on scales later on, didn’t quite make four pounds.
The score up until about midnight was five bass to one if favor of the bug over the spoon. It is true that one inning does not constitute to a ball game, but that was a dramatic example of the bug’s effectiveness on a busy, weedy body of water.
One of the wildest nights of freshwater fishing I’ve ever known occurred on an alcohol-clear lake in central Ontario. This lake contained a fringe of vegetation around the shoreline, but mostly it was very thin as compared to Ohio or southern shorelines. Here again fishing had slowed down to almost nothing, except for a few smallmouths taken in deep water on nightcrawlers. That I went fishing at all must be blamed mostly on the unlucky trend of the poker game going on back in camp.
Fishing alone along the shore, I first tried tossing surface plugs with a spinning outfit. With these I had two strikes, landed one smallmouth and might have had much more action except that two sets of treble hooks were too much to get through the vegetation. Since my flyrod was already in the boat, I picked it up and knotted a popper to the leader.
That was like flipping a switch. Either the bass just started to strike at that moment – or the bug was the medicine they wanted. Take your choice. Before I gave it up, I had landed 11 bass, but kept only the five biggest. These weighed a total of 21 pounds and as you might suspect, broke up the poker game.
There are three basic kinds of bass bugs and many variations of all three. Best known and most frequently used today is the popper. These are solid-bodied (cork, wood or plastic) bugs with either flat or dished out faces which make popping or gurgling noises when twitched. The actual shape of the body varies greatly to imitate anything from frogs to grasshoppers, but mostly nothing natural at all. The tails and/or wings can be anything from rubber bands or bucktail to feathers and fur. My own favorite bugs are those with fluttering rubber skirt tails. I suppose you could call them miniskirts. Like the imports from jolly old England, they attract attention.
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