Fly Tying Friday - Triangle Bugs For Bass

April 9, 2021 Panfish On The Fly

A fully dressed, weedless bass-sized Triangle Bug. This pattern makes a good disturbance on the surface of the water and is a solid bass producer.

For a long time, I have touted the Triangle Bugs' effectiveness as a topwater panfish fly. Over the years, I have caught a variety of fish species on this little bug while fishing for panfish. This list included many largemouth bass, including one six-pound fish that sipped that tiny size eight fly from the surface like a trout taking a mayfly. So it was a logical decision to tie these bugs a little larger and target bass with them.

The Panfish Devil Bug

April 2, 2021 Panfish On The Fly

The Devil Bug is an old school pattern that works as good today as it did back then.

I was first introduced to this pattern through a musty old pamphlet entitled How to Catch a Fish with O. C. Tuttle's Devil Bugs. I found the molding 22-page booklet in a box of donated fly tying materials that I was sorting for my local Trout Unlimited chapter. I took the yellowing pages home with me and read them cover to cover. Inside were drawings and descriptions of scores of devil bugs tied to catch everything from bluegills to tarpon.

Fly Tying Friday - The Triangle Bug 2.0

March 26, 2021 Panfish On The Fly

The Triangle Bug 2.0 coming to a Lilly pad near you!

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you are probably familiar with my most well-known fly, the Triangle Bug. I developed Triangle Bug many years ago to solve a problem which plaques fly fishers who target panfish.

Fly Tying Friday - The Cooper Bug

March 19, 2021 Panfish On The Fly

Will the real Cooper Bug please stand up!

Since the Cooper Bug turned out to be such an effective fly in both cold and warm water I decided to learn a little more about it. When I researched the pattern, I discovered a fly of the same name and a very different design. As it turns out, there was a fly called the Cooper Bug that predates the version I was tying. Interestingly enough it had its roots planted in warmwater, not a trout stream.

Fly Tying Friday: The Panfish Polecat

March 12, 2021 Panfish On The Fly

The Panfish Polecat is a simple to tie but effective pattern for all species of Panfish.

Flies for Bass and Panfish is a book written by Dick Stewart and Farrow Allen. My dog-eared copy has sat on my bookshelf since its printing in 1992. Although most of its pages are dedicated to bass flies, a small section of the book has a selection of classic panfish patterns. One of the first patterns I gleaned off the pages of this book was the Panfish Polecat.