68 
F ORES T AND STREAM 
February, 1919 
AFTER BASS WITH FLIES 
A BASS BUG IS A WEIRD CREATURE. RESEMBLING NOTHING 
THAT CREEPS OR FLIES, BUT IT CERTAINLY GETS RESULTS 
A ll the signs 
were pro- 
pitious. Several 
warm days had mel- 
lowed the brisk fall 
weather, until the 
nights were getting 
less cool. The moon 
was young, near the 
half, so the nights were dark except 
the early evening hours, and last but 
not least, there were some clouds in 
the northwest and my rheumatism told 
me there was going to be a change in the 
weather and maybe rain. Now I don’t 
know whether you other fellows believe in 
such things, but I admit I do and I have 
especially noticed that they “bite” just 
before weather changes. 
Our party was soon made up — five in 
all, with three fishing and two looking for 
squirrels. The three of us were equipped 
with 4% ounce rods. No. 1 Automatic 
reels, and quite an assortment of so- 
called bass bugs, which are cork bodied, 
impossibly large flies. 
After a run of an hour and a half in 
the cars we arrived at Medina Lake, 
which was our objective. The cedar cov- 
ered hills lay as smoothly as the surface 
of the lake itself for scarcely a breeze 
was stirring. Billy and I took the lighter 
boat and proceeded to fish our way to 
camp while the rest of the party came 
along later in the larger boat. Hardly 
had I pushed off from shore when Billy 
made his first cast and was immediately 
connected with a pounder, which came 
out of the water three or four times and 
then started to dig into the moss which 
grew upward from the bottom .three or 
four feet. By the time we reached our 
camp ground a mile below, we had fifteen, 
all about the same size, a foot long. 
Arriving in camp we made things 
ready for the night, gathered our fire- 
wood, spread the cooking outfit handy to 
the fire, and soon had supper sizzling in 
the pan. Fish? Well, I guess — one- 
pounders, fresh killed, split into halves, 
rolled in corn meal, and fried slowly over 
the glowing coals till each piece was a 
warm brown and done to a turn — a few 
strips of crisp fried bacon by way of 
trimmings — about three slices of toast 
apiece, done over those same coals on a 
broad fork, and buttered. Then spuds, 
black coffee and a pot of Boston straw- 
berries, cooked at home and still warm. 
To finish, a jar of homemade fresh fig 
preserves and a package of sweet cakes 
such as are sold by every grocery store. 
I claim that meal can’t be beat at the 
finest restaurant in little old New York. 
S UPPER cleared away, Billy and I de- 
cided to try an experiment in night 
fishing with white flies. So we pad- 
died off from shore and began casting, I 
using a large fly with white wings and 
tail, red head and aluminum colored 
By NOA SPEARS 
body, while Billy’s had a yellow head and 
body. We had never tried these before 
so were really surprised when our first 
cast was rewarded with a hard strike and 
a nice fish was soon landed. 
The water was dead calm and not a 
fish jumping, but between 9.30 and 11.30 
with only half a moon shining we had 
at least one hundred and fifty strikes. 
A great many of these missed entirely 
and we concluded it was due partly to 
the fish seeing the white hair of the 
wings or tail but not seeing the body of 
the fly, hence they struck short of the 
hook which depends from the body, and 
partly because we could not see the fish 
rise so quickly as in daylight and failed 
to strike in time to set the hook. 
We landed two that weighed two and 
one-half pounds each, six that weighed a 
pound or slightly more, and fifteen or 
twenty others ten to twelve inches long, 
which we sent back to grow up. 
The water was down about two feet 
from standard and we have usually had 
better fishing when it was at this stage — 
particularly seeming to get more big 
ones. Billy and I have a pet theory that 
the bigger ones lie in certain favored 
places, such as rocky ledges, by stumps 
and especially in the deep pockets in the 
moss and when the water is higher they 
do not see the flies or if they see them, 
will not rise to them beyond a certain 
distance. Then we also believe that their 
food supply is somewhat diminished as 
the shore line contracts and they are just 
naturally hungrier in low water — but of 
course that’s just a couple of notions of 
ours and if Mr. Bass could explain he’d 
He immediately connected with a pounder 
likely as not spring 
a new one on us that 
would prove how lit- 
tle we really know 
about his commis- 
sary or his habits. 
There is one thing 
we have wondered 
over a little and that 
is how we ever get the bass interested 
in the flies at this time of the year when 
he is living principally on crawfish. The 
crawfish are at the bottom, even in deep 
water, and Mr. Bass must go burrowing 
around into the moss looking for them, 
so how does he see the flies eight or ten 
feet above him? 
Nevertheless he does or rather he did 
the day I’m talking about and before five 
P. M. the next day we had taken over 
one hundred black bass and a few rock 
bass, though we call ’em “goggle eyes” 
in "Texas. All that measured under 
twelve inches were slipped back into the 
water and we had fifty-four to put in the 
ice box when we packed for home. The 
one-pounders made up the bulk of the 
catch and gave the best account of them- 
selves in the fighting, but the half dozen 
two-pounders added materially to that 
pardonable pride one takes in showing 
his string at the end of the day and re- 
marking nonchalantly, “Oh, they were 
striking pretty good.” Of course there 
was one real dandy — in fact it isn’t quite 
a perfect day unless there is one — and 
Billy got ours in a real spectacular man- 
ner worth the telling. It was just after 
lunch, about two-thirty, and I was pad- 
dling him slowly along over a rocky shelf 
grown well with moss and he was making 
long casts out past the edge of the shelf 
over water twelve or fourteen feet deep 
and retrieving his fly in little supposed- 
to-be-buggish jerks. Usually he’d get a 
strike where the shelf met the channel 
though not always. After he’d gotten 
three or four small ones he got a heavy 
strike with but little display about it 
and the fish went for bottom out in the 
deeper water. I knew it was a big one 
and he remarked that he had on the big- 
gest one of the day. After about two 
minutes deep play the line relaxed and 
Billy said “He’s off”; but at that instant 
I saw a big fish coming through the 
water toward the boat and he was throw- 
ing up a wake as high as your hand is 
wide. In a flash that fly rod took a nose 
dive and then bucked to right and left like 
he was dropping a couple of thousand 
feet “out of control.” 
Well, to make a long story stop, Billy 
landed him in about four minutes with- 
out using a landing net. He was twenty- 
two inches long and weighed six pounds. 
Then we began to decide what had 
really happened and agreed on this ver- 
dict. The first fish was a smaller one 
and got rid of the fly in some fashion 
while he was deep in the channel and the 
