118 FORESTANDSTREAM Maech, 1919 
MAKING YOUR OWN BASS BUGS 
A PLEASANT OCCUPATION FOR THE WINTER EVENINGS THAT LINKS 
MEMORIES OF LAST YEAR WITH ANTICIPATIONS OF THE COMING SEASON 
. By NOA SPEARS 
H aving hinted quite broadly in a pre- 
vious article on bass fishing with 
homemade floating flies that I 
would not be averse to revealing the mys- 
teries of the construction thereof, the 
editor has been unkind enough to take 
advantage of my weak moment — but I 
trust the result may help some brother 
of the rod to while away his winter even- 
ings, while the wife knits another sweater 
for the boys who are still over there and 
the kids are roasting apples and pop- 
ping corn before the fire. 
The accompanying illustrations show 
as best I can the various steps in the 
making, but pictures, however good, 
never explain, at least to me, just how 
each step was taken and many essential 
points cannot be illustrated. 
The first step should be to prepare the 
colored shellacs with which to paint the 
bodies, which are of cork and do not 
take oil paints and varnish well and dry 
too slowly. 
Get half a pint of white shellac dis- 
solved in alcohol and one ounce each of 
yellow, red, white and b^own dry paint 
colors, and a small amount of the dry 
powdered aluminum. Then take a one- 
ounce clear glass stoppered bottle for 
each color you intend to make and pour 
them half full of the shellac. Add color 
and shake well until all the color is well 
mixed with the shellac. Enough color 
should be used to give good covering 
quality, otherwise too many coats are 
required. Light colors require more of 
the pigment then darker colors. If you 
get it too thick a little alcohol will thin 
the mixture and should they evaporate 
alcohol will restore them perfectly. A 
medium heavy body is easier to apply 
than one too thin as it runs off and 
requires more coats to produce strong 
colors. 
The yellow and red may be blended 
in another bottle to produce a good, deep 
orange, and other similar mixtures can 
be produced by experimenting. Always 
keep the glass stoppers in the bottles 
tight to prevent evaporation. 
A small, cheap bristle brush, say %- 
inch in diameter, will serve to apply the 
shellacs, as a good brush is soon stiffened 
anyhow and the painting is rather crude 
because shellac doesn’t “work” like 
paint. Dipping is good if your bottles 
have wide enough mouths and a hat pin 
serves well to carry the bodies while 
being dipped. 
N ext get a small flat-nose plier, a 
pair of straight manicure scissors 
as delicate as possible, a dozen 
sneck hooks, size 3/0 or 2/0 as you pre- 
fer, a couple of dozen No. 3 extra long 
corks as free from pores and defects as 
possible, a couple of sheets each of 0 
and 00 sandpaper, and 2 spools of waxed 
dental floss. The sneck hooks may be 
changed to some other style if not ob- 
tainable, but be sure to select a hook 
with a large eye, rather stiff shank, yet 
not too heavy, and of best quality. Car- 
lisle’s are too light and springy, O’Shaugh- 
nessy’s are too blunt and heavy, while 
Pennell’s have a turned down eye which 
spoils them to loop the leader through, 
even if the eye were big enough. 
With the pliers bend the offset out 
of the sneck hooks as a straight set 
hook works best on these flies. Take 
one of the corks and with a sharp pocket 
knife trim off the edge of the larger end, 
cut a slice off one side to form the belly, 
then trim the smaller end so the cork 
appears as in illustration No. 2. Smooth 
up the entire cork now, so it will finish 
nicely, using whichever grade of sand- 
paper works best on the materials. 
Next cut small notches about ^-inch 
deep across belly to simulate the natural 
segments on a real bug, and a notch 
around the entire body at what would be 
the neck of the bug, so your body then 
looks like illustration No. 3. 
Stretch across your desk, or elsewhere 
out of the way, a piece of string to hang 
the bodies on while they are drying after 
each coat of enameling. 
Take some common pins and bend their 
heads over so they make hooks or han- 
gers — using the pliers for this. These 
with the bodies impaled upon the points 
will hang nicely and the bent pins also 
make a handle to use while applying 
the shellacs or enamels. Impale the bod- 
ies at the small end so the excess shellac 
will gravitate to the large end which is 
A photograph illustrating the successive steps in making bass bugs 
