Largemouth Bass

A largemouth on a fly rod is the most available good fishing in Texas. Every county has a stock tank, a reservoir arm, or a river backwater holding fish, and a six-weight with a floating line covers most of it.

Bass are ambush feeders that position by cover and temperature rather than current. In spring they move shallow to spawn and become the least cautious fish in fresh water. Through summer they hold under shade and in the thermocline, and the fly angler is mostly limited to the first and last hour of the day. In fall they follow bait shallow again, and in winter they slow to the point where a fly must be nearly stationary.

The mistake most fly anglers make on bass is fishing too fast and too far from cover. A bass will not swim ten feet across open water to eat a popper. Put the fly against the wood, the reeds, the dock piling, and leave it there long enough to be noticed.

Flies: a deer-hair popper or foam frog for the surface, a woolly bugger in olive or black for a general subsurface fly, and a weighted baitfish pattern for reservoir points and drop-offs. Weed guards earn their keep.

Texas holds Florida-strain largemouth in most public reservoirs, and the state hatchery program has put trophy genetics in enough water that a ten-pound fish is a reasonable, if uncommon, thing to hope for.