By the end of July I start fishing deer hair bass bugs. Why? They seldom let me down and also I think big bugs equal big bass. Reading great stories by master anglers such as Ray Bergman and H.G. Tapply of yesteryear spark my imagination of ways I can successfully fish deer hair bass bugs.
My Favorite Deer Hair Bass Bugs
- Murray’s Floating Minnow in dace and chub are tied on a size 4 & 6 long shank hook. Sometimes a dress them with a silicone floatant and sometime not. At dusk the smallmouth move into the shallow tails of the pools to feed on the dace and chub minnows. By swimming and dancing my floating minnow through these areas I can land some nice bass.
- At dawn my son Jeff, pulled me to the river and lined the boat up 50 feet off the bank and had me cast a size 6 Mouserat tight against the bank. A very large bass quickly grabbed my bug before the rings disappeared. Bass seem to have a natural tendency to feed on mice close to the waters edge.
- The Dahlberg Diving Bug with its cupped face, has the capacity to attract bass that are feeding in riffles from 2-4 feet deep. A rapid foot long strip-pause-strip swimming action apparently prompts them to charge the bug before it gets away from them.
- Swimming a Whitlock Deer Hair Frog through lily pads and clean grass beds will bring strikes from the bass that regularly patrol these areas in search of food. A slow line-hand crawling bug action is very effective.
- By late July many smallmouth rivers begin dropping and the bass become wary. This tendency along with their affinity for shade often finds them selecting feeding stations close to heavily shaded banks. My standard method at this time of the year is to wade upstream and cast up and across stream at a 45 degree angle so my bug falls close to the shaded bank. I make long casts with streamlined deer hair bass bugs. The bugs I put into this category are: Tapply Bug, Murray’s Red Head, Murrays Frisky Frog, and Murray’s Blue Dragon
