Recently I have had more customers asking about fly fishing in ponds and what flies to use. I lived on a farm west of Edinburg for five years that contained a large pond that held many largemouth bass and a broad variety of sunfish.
Some of my best success in fishing this pond for largemouth bass was the last hour of daylight when the bass came into the shallows to feed on minnows. Successful streamers include the Murray’s Magnum Creek Chub, Magnum Bluegill, and Magnum Hog Sucker all in size 4. Standing ten feet back on the bank, I’d cast fifty feet out into the pond an strip them 6 inches every 5 seconds. The majority of the strikes came when the streamers were within 10 feet of the bank. Using this technique I would fish all the way around the pond.
Poppers and deer hair bass bugs were also very effective on ponds as darkness approached using a chug-pause-chug action. Here is a list of poppers that I have success with:
- Shenandoah Blue Popper
- Shenandoah Chartreuse Chugger
- Murray’s Bass Popper in colors: frog, sunfish and black
These are bigger sized flies so I would recommend using a 9ft 7-weight fly rod with a Bright Butt 9ft 2X leader. If you are using a lighter weight fly rod then you will have to adjust by using streamers and poppers that are in smaller sizes such as size 8.