The flies pictured above were made especially for Georgian Bay & are much larger than one would use in other places like Ohio. Georgian Bay fish like big lures & flies & the bigger the better.
If fly fishing is your thing you can not beat the Georgian Bay period.
I like to fly fish for big pike & smallmouth bass & largemouth bass.
I have yet to hook a muskie but have had a few of them scare me over the years.
I make & tie all of my own flies except for poppers.
I like to come up with new designs of my own.
It is a lot of fun to try them out.
I use nothing but five, six, seven, eight & nine weight Fenwick Feralite fiberglass fly rods from 7 1/2 to 9 foot long.
I use Pflueger Medalist reels that cost less than $40.00 & take five of them with three different line weights.
I have twelve different fly rods including expensive ones but like my vintage Fenwicks the best.
If you can find an Ugly Stick fly rod in six or seven weight eight & one half foot long they are great & hard to break.
They quit making them so they are hard to find.
They also make a nine foot 8/9 nine weight that is really strong & well made for a cheap fly rod but a bit on the heavy side for largemouth & smallmouth bass fishing but perfect for pike & musky over twenty five pounds.
Big wind resistant pike & musky flies over six inches long are hard to cast with eight weight bass rods.
A good bass bugger that can throw a big popper a long way eighty feet or more will have a field day on largemouth bass in The Bass Hole.
If you can throw a big nine weight rod & big wind resistant pike flies you can get all the big pike you want in the shallows when they come up out of the deep to feed but you have to use a cable to keep them from biting you off.
I use a four foot twenty pound regular Blue Stren mono leader for Georgian Bay & tip it with a fifteen pound test braided wire cable & tie that to the eye of my fly with an s knot. I use a knot called the Albright Special to tie the leader to the cable.
Tapered leaders are not required for this type of fishing so I just make my leaders out of Stren.
You have to re-tie after every hookup anyway just to be safe.
Get the book called Fly Fishing For Dummies to learn how to do that or anything about beginning fly fishing.
All of my fly lines have a bass bug or pike taper.
The fly line does all the work in fly fishing & not the rod or reel anyway.
It is not the rod so much as who is casting it.
Ugly sticks are the strongest rods made & they are made in China & cheap & a good buy for the money.
They are not the largest selling rod in the world for nothing.
You can double haul & shoot line with a broom stick if you know how to do it & the big 8/9 weight Ugly Stick will handle anything that swims including tarpon.
Fly reels do nothing so the Medalist is all anyone really needs.
I do not use a cable for poppers for largemouth or smallmouth so I always take plenty in case the pike are hitting them which they usually are.
The cable is to heavy & sinks them & they are supposed to float.
Sometimes I will put a forty pound line in the eye & tie that to my twelve pound leader with an Albright Special Knot or will even double the tip of my line with a Bimini Twist like salt water fishermen do & most pike or musky will not bite through that unless they get it in the corner of their jaws.
You will need to learn all the fly fishing knots if you do not know them.
Especially the Albright Special to tie wire cable to mono.
Fly fishing off the islands in & around shoals can be fabulous at times & you can get some really big trophy bass & pike.
The smallmouth fishing is really good out there in the summer & four to six pounders are plentiful at times.
It takes a long time to learn how to double haul & shoot line in order to sail big wind resistant flies with eight or nine weight rods but once you master that you can easily catch all the big fish you want in Georgian Bay or anywhere else as far as that goes including salt water.
You can lay poppers right on top of Lilly Pads & or in holes in the center of weed beds and they are deadly even when bass won’t take surface lures or live bait.
The water is clear in Georgian Bay so long accurate casts are a must & you must be able to do that in windy conditions as there is usually a good breeze on the water out & around the islands, rocks & shoals. I can throw big flies from 60 to 80 feet if there is no strong wind but most beginners are in the 40 to 50 foot range & that is not good in clear water.
Wooly Buggers, Clouser Minnows & Deceivers are great on Georgian Bay smallmouth & easy to tie.
The Pecks Popper in all sizes & colors is good on Georgian Bay Largemouth & Smallmouth Bass.
Out on the big water areas you can get out on small islands & cast rock piles & shoals walking around & the smallmouth fishing can be fabulous at times & many times schools of big pike will also come in close to these islands & shoals to feed & even an occasional musky.
Crayfish imitations can be deadly at times on smallmouth while poppers seem to get more largemouth.
Six weights rods are great for tossing Wooly Buggers, Clousers & Deceivers if they are not to heavy or large.
If you are new to fly fishing the best all around rod is a 6 weight by 8 1/2 foot & you can use that for everything including pike up to twenty-five pounds if you get them in dead water clear of weed beds.
I like to make epoxy flies on a wheel that resemble Rapalas & I make four to six inch long rabbit strip pike flies to throw on my nine weight.
I also have some Velcro minnows I make that murder pike in Georgian Bay.
Use white Velcro & then color them with markers to look like perch or Rapalas.
You can buy the good markers at stores for professional artist & they do not fade or come out in water.
I glue plastic craft eyes on them I get at Walmart.
A pure white or yellow or chartruse rabbit strip with a touch of red hackle up front with no weight works great as the wire leader takes it down anyway.
Sometimes all black with no red works well.
The big pike like really big flies that resemble the Cisco or yellow perch or small pike or walleye.
You can make pike flies out of white rabbit strips & then use markers to make them look like perch or Cisco’s.
I also make pure marabou flies for pike where you wrap the marabou feathers like hackle & mix in orange, black, yellow, green, orange & gold that resembles perch colors.
Marabou flies are deadly if you know how to tie them & fish them.
Almost anything will work if you move it fast after it hits the water.
Indians used to catch-all the pike they wanted with white cloth on a hook.
I use a stripping basket in my boat when I stand up & fly cast for pike.
You have not lived until a 25 pound pike has grabbed a fly & took off.
Checkout Fishing Jones a very good source for fly fishing blogs & good information.
Once you get hooked on fly fishing & fly tying it is difficult to go back to standard fishing methods as fly fishing is a real challenge & it really makes you feel good about yourself after you master it over a period of many years.
It is a great hobby & very rewarding.
