TexasKayakFisherman.com

Last year I tried doing this trip with "fly rod only" in mind, I had bad luck. My brand new rod TFO BVK broke on day one...boooo!!! I had to turn to my back up baitcaster and did great. However, prior to my rod breaking I just couldn't get very many bites on the fly. Most of the fish I caught after the incident were in little deeper water.

Since then, I have upgraded my fly gear and have done a bunch of practicing with the new fly sticks. I'm been going on this stretch of the river for a long time and am pretty confident on catching bass...with "conventional gear". I have had good success in water deeper that 3ft on jigs, plastics, etc, but am not sure how to approach that depth with a fly.

This time I plan on bringing a Sage 8wt VT2 with SA Bass Bug line and a Sage Smallmouth with the line that came with it. My question is, how would you fish the deeper water with these setups? Do you think adding some split shots to the line would help get it deeper. Or should I look into getting sink tip or full sinking line?

I like throwing crayfish imitators, but none of the ones I have sink very fast..lol.

Any advice is appreciated.

A 15 ft sink tip fly line might be your best bet. If you don't feel like investing in new line, heavily weighted flies (lead dumbells) with a longer leader will do the trick. Kinda a pain to cast but the sage smallmouth line is off the chain and shouldn't have too much problem once you figure it out. One thing you might have to do is wait a few seconds for your fly to sink before you start your retrieve. Also, don't overlook topwaters thrown tight to the shore.

For deep water ... I have been doing well with dumbell-weighted or heavy cone-weighted flies. Rabbit strips or generous amounts of marabou with rubber legs make for excellent tail sections of these Jig like flies. I use dark colored cyrstal chenille for the body. I usually blind cast into the shorelines of the holes or at submerged structure, and then allow the fly to sink to depth before ever stripping any line. Then, I will make two or three 2" - 3" strips and allow the fly to re-sink. Make sure to keep your rod tip pointed down and in the direction of the fly with a straight line lay and you will feel the "tick". Check out the fly below for examples (Buddy tied the one in the picture - Had to give due credit).

[img][/img]

[quote="whiskeyangler"] (Buddy tied the one in the picture - Had to give due credit).[quote]

Thanks for giving me credit