I'm still looking for that weedless bass fly that won't snag so easily. I tend to get hooked on the bottom and in the grass I fish more than I'd like. I want the hook to ride upright, and I've been experimenting with that.
I also wanted to tie something in a baitfish pattern, partially because I really haven't yet, and also I want to target bass and hopefully gar where I fish. It'd be great if the white bass will like my bait fish, too.
I started with a 3/0 hook that's NOT meant for fly tying.
I started with some small, light dumbell eyes to an odd place on the hook shank.
I used EP fibers in white, olive, and red tied only to the horizontal portion of the hook right behind the eye of the hook and above the dumbell eyes. I used the "hollow tie" method, putting the darker fiber on top and the red in the middle. I also tied in a fair amount of chrystal flash and bright green angel hair for flash. It's not showing up in the pic because I had to turn the flash off to take the picture.
I didn't like how small the eyes were, so I glued some bigger eyes onto the existing eyes. This is what it looked like after I tied on the EP fibers and glued on the eyes.
I trimmed some fiber back and you can see how the hook is situated in the fibers.
I did some more trimming, because I was afraid that it was too bulky. I wanted a somewhat smaller profile and I didn't want it to catch any more wind than necessary during the cast. I also had a marker I ordered for adding ribbing, so I did a little of that, too. Here is how I plan to fish it this weekend. I have more markers coming, and I'll do more ribbing if the red and blue ones show up.
I also wanted a light worm that I could fish over some grass, so I used another hook that wasn't meant to be used for fly tying.
I straightened the hook's weed guard to let me work around it.
I used some ESTAZ in black opal, a little piece of olive maribou for a tail, and a brown hackle.
I tied the end of the ESTAZ on the hook and then used my hackle plier to twist the estaz a whole lot of times. Then, you double it over and it will twist onto itself, giving a little more bulk and makes it a tad more rigid.
Here is the youtube video that I based this worm off of.
I used hackle and no bead. I wanted a barely sinking worm to work over a grass bed I've had my eye on. Here's the finished worm.
