The small college I attended in South Carolina was situated on a significant piece of land in the state’s Piedmont region. There were rolling sand hills covered in pine trees, and sharp bluffs overlooking a broad river. We also had two ponds. Each held significant populations of the premier fish of the American south: the largemouth bass.
It is hard to overestimate the cultural ubiquity of the largemouth bass in the majority of the sub-Mason-Dixon region. Their silhouettes adorn everything from mudflaps to biceps. They’re found everywhere, they grow large, and they eat everything. This last aspect of their character is what I’ll be discussing today.
Even before I considered fishing either of the campus ponds I spent time walking their weedy banks. Coming from a slightly more northern latitude, I was fascinated by the fire ants and rattlesnakes that simply existed in the real south. I was amazed to find giant spiders creating webs between cattails. I was terrified by the car tire sized snapping turtles. I was intrigued when a faint slap on the surface of the water resulted in an explosion that sounded like a cinder block had been tossed into the pond.
More interesting was that it happened again. This time I saw what caused it.
A lizard had been blown off of a tree limb an landed in the pond. A small Carolina anole doesn’t create much of a commotion when it lands. When it swims, it undulates up and down and side to side. To a human eye, this also doesn’t cause much of a stir. But I can only imagine what a bass sees. Their lateral line inevitably picks up the thumping of the lizard’s vertical movement. Their eye surely sees every struggling movement of the lean body against the backdrop of a sunny sky. That is why the big bass didn’t just slurp the lizard from the water. They jumped up and through the tiny critters, giving them no chance to escape.
Immediately I tried to figure out how to emulate the situation. Live bait wasn’t an option, as “attaching” a hook to a lizard wouldn’t be fair or fun for anyone. Rubber lizards rigged on conventional tackle caught fish; but not like the topwater spectacle I had beheld. The only option was a floating, rippling, lizardy lure. It had to be a fly.
Prototypes were wide and varied. Rubber legs and marabou both made for excellent profiles. Articulated hooks weren’t a common thing back then, so a long shank had to do. Poppers and sliders disturbed the surface too much. Subsurface patterns always moved in a straight line, eliminating that side-to-side motion. Everything caught fish. But nothing was right. Bass slurped and crashed these flies, but they didn’t explode on them.
I’m sure that I could put together a decent undulating, finesse lizard fly today. There are more materials available and I’ve become a more creative fly tyer. However, the education from watching flies that worked-but-didn’t-work-right was valuable. Largemouth aren’t too particular. But getting largemouth to do something in particular is what I was going for. Catching fish is rewarding, but having a goal to catch a fish in a certain way is what pushes us to get out, to innovate, and to get out again.