Fly-fishing for Bass - tips for success 

Why?

For a novice fly fisher, bass are wonderfully aggressive feeders and they aren’t particular about what they strike (unlike those prima donna trout).

What do I need?

I suggest no less than a 7 weight rod/fly line combo. There really is no need for an excessively long leader – 9 ft tapered leader with 18” tippet will be plenty.

Flies

• Poppers
  These are floating (dry) flies that are tied with either cork or deer hair with eye-catching feathers and sparkle tail. If I could only fish one color for Smalls, it would be chartreuse. You will hear it said over and over that the color of your popper doesn’t matter, and I am leaning that direction too. My color list is #1, chartreuse, #2, everything else.
• Streamers
  These flies are meant to mainly represent small bait-fish. The Clouser Minnow is probably the most popular bass streamer. They can be tied to look like Shad, baby Trout or baby Bass (among other things), but these three seem to be the best. To see how Clouser himself ties his Minnow, check out this video.
• Divers
  Created to primarily imitate a frog or tadpole, they are retrieved in a quick striping motion causing the fly to dive under the water surface, float back up and dive. Being flashy is good.
• Buggers
  The most popular bugger by far is the Woolly Bugger. It can be tied to imitate leeches and crayfish. When imitating crayfish, use sinking line and bounce the fly on the bottom. Be prepared – you will lose tackle. 

Where are they?

All over the United States, in mostly warmer bodies of water.

I somewhat recently fished a creek with a friend, and since he is a much more experienced fly fisher than me, I tried to just follow his lead. I noticed that when we found a spot on the creek that was both approachable and looked promising, he would subtly encourage a trade-off (you take this hole, I get the next hole) kind of thing. It seemed fair. Unfortunately, my impatience with the lack of action kept me moving. I noticed a couple of times that I had deviated from the unspoken agreement.

A week or two later, I was reading some publication or another about fly fishing and the author mentions a leap-frog method of fishing in pairs. He went on to say that the every-other approach doesn’t apply to "prime" spots. Prime spots should be alternated separately from searching spots. Here is how I now understand buddy fishing to work...