When you look at a bass anglers tacklebox, you’ll see plenty of lures that mimic large, high-calorie prey items; swimbaits, crayfish, frogs, and mice lures are all common in a bass anglers arsenal. What you don’t see much of, is insect imitations.
While it’s true that bass tend to target large prey items, this isn’t always the case. As far as insects go, dragonflies are huge.
Let’s investigate this a bit further, and see if targeting bass with dragonfly lures or flies is worthwhile.
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Do Bass Actually Eat Dragonflies?
Yes absolutely.
Bass are opportunistic, and will eat anything they think is an easy meal. Given how opportunistic bass can be, there’s no way a big dragonfly struggling on the surface would be ignored.
Bass will target more than just drowning dragonflies. Both smallmouth and largemouth Bass will actually get airborne trying to catch dragonflies hovering above the surface. One might think that dragonflies are far too fast for bass to catch. Dragonflies must be caught often enough by bass to make it worthwhile since the fish keep jumping after them.
There’s actually a lure called the hover lure. This was designed specifically to catch bass targetting dragonflies hovering over the surface. It’s a very unique lure design. I’m curious how well someone would be able to properly fight the fish with this lure.
I haven’t used the hover lure myself. I just think it’s really intriguing. In all honesty, I’m suspicious of how well the thing would actually work.
What about Big Bass?
Some anglers dismiss dragonflies as something only juvenile bass target, but this is not true at all. Dragonflies are taken by mature bass all the time. Perhaps not the 8lb lunkers you see on the fishing show, but how many waters actually hold bass that size? The adult bass in most waters are not too big to pass on a dragonfly.
As an added bonus, not many anglers are using dragonfly imitations for bass. We know fishing with a lure that the bass (or any fish species) haven’t seen before can be just the ticket in high-pressure water.
Many bass have been punished for grabbing a hollow-body frog or swimbait thinking it was the real thing. This makes them more wary of lures imitating these prey items. Relatively few bass have had a bad experience with a dragonfly.
Where to Fish Dragonfly imitations?
The short answer is where-ever dragonflies are. Most dragonfly species prefer the exact same habitat occupied by largemouth bass. Still-water and heavy vegetation make for prime dragonfly habitat. That being said, dragonflies occupy a wide range of habitats, and can be found in most waterways.
When to Fish Dragonfly Imitations?
The height of the summer is prime time for dragonflies. On hot summer days, they can often be found in large numbers buzzing overhead of hungry bass. Often, bass will be watching hungrily below.
More specifically, the middle of the day on beautiful bluebird days is ideal for fishing dragonfly imitations. You’ll often see dragonflies buzzing around on these days.
To summarize. If you see dragonflies flying around, it’s a good time to fish a dragonfly imitation.
Lures to Use When Bass are Hunting Dragonflies
This is one of the few areas of bass fishing in which fly fishers have an advantage, as there are many great dragonfly fly patterns available. Most of the dragonfly specific lures for spin and bait caster anglers on the market are sub-par. There are other lures that will get a strike when bass are hunting dragonflies.
Weightless Senko
Senkos truly are some of the most versatile lures available for bass fishing. Rig a 5″ Senko up weightless and skip across the surface to mimic a dragonfly depositing eggs. Often a strike will come as the lure comes to a stop after skipping it. Sometimes you’ll even get a strike as it’s skipping. Bonus points if you match the colour of the Senko to the colour of the dragonflies.
Yamamoto 5″ Senko (Amazon Link)
You can also retrieve it fairly quickly to mimic a dragonfly skimming along the surface, but the primary presentation is on the cast out.
Poppers
Bass are not the only fish that eat dragonflies. If bass are hunting dragonflies, it means there are smaller fish hunting dragonflies as well. A popper mimics a smaller baitfish feeding at the surface, perhaps one distracted by trying to catch dragonflies themselves.
The 2″ Rebel Lures Teeny Pop R Fishing Lure (Amazon Link)
Another lure to try is the classic Jitterbug in smaller sizes.
Fly Fishing for Bass using Dragonfly patterns
For anyone flyfishing for bass, I have you covered with a good selection of dragonfly dry fly patterns. I tend to favour the foam-based patterns over natural materials for bass fishing. Go with synthetics, and leave the natural materials for trout fishing.
You can make these flies weedless, but I’ve found that’s not really necessary due to how you’ll be fishing them. We won’t be retrieving them like a frog or mouse, but rather twitching them. Twitch the fly like a dragonfly is caught in the surface film. Good areas to target with this presentation are open pockets in heavy vegetation, or along weed edges.
Another way to fish dragonfly dry fly patterns is to “skip” the fly over the surface. This imitates a healthy dragonfly zooming across the water surface, perhaps even depositing eggs. The dragonflies are vulnerable when depositing eggs like this, and are often targeted by hungry fish at this time.
Aside from dragonfly-specific patterns, popper flies can be very effective when bass are keyed in on the surface.
Dragonfly Nymphs
I haven’t heard of anyone targeting largemouth with nymphs, but I know nymphs work well on smallmouth bass. Not even just small smallmouth, but big smallies as well.
The video below is a spin vs fly fishing episode from Uncute Angling targeting smallies. It starts out heavily in the spin anglers favour, but starting at the 17:35 mark things change. They’re catching beefy smallies on a hares ear nymph (Which just happens to be my favourite searching pattern for trout).
A hares ear nymph is much smaller than anything most anglers would tie on for bass, and it works!
A hares ear nymph is much smaller than many damselfly and dragonfly nymph imitations. So fishing nymphs can most certainly land you big bass (smallmouth atleast).
Curious about other critters bass prey on? What about lizards and turtles?
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